Packing To Leave & Return Home

Packing box and see-through box. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Planning To Leave

I once came home with only one slipper. A popular modern saying which is set as an impromptu speech (a two minute 'table topic', selected from the table or screen by number) is 'We learn faster from our mistakes - do you agree?'

Yes. After losing my slipper, I learned to keep a list of what I packed.

What have my family left behind, or nearly left behind? The food for the jourrney left in the fridge. The toddler's toys in the hotel cot and cupboard. The pen, noebook, map, hat and gloves in the ca's glove box.

Packing lists are useful for three reasons. Firstly to check that I packed everything on leaving. Secondly, to be sure nothing went astray in transit on arrival. Thirdly, to be sure everything is with me on leaving the hotel or holiday home.

1 Packing Lists

1 Make a packing list before you leave. 

That way, when returning home, if the slippers are missing a tick on your checklist, you know to check under the bed or in the bathroom or in the cupboard.

For A Brief Trip

2 Addresses

Take the addresses and phone number of the place and people you are leaving, . Also make sure every member of your group has all numbers of those at the destination. This ensures everybody is organized. Your passenger can check or ring ahead if you are the driver, stuck in traffic, unable to check a phone number. Or you can separated on the journey. Or your jacket contained your paperwork goes missing.

3 Umbrellas

Pack an umbrella. Or keep one in the car. You can keep it in the glove box, the boot, under the seat. Remember it is there. Retrieve it from a hire car. Collect it from the umbrella stand at the entrance to a restaurant.

4 Fill the vehicle tank

Fill the car with petrol. 

If it is not full, allow time to stop and fill up. This applies when leaving 

Put the address in your satnav in the car and in your mobile phone. Get familiar with the car satnav and the google maps or other service such as Street View on your mobile phone.

Check for train cancellations. Check weather warnings. Check road motorway closures and diversions.

Packing

I have managed to leave all sorts of things behind. You may know the humorous song, because of battle the kingdom was lost, because of the horse the battle was lost, and all for the loss of a horseshoe nail.

What have I lost? A bathrobe behind a bedroom door. It belonged to my boyfriend. I was checking out while he was on the last day of the conference. That relationship came to an end. I married somebody else. 

A passport in a shoulder bag on the back of a dining chair of family friends in France. We never got to Italy from France.

Crockery in the dishwasher. Food in the microwave. The dictionaries - I have loads at home - why buy more, unless you don't want to carry them outwards, but then your packing is heavier on return.

Friends have left behind pets, which went missing. One family even had to cancel their emigration flight because a child who didn't want to leave went and hid.

To sum it up, packing needs preparation, and precision in planning, when you need to return home from a hotel or a winter home overseas, or moving country for a new job, or back home to look after parents or see grandchildren. Your mind is on your destination and plans. But you need a checklist of things you must take with you and do.

Let's start with the commonest situation.

Leaving A Hotel

Check items in the bathroom. And on hooks behind the door. On the shower shelf.

On the balcony. Items hanging over railings. Left on chairs. 

The Bedroom

Check under pillows, inside bedding, under the bed.

Empty the fridge. Ensure you have your food, drink, medicine. Check any food, drink, or pills, left downstairs in the hotel kitchen or bar.

 Check all the hotel drinks and foods are returned if you took them out to make room for takeaway food.

Reception Checkout

Check you have handed in all room keys. 

Pay bills, and check bills. 

Leaving A Ski Resort

Remove drying boots and clothes from balcony and radiators.

Check for any skis and boots and jackets left in a locker room. Return locker keys. 

Reclaim deposits on rented skis, boots, clothes, snowboards. 

Allow time to clean off ice and dirt, pack skis and boots and snowboards in zip up bags or special packaging, and large item check-in at airport.

Beach Resorts

Remove swimsuits, swimming hats, bath towels, beach clothes, wraps, and swim shoes from balconies or radiators and bathrooms, and lockers.

Pack children's beach rings, buckets and spades, or allow time to give them away. Unless the airport has an area for tourist to leave beach items for others, to loan and recycle instead of using landfill for abandoned items.

