BLLLAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Packing is soo hard!! I think I have written once before about how much I hate it and this feeling is only exasserbated when I have the smallest backpack in the world, in which to fit my entire summer wardrobe.

Our RTW (round the world, get with it!) trip has been planned for a long time now, and so for quite a while i've been picking up bits and bob in various sales, namely topshop and my favorite favorite favorite vintage shop in Brick Lane - Blitz. I've got a great coat (ok yes i don't actually need that, but it was cheap) and some really cool collar clips (yeah probably dont need those either on the beach) and a shed load of cheap as chips bikinis from H&M, which were then deemed not cool enough so I managed to spend 'if i whisper it then it wont seem as bad' a cool £100 on new bikinis - ouch. They're beautiful though, a paisley print one, a cool long bra type one and another plain black ish one. The bad news is however, the 'really helpful and spread the cost' shopping ive been doing, not only will my old summer wardrobe stuff not fit into my hand sown mesh packing bags, half of the new summer wardrobe stuff also wont fit... How did i manage that??

Packing... its a b****. I like to take everything as its easier and i dont throw a strop with myself if i decide i want to wear the one top on holiday that is left in my pissing wardrobe at home. So i thought id try a new process... its called "Pull everything out of the wardrobe, shove on the bed and through process of elimination, pick the takers'. I also employed mummatron as my 'folder-er' and 'putter-away-er' beause thats half the hassle of being a picky packer...

So with everything on the bed it wasn't to bad to see I wouldn't physicaly be able to carry everything, making it easier to sacrifice eight of the ten white tops I'd gotten out etc etc. Having thinking I'd narrowed it down pretty well, only six different jumpers for my travels around countries in their hottest seasons (think 40C) and twenty pairs of knickers, I spoke to the girls - they've been packed literally for weeks! I cant do that, I cant spare that many clothes for that long. Anyway, on asking Wal how much stuff she had gotten ready she told me she'd only got five tops and a pair of shorts. I had three new pairs of denim shorts (heavy!) plus an older pair, an Abercrombie pair, some board shorts, PJ-esque ones and a sparkily skirt... a tad overkill? I thought not.

I managed to lose one pair of shorts, although my black pencil skirt did make it into the pile - the girls, via our text convo deemed it more versatile than the sparkily one, but that one wasn't going anywhere, so i just decided to go with both. Its very hard to be so brutal with my clothes, which do make the cut, which don't. I like to have options and normally i pack outfits, accessories included, to make getting dressed easier because i don't have to think about it. I love clothes and fashion and pairing stuff together but thats part of the problem because i could spend all day thinking about the best option and not settling for anything but. So it takes a while to get dressed on some mornings and especially in somewhere hot, because gosh thats a treat isn't it... shorts look cute with a cropped top and those flip flops look god aweful with that dress blah blah blah

Anyway, my point is that I had my first round of clothes culling this evening and now feel confident in my twelve pairs of knickers, eight tops, five bottoms (denim shorts x2, sparkily skirt, pencil skirt and a pair of hareems) five bikinis, four dresses and three jumpers (yes it does sometimes get cold in the evening across the globe too). I am yet to see if thi all actually fits into my backpack but I just cant cant cant get rid of anymore clothes otherwise I may as well be walking around naked and knowing my luck I'll get hypothermia from a freek snow storm in thailand or something. I guess I'll just have to skrim on toiletries... More on that tomorrow (Rome wasn't built in a night)

Happy travels,

Lula xoxo