Packing--Love it or Hate it?

 RHYS BOWEN:  Guess what I'm doing today? I'm packing for ten days in England. I'm trying to take the absolute minimum as I'll be navigating train stations as well as airports. The trouble is what is the mininum? I remember two years ago I checked the weather forecast for June and it said sunny and warm. So i brought one light cardigan. And in the Cotswolds it was cold and drizzle. So cold that I had to search out Charity Shops to find a sweater. and could only find one with beads on it. 

This time it's going to be October. So far the weather in London looks okay. Around 60 plus, but with maybe some rain.  Unfortunately I'm going to be further north. This could mean we escape the rain off the Channel, or we get colder and wetter rain.  I am taking a puffy jacket and a rain shell, so all should be well. I'm trying to layer...blouse, long sleeve T shirt. jacket, cardigan plus one sweater. But I know from experience that whatever I take it won't be right. There will probably be a sudden heat wave and I'll have to find a charity shop to grab some Tshirts.  I've found it's no use going to a real store as they only stock winter clothing in October.  Last time I was in New York for the Edgars my phone said the temperature was going to be around 60.  It wasn't. I went to the nearest clothes shops and, being April, they had flimsy summer clothes and bikinis.

Oh, and I have a very important business meeting so I have to look extremely professional. Gray blazer, either turtleneck or cream blouse, navy slacks. Maybe scarf.

What can I get away with for the minimum of cosmetics? a tiny jar of face cream. Foundation, mascara, lipstick...Shampoo and conditioner as my scalp doesn't like the hotel ones. Mousse and hair spray. It all takes up space. I tell myself that I can buy travel sized things when I'm there and discard them again. That is if I'm staying anywhere close to a pharmacy.

Yay! I think it will all fit! (Trial run)

I'm trying to make it all fit into a carry on sized suitcase, plus an under seat wheely bag. I don't want to face getting a full sized suitcase onto a train and then finding space for it on a rack. I've got compression bags and they work well, but I'll need a hair dryer as I'm staying with a couple of people before I'm in a hotel. I'll need a pair of shoes as I'm wearing sneakers to travel in. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Actually I think I'm quite a good packer. So what are some of Rhys's packing tips?

#1 is packing cubes. I can roll about eight tops plus underwear into quite a small cube. I really like compression cubes. I'm using one cube for puffy jacket, rain shell, sleep shirt and underwear. They are light and going in my carry on, just in case my big case is lost. I should add choose items that don't crease. Not everywhere will have irons. Oh, and if it does crease hang it up in the shower when you've just had one.

2. Stuff shoes with small items--tube of face cream etc. Bring smallest toothpaste, toiletries. I use a square of solid shampoo. Easy to pack and won't spill. Bring extra zip lock bags. You'll always need them.

3. This is one of Hank's tips: always shove a scarf or pashmina into the carry on in case it's freezing cold on the plane. Ditto a bag of nuts/snack bar in case everything is delayed.

3. This seems logical but items you'll wear first on top.

4. Also logical: choose a color palette so you can mix and match. I have navy and being slacks, tops etc.

5. And lastly, apart from medications, everything can be replaced if you're in a first world country. So don't worry about lost cosmetics, hair brushes, laddered tights etc.

I'm wondering what Hank takes on her complicated book tour. And what tips can anyone give me to make this process easier?

Words!

RHYS BOWEN:  Our society is losing many things: civility, culture, empathy but above all WORDS. The young generation communicates with texts. LOL  WTF etc. During Covid my rather shy granddaughter was confined to her room and not doing well.  I suggested she call some friends to chat.  Nobody chats, Nana, she said.

I saw an interview on TV with a juvenile offender. When he spoke he sounded angry all the time and every third sentence was "Know what I mean? Know what I mean?"  The problem was we didn't know what he meant because he lacked the words to  express it.

My grandmother and great aunt had huge vocabularies. They spoke in complete sentences. They read extensively.  Maybe the Victorian era was in some ways the high point of civilization. So many inventions, good literature, a relatively peaceful world.  of course we won't mention colonial domination, awful slums, child labor... but I feel we have gone downhill from there. Two world wars, the rise of technology and, worst of all for us writers, the drop in reading. We are now writing for an elite few, most of them in the older generation. When they are gone will there be anyone else who wants to read as an escape?

My daughter teaches at a fabulous Montessori school, K-8. Their library is open during lunch hour and my daughter says it is always full of kids sprawled on couches and bean bags reading their favorite books. They also have a period every day called DEAR.  Drop Everything And Read. 