Leaving A Winter Home

Turn down heating. However, leave enough heating to prevent broken pipes bursting and leaking. Arrange for family to check property heating and plumbing

Leaving For A Holiday or New Home

Check all travellers have passports, o ID including driving license, plane or ferry or train or coach or bus tickets. 

Check neighbours will push in post.

Check all members of the party have address and phone number of destination, last check-in time, onward travel from airport to destination. 

Overnight clothes in case of lost luggage, photo of luggage to fill in forms asking colour and make of lost suitcases.

Arrange neighbours to water plants, or put plants outside, or add watering systems.

Check no items are left behind a front door or bedroom door. 

Rental Car

Check  no luggage or bag is left on the doorstep. Nor on the top of the car. 

No keys left in the front door.

No car keys left in the car - unless that is required by a rental company. Nor in the boot, or glove box

Leaving Your Old Home For A New Home or Holiday

Fridge

Empty fridge of milk, or take it to neighbours. If you leave it on their doorstep, warn them in advance, or leave a note or email to tell them it was from you.

Gas, Electricity, Lights

Check you have turned off gas, electricity, lights. Check you have set timers to turn on lights or sounds to deter burglars, or engaged house sitters. 

Insurance

Your insurance might have a limit on the amount of time the property can be left empty. They may extend the time 

1 f you inform them in advance, 

2 have relatives  and/or neighbours going in and out to make the place look busy, 

3 or are willing to pay an extra premium to insurance, if you decide this is cheaper than a house sitter. 

The Birkin Bag - big, beautiful, perfect for travelling (first class!)

  Jane Birkin who died in July 2023 was known for her erotic song, Je T'aime. The man she sang with was a singer-songwriter and although they never married, they were close all the time they were together and after she married somebody else.

Wiki article on Jane Birkin

Jane with Serge.

She is also known for the Birkin bag by Hermes. She was sitting next to the VIP from Hermes on a plane when her basket fell down, scattering the contents! She apologized and said she could not find a suitable leather bag for her travels. 

He sketched out a possible design of a bag on the back of the airline sickness bag, with her imput. He produced it, and named it the Birkin bag.

The bag became sought after by celebrities. The price went up, so it was also bought as an investment.

Go to the Wikipedia entry and you will be astonished at the number of films, (movies), and TV shows which featured this bag. 

It is outside my price range, but I am interested to see what all the fuss is about. It can be ordered in an assortment of leather to suit the buyer, with gold plated locks and keys and trims, even diamond encrusted. And in varied colours.

Wiki article on Birkin bags

Wiki

From Wiki

Most of the bags you see are plain on the outside, without extra pockets. However, there are so many of them, that eventually you find one with pockets.

Style

Apart from the fact that it locks, and has a soft lining, I cannot make out what kind of pockets or interior finishes it has. 

I am wary of locks. Danger of losing the key. However, if you can afford a key, the keys are numbered, I am sure you have a personal assistant who can contact the company for another.

Jane herself apparently complained about the weight of the bag. I do find that leather bags are heavy, and big bags tempt you to cram a lot inside. You can order it in assorted sizes.

Colours

The colours are lovely, especially the red, green, and pink. More unusual is the one which is triple coloured.

If I can't have a Birkin, what are my favourite bags? Ones in multiple colours which go with everything. 

A reversible bag. 

A bag which has a lanyard with a convenient  key-ring attached to a long string so you cannot lose it and can retrieve it in a hurry. I now just add one to whatever bag I have.

A mini-bag, an organizer with multiple pockets, for your essentials, cosmetics and more, which you can move from one handbag to another. 

Useful Websites

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Birkin_Bags

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag

https://janefinds.com/collections/birkin?page=2

https://www.hermes.com/uk/en/content/106191-birkin/

Great pictures of celebrities with bags matching their outfits

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12304389/The-ultimate-Bag-chance-meeting-Jane-Birkin-plane-created-Hermes-legend.html

Please share links to your favourite blog posts.

The Rodon (Rose) Hotel in Agros, Cyprus had the best baklava

Angela Lansbury on the balcony of a bedroom at Rodon Hotel, Cyprus. Photo by Trevor Sharot

We stayed at the Rodon hotel in the Troodos mountains in the centre of Cyprus for a walking, and hiking holiday. The name Rodon means rose in Greek.

