The Joy of Packing

SO I FIGURED that I would go for the cheap tickets when I was travelling around England and the Continent, and, at first, I was barely aware of the implications when it came to carrying baggage.

This is not a good idea.

When I went to Berlin in 2014, I flew by easyJet, so, when I saw cheap easyJet tickets to Denmark, my next stop after England, I thought, "Easy!"

In 2014, I was going to Berlin for two nights, and managed to fit all my clothes, a Dell Laptop and a small camera into my laptop bag which was just the right size for a guaranteed trip in the cabin of an easyJet aircraft. I figured that I should be able to take a bag of similar size onto an easyJet flight without hassles. I happened to have a suitcase of easyJet standard dimensions. It was actually more commodious due to its rectangular plan. All I had to do was fit four weeks worth of clothes into it.

I had to strap my sneakers with cable ties to get them compressed enough. I had to lean on a ziplock bag of socks to squeeze all the air out. Underpants? The ordinary weight cotton ones were starting to look like a no-go due to their bulk. And forget about the warm blue jacket which protected me so effectively from late March hail down near the Spree river three years ago.

My daughter in law brought over two of those compression bags with the one way air valve, which looked likely to help me sneak in a warm jacket. I put warm clothes -- unnecessary in Singapore -- into them and squashed them down. At last, there was actual space between the lid of the case and its content. I closed the lid and went into my room to get the warm blue jacket. When I came back, the jacket space in the bag was occupied by inflated space bags containing decompressed warm clothes.

I compressed them again and watched. Again they quietly reinflated. The one way valves had become one and a half way valves.

And then I checked easyJet again, just to be doubly sure.

In 2015, the year after my trip with them, they changed their baggage regulations. My little bag would be checked luggage under the new regulations.

I was at my daughter's, Hannah's, place to farewell the grandkids. Naomi popped around, as she wouldn't see me again before she left. Hannah had arranged to drive me to the airport.

I mentioned that I didn't seem able to get everything I needed into the bag, and Naomi, who happens to take a Skyscanner app wherever she goes, pointed out that I had missed cheap flights, anyway, and would probably have fewer hassles if I just bit the bullet and bought standard price tickets from a standard carrier, and then I could put a bag in the hold and carry necessary stuff in a backpack.

Hannah had a smaller backpack than the one I had, and loaned it to me.

A backpack load of necessary stuff, not to mention the camera I took this with.

My mind was still on small bags. I had spent too long working out how to get the minimum of equipment into minimum space.

So I selected the next size of bag.

Now came the problem of locks.

When I had travelled in the past, I took the locks off my bags and put them and the keys in my bedside drawer. When my wife travelled,she left the locks on the bags and put the keys.

Since her death, her bedside drawers have been emptied, though no one knows if spare travel lock keys were ever spotted.

Fortunately, cheap travel locks are fairly easy to cut with a file or hacksaw, maybe with some help from side cutting pliers. You can see a photo at the top of the page. It probably took me less than 15 minutes.

The extra space amounted to roughly the volume of two tightly bound pairs of sneakers across the base, and a power board and a travel towel down one side. Not a lot, but usable.

My flight was at 2:50 on Monday 22nd. Hannah arrived at 11:30, to make sure I was there with plenty of time. I must admit that the multitude of small glitches and medium adjustments over the past several weeks had me feeling that it was all getting a bit too hard. Still,having lashed out some $1350 on tickets -- a bare few dollars more than the residue of my long service leave from 2014 -- I might travel in the clothes I stood up in, but I wasn't going to wimp out at that price!

Hannah took one look and said, "That will never do!" (or words to that effect), and made useful comments about what I really should take with me.

Bag number three came out. "Don't do it now, dad!" she said -- but it was too late. I was lifting slabs of clothes and other oddments by the armful into the new bag. Hannah had brought some packs of Australian goodies for nieces and nephews and wotnot, and she even got those into bag three.

I had swept, vacuumed and washed up; all but the morning's towel were washed, Alexthedog was already holidaying with his stepsister, Hannah (he thinks of her as his aunty, actually) so we loaded my bags into the car, checked one last time that I had my passport and knew the whereabouts of my tickets, and off we went, two happy bags in the back of Hannah's car.

She had to get back home, and my last contact with family before launching into the air was my 14 month old grandson, who had woken up, waving and calling, "Bye bye, Poppa!" as Hannah was about to pull out from the kerb.

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