Packing....

I love love love going on holiday, especially as we generally go to see my parents but I hate hate hate packing! It always falls to me to arrange everything and then Capt Perfection whizzes in the last minute to rearrange everything and claim success over the suitcase, must be how the other dude felt when Buzz whathisface was first to step onto the Moon. Humph.

Despite being a family of 4 we have packing light down to a fine art and can currently get away with only one suitcase, 4 pieces of carry on (it was 3 but then Clara turned 2 and needs her own trunki... it was that or The Rage makes an airport appearance...) and the pushchair. Ok we don't really NEED the pushchair but frankly the thought of 2 hours of airport on one side and a lot longer on the other side of the holiday without it sends my blood running colder than an Arctic ice flow. Besides I really don't think being arrested on account of your light fingered 2 year old in duty free is the best start to the holiday now is it?

Anyhoo, back to the packing. I am currently washing EVERYTHING that we might want or need. The girl's trunkis have been filled with as many goodies as I could find on BOGOF and a host of snacks in their lunch boxes so they can gorge themselves on the plane (drinks will be purchased airside). Most of the clothes are in the suitcase but I will be going through it all and double checking we have all we need tonight and re packing (with the help of the Beloved). I will hoover upstairs and give it all a quick clean. Then I will be hoovering and washing the floors tonight before bed so when we get up at silly o'clock tomorrow morning to leave (Burglars please note the house is being watched so keep yer mits off!) all we have to do is get up, dressed, shove the last of the toiletries in the suitcase, load up the taxi and then grab the children and G. O. goooooo!

Of course if it actually goes that smoothly it will be nothing short of a miracle as we have a history of hiccups whilst travelling. First there was The Chicken Pox holiday, the CP was actually preceded by Capt Perfection leaving the tickets and passports at home, we checked in by the skin of our teeth (2 mins to spare). Then there was The Great Passport Debarcle, there was a mistake on Clara's passport that was only picked up in Pisa Airport (yes folks, not only coming home but after 2 other trips on said passport) we were also flying out to Greece a week later so I then had to play prancing about with the passport office, oh what joy.

However, we are hoping that we have already had our disaster this holiday... or at least a brush with it. I realised last week that we didn't have any tickets yet so Paul rang up the company to hear the sound no one wants to hear, the sound of a disconnected phone because the company had gone out of buisness. 12 hours of catastrophising later (well I am VERY good at it) we found out all was well and our tickets were en route to us... HUGE sign of relief! So we have 4 correct passports, 4 tickets and as of this evening 1 clean house, 1 packed suitcase, 4 packed pieces of hand luggage. Then I just have to worry about waking up on time, the taxi turning up etc etc etc...