The Rodon Hotel and my rosy view of it

We were a group of 16 (Java Lava in exile) in about 12 rooms so we had to stay in a large hotel and the Rodon Hotel is the largest in the area. Oddly, it is given only three stars, although we thought it deserved four. The hotel has a large free parking area in front. 

Swimming Pool

At the back, in theory two outdoor swimming pools - the lower one being the best, curvy and cool but warm once you start swimming. (The upper pool was small, square, had a few leaves on it, and the adjoining small indoor pool was being renovated.) I also noticed a small gym.

Bedrooms

The balcony overlooked the mountains, trees and car park.

Our first bedroom was short of power point sockets, needed by two people. They gave us an extension board. 

However, we transferred to a larger suite, which cost more, about 20 Euros more. 

Toiletries

The toiletries provided were just two kinds, shower gel and shampoo, plus a shower cap. We bought a bottle of hair conditioner in the supermarket just around the s-bend mountain road, within walking distance. The suite did not have more kinds of toiletries than the plain bedrooms.

Towelling backless bathroom slippers were hidden in a drawer under the safe.

Beautiful Buffet

The buffet was great, a huge choice. The meats consisted of three or four choices such as chicken in sweet and sour sauce, two more meats such as beef or lamb and pork, meatballs, and what the serving person said was a Cypriot speciality - ground beef (I call it mincemeat) in tomato sauce. 

Breads included seeded rolls, white or brown bread, one with seeds on the edge, or plain. (At breakfast time a toaster.) 

Vegetables and Salads

Assorted hot vegetables included potatoes and rice or pasta. 

Two to four salads. We had three or four dips for starters, such as hummous, tahini, yogurt. 

Drinks. A cold water machine. A coffee machine. 

Delicious Desserts

Best of all were the desserts. Two kinds of mini mousse such as chocolate or vanilla. A jelly or two, green or red. Three or four kinds of Cypriot Greek sweet desserts such as baklava, or cake with coconut topping.

Drinks

Waiter service for drinks you wanted to order and pay for, such as Prosecco. All over Cyprus, no problem if a large group all wanted to order different drinks or food. In hotels, they took each person's or couple's or family\s room number. They put your bill for that order in a drinking glass. You signed for it. You paid on checking out of the hotel.

At lunch places, they gave each diner in turn a number. So when the food arrived, you got what you ordered. When you paid, they knew that number one ordered this and that, and checked it with you.

Fruit

Plus orange oranges, green or red apples, yellow bananas. Cut fruit was half moon shapes of red watermelon with a green rind. Also a yellow or green sliced melon. It would be easy to over-eat.

Breakfast

At breakfast we had boiled eggs, fried eggs, or scrambled egg, ham or processed meat, bacon, sausages and mini frankfurters, flat triangles of cheese. Fruits. Yogurt and cereals and nuts and sultanas and dates. Mini croissants, not flaky but with pleasantly chewy centres. Good enough. Yellow cake dotted with dried fruit in green and red colours. Miniature marble cake in plain and chocolate. 

Rose Shopping and Waterfall Walking

I shall describe the rose factory which is in walking distance, and the walk to the waterfall in other posts.  

Useful Websites

https://www.booking.com/hotel/cy/rodon-mount-and-resort.en-gb.html?aid=311076&label=rodon-mount-and-resort-

Last things to pack and do before travelling? From windows to waterfalls

Allow a week or month for purchases to arrive, such as climbing clothes and boots, or a new suitcase. Check airline seat and order meal. Start or finish your language course.

SELLING UP?
Ebay and Amazon - for last minute purchases. Some places offer 24 hour delivery or express same day delivery for a premium.

Your old kit may be out of date. Selling off - use Gumtree.

SUITCASE
Check suitcases. Handles which won't push back in, missing wheels, or just needs a wash?
New tag for new destination. String or ribbon to identify bag.
Strap, in case locks fail.
Locks and keys.
You can buy a cover to protect your suitcase against scratches, prevent tampering, and identify your luggage from a distance. Covers are good for hard suitcases but might cover outside pockets on soft suitcases.

