Cwtches for my Cariad: Pack up your troubles

This time last week I was in the very hot and sunny London. It has taken me a week to start to feel like I am now back in my reality.

I had spent a long time looking forward to this trip and at least two weeks before planning each day and each tube journey/ walk etc, I must admit I almost enjoyed the looking forward as much as the actual trip.

I love packing and started putting bits together for our trip many weeks before it. I would have loved to have bought new clothes to go but that didn't end up happening. I had planned to travel as light as possible while trying to be covered by any possible weather. My plan was to bring three dresses that would all be okay to wear either bare legged or with tights and that could be worn on their own or with cardigans. When it actually came to trying my dresses on though I had nothing that would cover all weathers so I resorted to my usual trousers with either vest tops, short sleeve tops and cardigans. I didn't want to carry anything that I would not get use of but I ended up having to bring "just in case" items. Cerys was easier as she has dresses and playsuits that can be worn on their own if the weather is nice or can look just as nice with leggings and cardigans if need be. Although I did make a mistake of packing a dress that no longer fits her. I had not noticed how much she has grown. That dress fitted her perfectly at Easter which does not seen so long ago.

Normally I struggle with the dilemma of what shoes to bring but having a dodgy foot means I only feel totally safe in one pair of shoes so I obviously wore them and had no need to pack any more. Cerys wore her trainers and I packed her sandals just in case she wanted to wear them but she only wore her trainers as they are sensible but still look nice and matched all of her outfits.

I have bought a backpack and it is just what I wanted. I saw a photo of this on Primarks Instagram a few weeks before I could actually go in and have a look around one. I saw another similar one as I walked in and grabbed it as was not sure if this would still be avaliable, I was so happy when I saw it by the rest of the bags. It cost ten pounds, looks and feels perfect for me. I couldn't stop staring at once I had got it home but did feel that it needed a keyring so I had planned to look for one in London. Very strangely though Cerys had gone for a day out in Tenby with Nanny Lawrence and had bought me back a Purple Heart keyring with a J on it. Perfect. It means so much that she chose it for me.

Cerys is quite notorious for not wanting to carry her backpacks, we had gone for a day out recently and she had moaned so much about it that I ended up carrying it. She wanted to carry my bag around though so I decided to buy her a more "grown up" bag.

Partly for her and partly for myself as I didn't want her moaning about carrying it around London. She chose a bag "called Kangol" :) she loved the blue and purple colours and the suede bottom. In fact now she has decided that she would like this to be her school bag.

I bought a folding walking stick that I can carry with me just incase I feel a bit unsteady or tiredness kicks in. I am normally the one being told to "keep your bag shut and look after your purse and phone" and I must admit my reaction would be "everything is going to be fine, no worries" etc but I felt a bit anxious about this, this time around, I think it's because I have so much more to think about these days for instance carrying a bag while walking. I packed my Oyster card in a inside pocket of the bag and packed my purse and important things in a make up bag and tried to pack plasters, my tablets, body spray in another make up bag. I tried to keep it organised and as easy to access as I could while making it as safe and secure as I could.

I bought a new notebook (which is looking a bit battered after London) and planned days out and how we could get there. I still had my escalator dramas and noticed that if you use the TFL journey planner for London it does give you an option to tick a box to search for underground stations that avoid escalators. I of course didn't do a strict plan but wanted to feel as safe as I could so needed to plan what I could. We had some food vouchers so had an idea of where to eat each night and an idea of all the things that we wanted to do. I would normally do this sort of thing but would use a computer. I enjoyed using a notebook and stickers though and will definitely use this method again.