HOMELESS AGAIN

I've moved out of my apartment in preparation for a month of travels around Eastern Europe and am now couch-surfing for a few days at the homes of some of my wonderful friends. I moved out of the house on the weekend, I'm still working every day until Thursday, then flying out Friday.

I've discovered that I am distinctly bereft of talent in the field of logistics. My entire life is basically 4 suitcases and a backpack which I'm leaving with various friends in London while I travel. I've been carting the bags all across town and dropping off ones that contain my non-work-clothes and non-holiday things while hanging onto everything else until I don't need it anymore. Can you imagine me last Saturday morning trying to decide what I needed to wear, read, write in, and generally have access to for the next five weeks in situations ranging from a professional meeting with a corporate sponsor today to sweltering in a Romanian heatwave this time next month? The only reason I show up looking semi-decent to work each day is because I only have five different outfits. Actually I only have four, but my job lets me wear jeans on Fridays so I'm hoping they haven't noticed. The point is, I'm not well know for my forward-planning ability.

I've been having mental conniptions trying to work out if I should leave my boots with my Monday-night luggage drop-off buddy, or whether I need to keep them with me until I get to my Wednesday-night friend's house. Whether it's worth hanging onto my favourite top in case I go out for dinner on Thursday or whether I should put it in the bag with the clothes I don't think I'll have occasion to wear in the next 4 days. I'm driving myself barmy. I've ended up with such a complex schedule of bag relocations and got myself so confused that at one point on Sunday, a mate carried my backpack all the way to his house only to receive a phone call from me twenty minutes later asking if he could bring it back because all my work clothes were in there.

And moving luggage around London is not very fun at all. Twice so far I've had to hop on the London Underground during peak hour while carting multiple suitcases. I've just had to barge my way into the sardine tin and deal with the glares as my mini suitcases take up a precious square foot that could have held two people squished in tightly. Tomorrow morning I'll be facing the peak hour tube with a backpack, daypack and shoulder bag. Wish me luck...