PACKING
List what you pack so that you can check when re-packing. I once came back with only one of a pair of slippers. Another time the baby's essential teddy was under the duvet in the cot.

My top ten list - write your own list on your phone and fridge door.

MEDICATION
Take your pills and pack your pills. Photograph prescrition in case you need a repear prescription or are challenged about your pills or lqiquids at customs. Note pills left behind and expiry date.

Keep all liquids separate.
If eating at airport, check the airport restaurants on line to save time and not miss out.

PRICES
Note prices of perfumes and wines at local supermarket and destination airport before buying at home airport.

Check currency exchange rates at airports of bothe coutnries and outside airports in both countries. Allow time for: to change currency and go to airport lounge and toilets and hunt for trolleys and check in queue (Americans say line up).

KEYS & PASSWORDS
Note or remember passwords.
Take keys and travel passes.
Leave behind duplicate keys and travel passes.

NUMBERS
Note your frequent flyer numbers.
Note your passport number.

WASHING
Vaccuum floors. Wash bedding and pillowcases.

FOOD & DRINK
Take water for your journey. Ideally use a small container which can be emptied to save litter and clutter.
Empty food bins and clear from fridge perishable items.

Check weather at destination. Take an umbrella and packable sunhat.

SPECTACLES
Wear a glasses chain so you can attack your spectacles when asleep on a flight or dozing whilst waiting. Note your prescription in your diary so that if your spectacles break you don't need to pay for an eye test. If you know your prescription you can order glasses on line.

Emergency - forgot or broke glasses? Many supermarkets sell glasses. If you have different eyes these will not work long term and would give you headaches. However to quickly read a map, or a restaurant menu, the cheapest off the rack glasses will get yu through, even if you have to shut one eye. you could also borrow somebody else's glasses.

We did this once at a wedding when my husband forgot his reading lgasses. He had not planned on reading any books and forgot about trying to read a restaurant menu in dim lighting. 

READING MATERIAL OR GAMES OR MUSIC
Take education or entertainment material for journeys and delays. Novel. Novel you are writing. Music. Language course for destination.

STATIONERY
Take a new notebook, and diary. Map of destination. Print alphabet or word list.

GOODBYES & HELLOS
Say goodbye to friends or colleagues and leave contact details.
Remind destination family, friends and colleagues that you are arriving.

Confirm flight check in and seat. (Meals must be booked 24 hours early.)

GOODBYES
Allow time to say goodbye to neighbours. You may wish to give them spare keys, plants to water, or pets.

Leave instructions as to which relatives or gardeners or wind cleaners are likely to visit and who should be let in and who should be prevented from entering or reported.

If you have a burglar alarm, ensure somebody nearby can turn it off.

GIFTS
Find out what your relatives want brought back from a holiday destination. You might want their size in clothes or shoes. Would they prefer clothes, stationery, ornaments or only practical items, food or drink, alcohol, no alcohol, cigarettes, no cigarettes, something with their name on, a joke item or item with a joke on it, or nothing?

ORDER CABS
Order cab at departure point.
Order cab at arrival.

COUNT BAGS
Count your suitcases, bags, umbrellas, cameras, and coats, duty free and magazines and newspapers and food bags.

KEEP EVERYTHING ATTACHED
Have several systems. Write down the number of items and/or photograph them.
This also helps when reporting a loss.

Never put anything down.

I lost a silver ring on a washbasin. Always put jewellery in your bag or around your neck on a chain with a secure fastener, not a ribbons with a knot which could slip, nor a t bar which could come undone.

Wallets and keys and bags placed on top of a car foor as you unlock the door are asking to be left bhind. A bag behind the car boot, before you drive off - or drive over it.

We did that. My husband reversed out of a driveway in London over my travel bag and brolly. He said it was my fault and I said it was his fault. Never put anything down behind a car unless you are hiding from terrorists.

