Two sleeps to go

A minor miracle has occurred in the Conway household. No. Two miracles.

Yesterday, with two whole days and some spare hours to go before departure, all bags were packed. With everything in them down to the toothbrushes. First miracle - no one fell out with anyone else for not knowing how to roll a pair of trousers. ('Roll I said, man, not scrunch.'). No-one threw a hissy fit because they could not decide what to take. ('But I don't know which skirt I want to wear on January 5th'). No-one waited until the cases were packed to present three pairs of shoes. ('Shoes go on the bottom of a case. Under the rolled-not-scrunched trousers. ... Because I said so.') Flight clothes were even chosen and set aside.


Second miracle. The bags were weighed. And even with some heavy gifts that are only going part way and even with the pile of my clothes family and friends thought was ridiculous, we are within weight allowance. Even after I added another pair of jeans.

Well, within weight for most flights anyway, but there was no hope of that for the two add on economy flights where we ran out of miles on our ticket, and we have a new plan to combat that awkwardness in the logistics without expending fabric money on excess baggage - we will fly a bag home with a freight company as we depart southern hemisphere warmness, go light for two flights then shop like mad in Shanghai for heavy Chinese teapots and the like as we go back up to 96kg allowance each.

Of course having been so super organised, we have spent all today taking the toothbrushes ( and camera leads and laptops and assorted doodah's) back out of the bags. But, there is a list on the desk for the writing of things removed and, as long as a certain someone in the household sticks to my system the third miracle of us leaving without any forgotten items may even occur.