If only more schools were like that. But I feel we are all to blame. I notice my own vocabulary is limited these days. "Where did we put that thing? That whatsit?  How are you?  I'm good.  Not I'm well, which is correct.  I am trying to keep or recover some sort of vocabulary.  I subscribe to something called Word Genius that sends me a new word every day. Some days I feel smug because I already know it. Other days it's like today: 

No, I have never used that word in my life! I probably never will, but there are some words I think I know but I don't really. When John was saying that something was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard I commented that he should stop resorting to hyperbole.  That felt good.

But I saw this list the other day. I think I know all of these words.  Do you? And how do you think we can stop this horrible erosion of culture?

So who got a perfect score?

And do you have any suggestions about how we can improve our vocabularies and get kids to read? Harry Potter was amazing as it hooked a whole generation. Maybe we should stop writing for adults and write some more arresting children's lit.

Are You Brave?

 RHYS BOWEN:  Yesterday we had a chat about danger. We write about it so easily. We put our heroines in awful situations, life or death situations. But that’s fiction. 

So now I wonder if we have ever been brave like our characters? Have I ever run toward danger, not flinched in the face of danger? I’ve certainly never wheeled my bicycle through occupied France. I’ve never smuggled food to a downed airman in Tuscany. And I’ve never been as brave as Lady Georgie or Molly Murphy who have faced knives, guns, being locked in dungeons or about to be thrown down an elevator shaft.

I suppose in our world we are not often called upon to be brave… except now when we decide whether to join a protest march!  I have asked myself whether I would intervene if I saw ICE grabbing a person on the street.  I have a lovely cleaning lady from El Salvador and a gardener from Mexico. Both are legal but that doesn’t seem to matter. So yes, I would fight for them. There is a number to call to alert the right people to a wrongful arrest. 

I'm sure I could have been brave to protect my kids, and now my grandkids. If I was hiding from Nazis and a soldier with a gun came in, I could probably have killed him to protect my family.  I say probably because I haven't been put to that test, thank God. But apart from small acts that required some guts: traveling alone across Europe when I was fourteen, leaving everything to move to Australia alone, I can’t think of an occasion when I swung on a rope to rescue a puppy from a river.

I was going to say that I'm not a risk taker. I'd never do rock climbing or deep see diving. But thinking it over I have taken risks: moving to a new life in Australia, coming with John to California. And I've taken risks with my writing. Just not the reckless sort of risks. No sky diving, thank you.

The only occasion I do remember with some pride that took guts was when I was fifteen. I was attending drama school in London. I rode the train up after school twice a week. It was dark and very foggy when I arrived back at Charing Cross around 7pm station only to find it shut. No explanation. Just barriers across the entrance. I went down and caught the Tube to London Bridge, station, which was also shut.  That’s when I learned there had been a horrible train crash on the line I would have taken. One train ran into the back of another in the fog, knocking down a bridge with a third train on it. Awful loss of life.

This was before cell phones but I did find a pay phone and managed to get through to my parents. The fog was far too thick for them to come and get me. I’ll try and take a bus, I said. Of course today I’d have checked into a hotel and told them my parents would pay in the morning, but I was fifteen. My brain didn’t work that way. So I waited at a bus stop with a growing crowd of people.  It became quite clear that the fog was too thick. No bus would come. So a group of us set off, walking in the right direction.  The fog was so thick that every time we came to a cross roads someone had to peer a few inches from a street sign to try and read it.

We walked on. People left when we reached their area. We came close to the site of the rail disaster. All we could hear through the fog was non-stop wail of ambulance sirens, fire engine bells. It was very frightening. One by one more people left.  I should point out that I lived fourteen miles outside London and none of this route was familiar to me.  Then finally I was on my own. I kept walking. The fog was still so thick that there were no vehicles on the road. No lighted stores. Nothing. And the area I was walking through now had fields on either side. The occasional street lights only gave a faint glow through the fog.

I finally got home at three in the morning.  My parents were frantic but had no way to contact me. So I guess if I survived that I can survive most things. But was I brave? I suppose the answer is I had no alternative, and this must be true for a lot of things we call bravery. A soldier finds himself behind enemy lines. He has to kill or be killed. It's not bravery, it's self preservation.

So I don't know if I'd ever be really brave. But I would try to rescue a puppy from a river!

How about you Reds and Reddies?

Stories of bravery to tell?