PACKING LIGHT FOR A SHORT TRIP?
Pack light. Cito o-ordinate clothes. Vary with scarves and jewllery. Wear heaviest shoes. Choose reversible dress and jackets. convertisble trousers which shorten p into a tab. Check all buttons are secure. Sew down zip ends so zip pull does not pull off. Have ribbons to tie or elastic to secure hats from blowing away.
Reversible scarf.
Pack clothes which was out overnight.
Remember night dress and swimsuit and swimhat.
Take sewing kit.

TIME TO AIRPORT
Allow extra time. In Singapore after dark you can see the lights on the multi-storey atrium waterfall at Jewel shopping mall.

Photo by Matteo Morando in Wikipedia article on Jewel.

Changi Airport also has a Butterfly Garden on two levels.

Useful Websites
Several youtube videos show you how to pack light, even for a long trip.
To sell items
Gumtree is in the UK, Australia, South Africa and Singapore.
https://www.gumtree.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumtree
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/08/packing-for-trek-what-weight.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to yuur favourite posts.

Keys - where are the doorkeys? What you need is doorkey fobs

I just spent ages looking for doorkeys for all keys for a flat, the building door, the flat front door, all the windows, internal doors.

It was an interesting exercise. the moral is, have a tag on every key.

What you need is a method, not madness.

If you are worried about security, have a hidden key box with ooks and a list of contents, or key book book, number the keys and keep a key to the numbers such as Key A front door, Key Bedroom door (or window). Also have duplicates of all keys.

You can buy sets of lightweight plastic keychains on which you can write, in major key cutting kisks in shopping malls.

On most of them it is easy to slide the paper inside through the slit at one end. If you can't get out the paper on which to write, make a sticky white label from an address label cut to size. Write neatly using a ruler or straight surface to guide the pen. Stick the label on the outside of the tab.

Useful Websites
https://www.timpson.co.uk/services/key-cutting

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

How To Unpack Efficiently: Everything From Food to Laundry, Keys, Passports and Suitcases

Suitcases
Check you have all your suitcases, coats, bags of souvenirs and food and drink. If anything is still in the boot or your car bring it out. Anything left behind in the taxi - phone immediately. (Always get a receipt so you can phone the correct cab company and identify the taxi and time if anything is lost.)

Check for damage to suitcases in case you need compensation. Photograph, phone and write immediately.

Wash off or wipe off stains on fabric and dirt on wheels. Place note on the handle of any bag which has damaged handle or damaged wheels so that you can avoid that case on your next business trip when you need to look smart, or don't want to spend time lugging an awkward bag.

Alternatively take it for repair. Go online to check for a replacement suitcase well in advance of your next trip. Or use damaged, torn or stained item on a trip where further damage might occur.

Problems
Wet Swimsuits
Sometimes you arrive home in a flurry and forget your wet clothes. In the tropics, Singapore, I swim all year daily. When we were when living as ex-pats in Rockville, Maryland,  I swam daily. I had to rotate swimsuits.

Make sure the wet one was always drying in the same place. Otherwise I would be delaying everybody, or postponing my swim and finding the afternoon rain had started. In a thunderstorm - you might be willing to risk it but pool attendants insist you vacate the pool for your own safety and to set an example to children.

In Europe we return from the gym daily or pool or from jogging with wet swimsuits and sweat-soaked tee-shirts. Once, after a holiday, I discovered a wet swimming costume in a suitcase, three weeks later. It smelled terrible, was stained green and black. My brand new costume!

If I washed it in a washing machine, that might destroy the elastic. The alternative was to throw it away. That was not an alternative. So I threw it straight in the washing machine, holding it with a disposable bag. I didn't want to touch it or distribute the spores around the kitchen.

After one wash it looked, clearn. It was clean enough to handle but too smelly to wear.

After a second wash it smelled all right when held at arms length. But not right when sniffed close up. Other people might not notice. But I still did not want it next to my skin.

After the third wash it was restored.

FOOD
After other trips, even just to a local restaurant, I have found food going off in my bag the next day or a week afterwards.

DRINK
Half-opened bottle contents may need finishing or go in the fridge. New wines should be stored horizontal if in bottles with corks to keep the cork moist and prevent shrinkage which would let air get in and eventually turn the wine off. Store wines in a cool dark place, out of reach of children and out of sight of the public and passers-by, ideally under lock and key to prevent theft.

