Did I always wear the same trousers for four days in a row? Do our clothes have to match? And what are the chances our holiday will happen?
I’ve lost a number of skills recently through under use. Turns out I can no longer read a map, due to prolonged not-going-anywhere, and nor can I make new friends, owing to systemic not-meeting-anyone. But the skill I miss most is packing. I can’t even remember where to start.
Try to imagine a whole week, not in your own house; there are so many imponderables. What will the weather be like on a given Wednesday, if two Sundays before, it was a monsoon and the Friday before that, you were Googling “wet bulb temperature”? Did I always wear the same trousers four days in a row, or is that a pandemic thing? Is the whole family supposed to match? If only half of you own a cagoule, is it better to not pack any than to create a dryness inequality situation? How many books should you pack, and is there a moral imperative to take one that is difficult? Does everyone seriously need their own toothbrush? (Actually, I do know the answer to this: emphatically yes.) What proportion of your clothes should be not-elasticated? Is it normal to change in the evening, just to underline how extremely special it is, to be not-at-home? Or was that last normal in the 1930s?