Friday, 11 July 2008

COALITION LEARNS TO WALK IN UPRIGHT POSITION














My boyfriend always says my bag has too much stuff in it. But he couldn't actually be right, could he?

I was taken aback when even the Guerilla Gardeners went, "Oh my god, what have you got in there? Soil?"

I decided to see what exactly it was that weighed me down all the way round Hampton Court. 





















Two cameras
USB cables for cameras
make-up
a pair of plimsolls for before 12pm (not allowed open-toed shoes till midday)
flip-flops
waterproof coat
hi-vis vest saying "Aviation Defence International" to throw officials off the scent
i-pod
sore feet cream
Kew security pass
diary
free Sunflower seeds from Guerilla Gardeners
"Unbearable Lightness of Being", Milan Kundera
"The Philosopher's Dog", Raimond Gaita
two cashmere jumpers
3 pounds of press material
two Oyster cards
dictaphone
spare contact lenses
spare memory card
spare camera battery 
socks for wearing with wellies
30 mg Valium
memory stick
Beauty Flash Balm
£5 note
receipts
38mm hand lens
napkins from sandwich shop
pink nail varnish
a tiny weeny little potato from the allotment


The question I put to you, dear readers, is: how much of this can I possibly bear to part with? How will I manage in the jungle of London life without all these handy things? How does everyone else manage without all the handy things? I mean - what if you don't want to read fiction - you have to have a choice of book, right? But then, I really would like to learn to walk tall. 
Sigh. 
Well at least I know why I'm standing so badly in the photo of James A-S's to which I objected. 

One positive finding of this research: my dad really did teach me to be a good packer. 

11 comments:

Alex Johnson said...

I can't see any slack there. Maybe just one napkin but that's a little risky.

Arabella Sock said...

Shouldn't you have a whistle and a compass? I never go anywhere without them.

emmat said...

I was waiting for a train in Piccadilly Circus the other day where a smartly woman suddenly fell to her knees and started to vomit and I was pretty glad for her sake that I had more than one napkin. That was less than a week ago! I'm hardly going to slim down to one napkin in the immediate aftermath of that incident!

Anonymous said...

are you not allowed open-toed shoes till midday by social niceties? I've never heard of that one. I've heard of "no white after Labor Day' but no flip-flops before lunch is a new one on me.

VP said...

Emma you're a girl after my own heart - I had a similar problem last year:

http://vegplotting.blogspot.com/2007/12/whats-in-my-bag.html

Have you dared look in your purse yet?

I think the eensy teensy weeny potato is the most essential item there - gives you instant street cred with all the gardening fraternity

emmat said...

No way! This is the day for finding other people completely beat me to it.

I haven't got a purse. I never have had one. I find the whole idea a bit alien. I really hate cash so I just always have my card in my pocket.

VP said...

Ahhh but a purse just gives you so much scope to hoard even more stuff! Beside the mundane things as a bit of cash (including a farthing) and 60 train tickets (including ones from Stockholm 10 years ago), I had a Spanish phone card advertising condoms to protect against AIDS, plus my 'working with sewage' card issued by the Water Research Centre when I used to splash around in streams looking at salmon and trout. Imagine what an archaeologist would make of that if they found it in 500 years time!

Anonymous said...

I suppose minus the napkin you must truly have felt the Unbearable Lightness of Being, being minus a napkin.

I find those paper napkins cross-breed quite successfully at the bottom of my bag with old kit-kat wrappers, glueing together over time to make a nutritious emergency snack.

emmat said...

that snack gag has made the chair go wobbly i laughed so much.

i also thank vp for her kind testament to my tiny potato. If I can say that.

Zoë said...

Gordon Bennet, you will give yourself a hernia carrying that lot around!

My small across the body bag contained: compact Nikon camera, notebook, pens, hideous pakamac, tissues,and money.

I have to say I went home a bit more heavily loaded, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't fit Lady Emma Hamilton, or the half dozen species perlagoniums in and ended up buying one of those plant crates on wheels.

emmat said...

Tee hee! Not that I ever laugh at the misery of others.

My solution to the not-buying of plants is to never take any cash. This usually works. Though when my mum and I went to Selbourne, we got there, and we looked at each other, and were like "Hmm. Cashpoint."