I now have a mental checklist. If I am really tired, I make a physical checklist on the train or plane home so I can just follow it when I fall through the door.

MILK
If you bought milk at the airport or en route put it in the fridge. If you have saved milk cartons from an airlines meal, a hotel bedroom, or from coffee on the train, you can use that to make a decaff coffee or tea for yoursel of others.

KEYS
As you leave the hotel, check you have handed them their key.

Check the key to get into your home is handy in an inside pocket, not still packed in the lid of one of your five suitcases. If you are collecting your car from the airport, check the car key and any paperwork you need are in your pcoket or bag.

Check And Record Location Of Your Stored Tickets, Passport
Have a set place for your passport, especially if it is cocnealed in a drwwer ,box, suitcase, cover. I once lost my pasort which I had left inside the lid of my suitcase because i thought that way i could nto rush off without it. I cancelled my trip because I could not find my passport in the study drawer.

On another ocasion I was given a pretty silver passport cover, free with a magazine. A few weeks later, I looked everywhere for my passport. I could not find it. I missed a trip to France.

Later that year, I was diligently checking every notebook, writing the contents, the year, the trip, or EMPTY, on the front of empty notebooks, with post-its, to find empty notebooks to take on future trips, when I found the missing passport.

Why Keep Tickets?
Do not throw away your plane or train tickets until you have taken a photo, and/or noted where they are stored. (eg, left of middle shelf on bookcase, in study / in red box file on top bookshelf marked New York Trip documents).

Why? You might need your plane ticket to claim airmiles, or check they have all been registered. You might need your train ticket, eg in the UK for one month afterwards to claim about ten per cent of the fare back as compensation for delay over half an hour.

It may be saving paper to leave everything on line. Perhaps you can photograph the vital line or reference numbr and print that. When you reach the check in point and your phone is out of battery because of the flight delay, or no reception, you will find it handy to have the reference.

When you reach home and thre eof you turn to each other and ask, "Who's got the door key handy?", you want to be the efficient, reliable person who says, "I have - here you are!"

(Hint. Do not give your key to somebody else who can now lose both the keys. Open the door for them and replace your key where you know where it is.)

UNPACKING CHECKLIST
1 KEYS
a)  Check house keys.
Leave them in the ouseide of the door, or back in your pocket, or leave the door on the latch when unlocading suitcases from the car.
Did you  remove them from the front door?
Are they back in your pocket or bag or on the hook or table for when you rush to the shops for milk or off to work or social engagement or to see the family?

2 Check Other keys.
b) Keys to your home, keys to your second home, or office.
c) Car keys. Hire car keys.

2 DOCUMENTS
Plane tickets.
Train tickets.
Visas and expiry. (You don't want to pay for another visa when yours still has another year on it.)
3 Check passports and train and plane tickets. You might save on the cost of a visa by bringing your next weekend away forward a week or two.

3 FOOD
Check all carrier bags and handbags, pcokets and suitcases for food. Put it away in the fridge. (Or eat immediately.) If food is likely to go off, write a Post-it note on the front of the fridge to remidn yourself and others what to finish first.

4 CLOTHES TO WASH
Some people keep dirty clothes in a labelled wash bag, or a laundry bag saved from a hotel. Other systems are:
Turn dirty clothes inside out; keep in a bag.
List items you have worn, or check them on your packing list. (This tells you what to wash this time, and what to take instead next time so colleagues see different outfits. Alterantively, it tells you to take the clothes on your worn and washed list, leave behind the clothes you didn't wear on this trip, next time you pack for that desitnation.

5 UNPACK EVERYTHING
If you are too tired, you could use the one item an hour system. Every hour, or every time you walk past your suitcase, remove one item. When you are near the end, the task won't seem to overwhlming. Another system is to tip everything onto your bed. You have to clear it all by bedtime.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Update on Hemingway's cats and Hurricane Irma

Problem
1 Why are the cats called Hemingway's cats?
2 Why didn't the museum curators leave?

Answers
1 The cats are indeed 'Hemingway's' cats, that is to say, not the original cats he owned (he died in 1961), but their descendants. How do we know they are related to the original cats? After all, cats wander off, mate with other cats, and stray cats can wander in, especially if you have large numbers of cats and entrances.

