How do you fit your life in two suitcases?

Always being a last minute packer, it came as no surprise to all my friends and family that I had left my packing to the last couple of days before leaving for Bournemouth. To my defence, I still had work going on in the house and my focus was sending the construction workers packing from my house instead of me packing off!

The British government finally announced that Indians with the approved vaccine don’t need to be quarantined anymore. I anyway hadn’t understood the fuss before, unless it was to charge exorbitantly for this God forsaken Covid swab tests..Day 2, day 5(test to release) and even after testing negative for these tests, take the compulsory Day 8 test!

Finally after bidding adieu to the construction workers after 8 months, I got myself to start packing, two days before I had to leave for college. As luck would have it, climbing a shelf in my cupboard- well I never really had the patience to look for help, or rather I keep forgetting my age ;) I fell badly and twisted my ankle. Whatever little chance of getting my son’s sympathy went in his “Don’t worry if you think you are young enough to climb wardrobe shelves on your own, you have to be young and strong to think that the wound would heal soon!” That’s Vedant for you, ever so practical! His way of concern was “How’s the pain on a scale of 1 to 10?”

Archana packing!

Thankfully it wasn’t a fracture and I got away with a soft tissue tear. Despite the family telling me to postpone my trip, I decided against it. Archana, my closest friend came to my rescue, and for someone who- lets put it this way- likes to remote control and outsource the work herself, (she might kill me for this) packed all that she could in the two suitcases. Never would I have ever admitted it to myself that even after sending two kids to college, I discovered that I was terrible at organising things for myself!!

So all packed and sealed with the quintessential dal makhnis and coconut laddoos (keto of course), with pain killers popped in, I leave for my flight to “Uni” in a wheelchair! Wheelchair for the second time.. but that is a separate story for another day …..