Distillation

I'm just back from a week splashing around Cornwall, returning with nothing more than moderate sunburn and five minor surfing-related injuries (caused exclusively by my own incompetence). Despite this, it was a very nice holiday: packed full of swimming, running, sleeping, drinking, reading, surfing, eating, exploring. Tough life.

So now the countdown begins. I'm a student once more. And I'm staring at a roomful of books and clothes accumulated over the past few years, and yet again wondering how to magically sift it down into a 20kg baggage allowance. Obviously this will be impossible, and only partly because I'm totally awful when it comes to packing. I postpone and delay and procrastinate and avoid it entirely, and then finally throw some stuff in a bag about an hour before my flight. I fully expect to arrive in Budapest with three socks, some worthless Latvian coins, and a May 2005 copy of National Geographic.

But it will be fine: wherever I go, things tend to migrate out after me. Various visitors will have some space in their luggage, and packages will arrive in the post, and I'll hopefully have to nip to London once or twice to make some job interviews - (cue military-style logistical operation to rendezvous with my missing winter coat in Watford). Chances are I'll have got most of the things I need by June... and will then start worrying about getting it home again. I guess this problem is magnified for students travelling from further afield, so I won't complain too much.

At some point my bedroom at home will need to be blitzed, and return to its primary function as a pleasant place for sleeping on trips home, rather than its current incarnation as a storage bunker with a bed hidden away in one corner. But hopefully my mum doesn't put her head round the door anytime soon, and that can become a task for 2014... 

I need to get a big flat!