By: Blonde One
I love bags and I am more than happy to be described as a bag lady. I like girly handbags as much as more ruffty tuffty outdoorsy bags. The Blonde One household is full of all sorts of bags and Little Miss Blonde has definitely inherited the ‘love of bags’ gene. One day I think I will count them; there would be a lot!
Recently Little Miss Blonde and I have discussed a particularly problematic bag situation and involves us complaining about the amount of bags. This is a rare occurrence.
Lately we have gone to our ‘day jobs’ with a spring in our step caused by the promise of some entertaining outdoorsy stuff at the end of it. Brilliant, you might think. But this situation requires an extraordinary amount of baggage.
The normal handbag is carried to work along with the slightly larger bag containing the paperwork for the day. As well as this, there is the bag full of outdoor clothing to make a hasty change into for the after work events. Inside this bag of clothes is a bag with shoes for driving and a bag with makeup/contact lenses. A bag will also come to work with an empty flask and water bottle ready to be filled, and some food for tea.
In the car is a boot bag, the normal rucksack and a duffel bag for overnight equipment. Inside this duffel bag is a bag of food, a sleeping bag and a bag with spare clothes.
Not only is it tricky to remember which bags go where, but it is a feat of organisation to remember which things go in which bag! Luckily we love a good system and obviously have developed a very effective one for this problem.
Of course, the answer to all of this ‘bagginess’ is to have enormous pockets. Problems with standing up might ensue!
I hope the jar of marmalade in your spare clothing/sleeping bag/food bag doesn’t loose its lid.
Here is my backpacking bag list when not carrying cooking equipment:
1 Rucksack
2 Rucksack liner
3 Thermorest, bag
4 Sleeping bag dry-bag
5 Thermorest bag
6 Spare clothing dry-bag
7 Hollowfill jacket dry-bag
8 Food general dry-bag
9 Food for day dry-bag
10 Miscelleneous
(zip-ties, and other
mending materials) dry-bag
11 Pocket radio,
spare specs, batteries dry-bag
12 Toilet dry-bag
13 Gadget chargers dry-bag
14 Medical dry-bag
15 Tent, bag
16 Lavvy paper poly-bag
All the dry-bags are labelled with large permanent marker black lettering, and some are different colours. But I need to extricate a particular bag this has to be done by feel and I invariably find I have done a total un-pack before finding the right one. I am capable of messing up any supposedly foolproof system. The classic of course is locking your keys inside the car.
I love your bag system Conrad; I am in awe! Would you like the title of ‘The Bag Man’?
I love Conrad’s system too. We Blondes have some lovely permanent markers for book signing, in all sorts of Blonde colours. All we need now is loads more dry bags (scuttles off to shop)!
Especially when the engine is still running, the dog is inside, the local garage man can’t open the door and there is a policeman approaching – – – –
If only we could get one big dry bag known as a rucksack. Its about time isn’t it.
I think you might have just invented something there. We Blondes are very good at inventing!