Travelling light

Picking and packing for over a week already. Realising it needs planning and thorough thought to travel with four children, including one growing baby. I always used to pack the last evening. Now the last evening is spent looking over the luggage, checking one last time! (As well as drinking prosecco and eating lasagne with good neighbour friends Julie, Odd and Siren).

Clothes for school, clothes for vacation. Decent clothes for villagevisits and church, skimpy clothes for beach and hot sun. Fleece and trousers for cold evenings, thick socks for stone floors. Swimwear and football shoes. Books for reading, school bags and bed linen, toys to play with until new friends are made. Teddy bears are super for emotional transitions and new beds. Car chair, stroller and nappies for baby. Passports and computers. It all adds to more than 100kgs. Crazy modern family with too many things I think as we load the 9 pieces into the maxi taxi and again off the maxi tax and puh, finally onto the KLM luggage counter.

A man smiles encouragingly to me as I balance the baby into the baby bear in front and a handluggagerucksack on my back while three muppets run around happily. Good luck on your journey he says passing, possibly an ironic twink in his voice. To be honest Im probably as excited as the muppets and as we sit down at the airport with hotdogs and coffee (what??! we even have time for that?! I never had time for coffees at airports when i travelled alone, unless there were delays, and that was normally at airports without any coffee available anyway) i feel the shoulders relax; the main work is done: packing and leaving.

From here its adventure and fun! Come lets buy taxfree goodies for the plane, kiddos!