I am no good at packing. My wife is good at packing. I picked her up from work yesterday and she said, 'How did your packing go?' 'Okay, ' I said, non-committally. 'But can I confess something?' 'Yeees...' She replied cautiously, obviously suspicious that I was about to admit to some sort of sin. I like to create a bit of drama.

'I haven't really packed much at all; I really need your advice...'

It may have been because we'd just driven over a speed bump, but I thought I saw her shoulders slump slightly in relief that I wasn't - on Valentine's Day Eve - about to announce I was leaving her. I was, however, going to send her packing - for me.

Those of you who've read the book Against The Current will know that Liz and I are opposites. We are Logos and Pathos, so when it comes to decision-making, she's the one with the logic brain, and I'm the pathetic one. This applies to packing also.

I was on the eve of heading off to Europe to go skiing with my daughter Catherine who was flying over from New Zealand. We would be travelling largely by train, but at the end of the trip Liz would join us in Budapest from where she and I would fly back to England and Catherine would head back to Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud. Or the wrong white crowd, if you still harbour a grudge against colonialism.

So the packing challenge was determined by our returning by budget airline, which means only carry-on baggage the size and weight of a hankie. But all I could see, looking ahead, was three weeks of skiing, apres skiing, touring, wining and dining, so I would need multiple outfits. One has to look smart after all. I didn't want my daughter to be seen out and about with what looked like a homeless person.

Liz regarded my pathetic attempt at packing, on the lounge floor. A look of pain, sympathy and hopelessness transited her face as she shook her head in disbelief. She embarked on the interrogation - normal for these situations - and based on the journalist's creed of W5: who, where, why, what and when. And how.

'Why are you taking those? What do you need that for? How are you going to fit all that in there? What even is that?'

It wasn't nagging - don't get me wrong. It was a carefully-designed interrogation to help me reach conclusions about what I needed to take, what would be nice to take, and what was completely ridiculous. And to emphasise what a pathetic figure I manifested. It worked; I collapsed inside, and like a swimmer who suddenly finds themselves in the grip of a riptide, I resigned myself to the current and surrendered to the greater power.

How did it go? Let me put it this way: I am travelling light. At the apres ski I will be the one still wearing his ski jacket, along with my hiking boots. On the trains I will be the one wearing his ski jacket, and hiking boots. As Catherine and I are shown to our table in a nice restaurant, I will be the one in ski jacket and boots, and when we pose for photographs with my half-brother and his family in Budapest, I will be the one wearing... well, you know what.

On the other hand, all decision-making has been removed for me for the next three weeks. My only sartorial challenge at each new venue will be whether to wear the ski jacket or not. The boots are a given.

Now here I am sitting on the train for the first part of the journey, to London. My ski jacket is hanging on the back of my seat, and as I scan the forecast for Paris tomorrow I see it is going to be an agreeable 16 degrees, sunny, and mild. I can only hope it is cold and snowing when we finally get to the mountains in Italy. It had better bloody be.