Hemingway had identifiable and unusual cats, six-toed cats. The present day cats include six-toed cats.

2 Why didn't the curators' leave?
Hemingway's house is on a hilltop, safest place to be. If anyone was going to survive, it was them. If you were to choose a place to seek shelter from flooding, it would be there.

Americans are more clued up on Hemingway than the rest of the world. Here's a potted summary from Wiki:

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian Front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929).

Americans say raised. Brits would say brought up.

The Daily Mail comes up with an amusing headline, Six Cats and Nine Lives. I must remember that trick. If you can't find two numbers which match, just do a comparison. Take any two numbers and it works.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4870610/Caretaker-Ernest-Hemingway-s-FL-home-rides-storm.html
https://www.visittheusa.co.uk/USA

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Lost Keys - what to do - and where to look

Problems
These have all happened to me, a member of my family, or a colleague.
1 You go to the airport and forget your luggage key.
2 You have a suitcase key and lock but they don't meet the US regulations.
3 You have a combination key but forget the number to unlock it.
4 You lose your door key.
5 You lose the office key.
6 You lose the club door keys. You put them somewhere safe out of sight, now you cannot remember where.
7 You return from a friend's house and lose your door keys.
8 You lose your car keys.
9 You drop your flat keys down a drain.
10 You have a dozen keys and a whole group of people are held up whilst you try to work out which is the suitcase key.
11 You lose the postbox key.

Answers
1 List luggage key and lock on your packing list. Most suitcases come with a key. It is simpler to leave every key and lock with the luggage. If they are not already colour coded to match the suitcase, you can colour code with ribbons, nail varnish or paint or a shoe repair and key cutting shop will stock and sell your sets of colour caps to put on the keys and you can buy colour coded key tags to match to attach to either key or padlock.
2 Airports sell a variety of keys. Allow time to stop to buy. Keys with matching locks are often cheaper in supermarkets. 
f you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing on the sofa?
3 Tell the code to a member of your family. Or pick a house number or phone number from somebody known to all the family or a famous address or year of an event. For security, something which will not be known outside the family but will be known to you.
4 Have a spare. Leave the original or spare at home with somebody living or working nearby. make sure your flight arrives when they are around to give you the key if needed.
5 An office key or key common to all residents of a block of flats can mean you have to replace a lock and provide keys to everybody plus the spares. Keep the key in a box with a hook for it.
6 Same as 5. Get the staff of the office and the cleaners to check everywhere including behind drawers, move all furniture, check waste bins before emptying them (in case keys fell off desk into an open top bin). Check under cushions, behind cushions and under chairs and sofas. Move newspapers. If you were going to hide the keys for  safety, where would you put them?
7 Phone your friends. Ask them to look under chairs, desks, tables, sofas.
8 Check under car seats and behind the seat cushions.

9 Move the car and look under it. Ready into drain with magnetic device or hook. Look with torch. Find somebody strong with protective gloves against scratches and dirt to lift the drain cover. In a big building such as a condo, the caretaker will have keys for lifting drain covers and either a device for reaching down or protective gloves. 

Stories
In my condo in Singapore the chap had often done this, just lifted the cover and reached down. Problem solved in one minute. I heaved my flat keys wrapped in a towel when I went swimming. I lifted my towel and the keys rolled out and downhill into the nearest drain cover.

Stories

We had the same problem in London. Our teenage son lost his keys under the sofa at friend's house. (I think the boys were doing yoga or marital arts on the floor. As one does.) 

We went to change the locks. Removing the old lock was too difficult. So we added a new lock. 

Later the key was found. Then it was lost again. Again we did not remove the old lock but added another. That is why we carry 25 keys - and our front door has 25 locks. Only joking.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Duplicating Door Keys and leaving nearby

If you are travelling it's a good idea to leave a set of door keys at home with somebody nearby. That way you don't have to carry a second set of door keys with you heavy in your pocket or bag. Nor do you risk losing the set of keys - or leaving it behind in a second home or office desk overseas.

