Packing light?

It is more than twenty years since I have needed to pack to spend a night away from this house. Yes, I know that's not good. I do need a holiday, a proper holiday. I need the sort of holiday where someone else does the cooking and the dishes. 

It won't be happening just yet either. I want it to happen. I have thought about it and wondered how I might be able to do it, where I might go if I can't go back to the United Kingdom. Really though if I have just one holiday left in my life I want to go back to the place which  was my second home and is one I still miss.

But packing to go? I thought of this as I looked at the cartoon by

Eleanor Tomlinson.

  

I thought then of Paddington arriving from "darkest Peru" with just that small suitcase. I thought of a former lecturer who arrived in this country with the clothes he was wearing and his Bible. I thought of my paternal great-grandmother who came with a small trunk - which held everything  to marry and set up house.

The Queen seemed to have a vast wardrobe and many places to live but in many ways Her Majesty also travelled light. Behind the scenes the Royal residences would surprise many people. They most definitely are not the luxurious places people imagine them to be. Yes, they might be nicer than many places but the furnishings are often old and comfortable. Nothing gets wasted. The apparently vast Royal wardrobe was much less than it appeared to be. Clothes were altered and hats were trimmed again - so cleverly most of us never noticed.  

My own wardrobe is not vast. There are clothes in it I have had for thirty or more years. I still use them. As a student in the UK I went to France and Italy one winter  with my clothes packed into a small airways bag. It wasn't the best but it was the best I could do if I was going to carry my own luggage - and I managed. I doubt I could do it now but when you are very young, very foolish, and very innocent you can manage such things. It also prevented me from buying foolish souvenirs. 

Now I need to start seriously "downsizing". My brother, sisters and I will need to decide "who has what" and what needs to be sold or given away. I need to part with books - and that will be hard  - and decide how much yarn I can use. I also need to decide what other craft materials I want to keep so small people will have something to do when they come to visit.  No, I won't simply give it all away.

It's about packing light though. There is a balance to be had somewhere. One airways bag is not enough but I should not need all the suitcases and trunks and hat boxes that people travelled with in the past.

Actually, I don't have a hat box at all....