Photocopying and packing

Oh, dear, I seem to have lost control of the blog recently, but sometimes something just has to go … and naturally, that something can’t be trips away.  After Brighton, I had a weekend in Scotland, and came home via Cumbria, and this weekend I’m off to Tuscany to teach ‘Writing Fiction that Sells’ at the Watermill at Posara.  A dirty job, but someone has to do it.

I’ve spent today sorting out my notes, and tomorrow will have to trot up to the photocopy shop to have all my handouts copied.  It is a rather alarming pile, so I’m a bit worried that I won’t have much room left in my suitcase for the essential lotions and potions that I drag around wherever we go, regardless of the fact that shampoo and moisturisers can be bought in most places.  I would so love to be the kind of woman who can  live in a T shirt and a pair of jeans, with perhaps a little cardigan against the night chill, and whose ablutions consist of dragging her fingers through her bouncy curls or splashing cold water over her perfect skin.  Instead, I have to carry around a complicated wardrobe that covers all temperature eventualities, not to mention a figure that could most generously be called … well, generous. 

And as for the lotions … I’m a sucker for expensive-smelling pots of cream, the more extravagant the packaging the better (I know, it’s very bad of me, but I’m a very superficial person and I love the surfaces of things).  Look at this lovely pot of moisturiser - you can't see, but it's got a little bee on the gold top. How could I resist? Think up a ridiculous name, preferably involving ‘serum’ or ‘complex’ and slap it on a pretty jar, and I’ll buy it.  Then when it comes to going away, I have a whole collection of miniatures that I buy whenever a special offer is on, because obviously I can’t spend a week away without my ‘wrinkle lifting corrector’ or my ‘synchronized complex’ for eyes at night.  And now, of course, we can’t take any of these things on a plane, so they all have to go in the suitcase, so between potions and photocopies, it looks as if my wardrobe in Tuscany is going to be severely limited.

Still, I’ll be working SO HARD it won’t matter what I’m wearing, will it?  I’m off on Saturday so think of me slaving away under that pergola in the sun, with only the prospect of an Italian meal and a glass or two of Tuscan wine at the end of the day to see me through.  But don’t you worry about me.  I’ll stiffen my shoulders and bear it …