Thursday 19 February 2015

Some hints on Being Prepared

25 January 2015

I think I have had an argument with a Burns Night.  And I think the Burns Night may have won.  There was whisky followed by haggis, and then misogynist speeches, which necessitated more whisky, and then a couple of hours of what was loosely termed dancing, which just ensured that the whisky reached all the parts of me it hadn’t quite reached before.  There was also some loud music, which may or may not have been bagpipes, but the music did not appear to be synced with the dancing, or at least not in the part of the willow I was supposed to be stripping.

I also won a raffle prize.  It was naff.

Now I am trying to see through the Burns Night hangover to pack up my stuff for another London trip.  Most of it is still in the suitcase from last week, which helps, apart from the toothbrush of course because I did use that the other evening and also I think I removed the dirty washing although it’s sometimes hard to tell.

There is an art to packing up the night before a London trip.  Everything has to be set out in just the right place to ensure you can find it in the dark the next morning and you don’t accidentally brush your hair with a bowl of muesli or put your socks on over your boots.  Some things need to be placed in other rooms, so as not to wake sleeping family members at 4 am.  Your bags need to be packed in advance, because you do not stand a chance of doing that in the dark when you are half asleep, but you must remember where you left your packed bags otherwise you will trip over them and wake your family members anyway.  If it is a cold morning, you will need to start defrosting the car at about the time you pour your muesli onto your hairbrush, but you will not be able to find the de-icer and the car keys unless they too have been left in very precise locations, and “somewhere in the kitchen drawer” does not count as precise in this context.

And you must leave yourself little notes to remind you of those last-minute details like rail card and phone and Red Bull®, but again the little notes need to be somewhere precise and preferably also somewhere light enough so you can read them, or you are scuppered, basically.

On this basis, it is amazing I manage to turn up to as many CIPA meetings as I do, even more so that I sometimes have the right papers with me.

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