Another reason for leaving a set of keys at home is so that somebody can get into your home in an emergency. For example:

The flat has a water leak which damages two flats below. The owner or tenant is away only for a long weekend. But the building (or porter) cannot turn off water from individual flats from outside, only from the whole block.

The result is a huge insurance claim for completely redecorating two flat below where water has ruined their ceiling and left black mould.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker

Packing a small suitcase

How do you pack a small suitcase and travel with enough clothes for all weather?

Dressing For All Weather
You are supposed to dress for your destination. Very funny, when you are going to a hot country staying by the beach, and you are setting off in pouring rain. You don't really want to wear wet sandals for fourteen hours, not even four hours, not even forty minutes. No good adding socks because you just get wet socks.

For clothes, the secret is to dress in layers. Two layers when you leave in the cold. A camisole which doubles as a sun top. A bikini or beach shorts instead of underwear. Then if your luggage is lost or delayed you can race for the beach and swim before dinner, go down to the pool whilst the luggage from your group of 100 is being delivered.

Rain?As a last resort, you may have to wear overshoes. The sort you are given at some gyms with pools.

Bag Pockets
The user of a computer suitcase told me it did not hold a lot apart from the computers and flat papers. It has several zips and compartments so you can organise - or lose - your papers. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Date Order Pockets
You could keep everything in date order, whatever you need first in the front pocket. Or the heaviest item at the back by the handle to balance the suitcase and stop it tipping forward.

Keys
I have several organiser bags which have so many pockets that I keep losing things. I used to lose my keys at the bottom of a bag. Until I attached them to a key ring attached to a ribbon attached by a safety pin to the bag. If you are handy you could sew into every bag and suitcase a ribbon. If you prefer, a secure chain. Even if you attach the ribbon or chain to the back or bottom of the bag or in a pocket out of sight, you can remember it is always on the right, or feel for the end of the ribbon and then locate the keys wherever they have hidden themselves.

Tickets
Your vital tickets should always go in the same pocket, with nothing else in the way of anything like a train pass which you need to press against a station card reader, unobscured by anything which could fall in front and block the card.

Protecting Food
If you are likely to save a half eaten sandwich, a box or neatly folded plastic bag, perhaps kept small by a rubber band, is handy.

Drinks
As a precaution, try to keep food and drinks, or liquids which might spill, separate from papers. In fact separate from a new treasured suitcase. I have been called onto a delayed plane in a hurry, taken along my yogurt, ended up with packed underwear,  packed bikini, diary, comb, and the inside of the tote bag covered with strawberry smelling pink yogurt. I try to keep all food and drink separate in another bag.

Linking A Second Bag
Some people check whether a small wheel on suitcase will support their second bag which is either a tote bag or a handbag, or just an airline bag or plastic bag.
You might like to link the handles of the two bags so you don't leave your drinks on the plane, your sandwich on the train, or your conference papers in the conference hall.

Books
If you are a visiting author at a conference selling a book or promoting yourself, always have one copy of your book in your pocket. You can show it to an acquaintance or new friend in the queue or during a delay or long train journey or long flight. Use it to rehearse your reading or speech.

If you haven't written a book, read your favourite. For example, a book on business. Motivation. A classic work you haven't read. Teach yourself French, Spanish, Chinese. Take a book such as Chicken Soup for the Soul to keep you calm in case of delays.

Take a diary or travel book and research restaurants or hotels or museum opening times at the destination. Take a list of conference organisers or those attending or the first night speaker. Learn their names. Remember who they are likely to know.

If you do meet colleagues/groups at the airport, or in the shuttle bus to your conference hotel, it's easier to remember them and start a conversation, 'you are the conference organiser, Mr/Mrs Smith/Patel/Ali, I've read so much about you. Do you know Mr/Mrs/Lee well?'

If you can't remember what they do, and are shy to admit it, you can ask about somebody else on the committee. Have you met so and so (the organiser/speaker)?

I've found asking about their suitcase or their techniques for packing is also a good, neutral subject.
I recently bought a small light Karabar four wheel suitcase through eBay for about £20 including postage (see previous posts).

Angela Lansbury BA Honours, author, travel writer, speaker.