discarded in the arse-end of nowhere

Although our departure time had effectively been moved forward a day by somehow getting the day of the week wrong in our heads I still had to clean the bathroom today, even though to me this is one of the most easily-dropped jobs from any to-do list in the event of a sudden 24h reduction in the amount of time available to do everything. The largest noticeable absence from what actually got done was walking over to Morningside to pay the balance on the 24mm I test-rented for a few days from Captain Grumpy's Secondhand Lens Shop, instead stopping there on the way out of town after cleaning not only the bathroom but most of the rest of the flat just in case Nicky's parents make good their threat to pop over and steal the flat for a few days when we're away. Warning them that the central heating is still not reconnected seemed to discourage them a little but only time will tell.

Despite squeezing packing into less than an hour I don't think I've forgotten anything and seem to be under the weight limit as far as two independently inaccurate sets of bathroom scales can be trusted. There's certainly far less in my bag that I used to insist on dragging on holiday though it's difficult to adjust to a big rucksack's space when it doesn't contain the various bits of a tent. I haven't bothered with anything I definitely won't use such as walking boots or a thick jumper and have only packed one pair of long trousers to save on weight and space, using my flaxen summer office-breeks to minimise the weight/space impact. As holidays generally involve lots of eating large meals I have included running-shoes and running-long-shorts which both weight little. The biggest problem is likely to be the size and weight of my hand luggage, initially bulked out by using my large camera bag and shoving it into the main compartment, where it fits but only at the expense of expanding the bag to its most-expanded form where it's probably way over the official airline depth.

As Nicky's parents were attempting to cook us both with their central heating (after attempting to roast my bag containing my laptop and external HDD last week) I popped out for some walks to pick up some last-minute optional travel-foods, being disappointed by Asda before tea and eventually finding the required things at Tesco afterwards. I tried a bit of bag-reconfiguring in the evening but even the slight activity required for that was making me seriously overheat so I gave up and attempted to sleep (with the radiator in the room turned as off as it could go and the window opened) seeing as we'd have to be up just after four to get ready for the taxi booked for five.