The Travelling Wardrobe

Tibetan prayer flags, reminiscent of my husband's holiday laundry (Image by Oliphant via Flickr)

Packing the ideal holiday capsule wardrobe for a 28 day tour of France in our camper van, I am torn between taking old clothes that I can jettison en route after wearing and aspiring to the well-groomed appearance of the average French woman.

I don’t want to clutter up the van with dirty laundry as space is at such a premium, nor do I want to use precious time and water (our tank is a small one) washing clothes.  This is a holiday, after all.

I compromise and take smart casual dresses and separates, but ageing underwear that I can bin with a clear conscience.  I’m gratified to discover that I have sufficient for the whole month and am bemused by the notion of leaving a Hansel-and-Gretel-like trail of discarded knickers across the country.

I’ve bought three dresses expressly for the holiday, floaty linen and cotton frocks that are easily rinsed and dried overnight in Provencal sun.  I abate any feelings of extravagance by remembering the experiences of a former colleague on her very first holiday abroad.

Margaret was about 22 and had never travelled far from her native Bristol.  In anticipation of a week-long package trip to Spain, she invested in seven outfits from her catalogue, so that she’d have something new and special to wear every single day.  The whole office was regaled with a detailed description of each outfit as the catalogue delivered it, and after waving her goodbye on the Friday, we looked forward all the following week to an account of her adventures on her return.

Sadly her investment did not pay great dividends.  Pressed for a description, she just shook her head.

“I think abroad’s very over-rated,” she said sadly and would not be drawn any further.

I have higher hopes for my holiday in France.

My packing strategy for my small daughter Laura is similar to my own and I look forward to a month without laundry.  Until Day 5 of our trip, when my husband announces, to my surprise, “Oh no, I’m down to my last t-shirt.”

Terse questioning reveals that he has brought with him just 5 t-shirts, 5 pairs of pants and 5 pairs of socks.  Considering he has approximately 40 t-shirts in his wardrobe at home and more underwear than Laura and I combined, I am not sympathetic.

The situation is partly remedied by persuading him to throw caution to the winds and wear his sandals without socks.  But I cannot extend the same philosophy to the other items of clothing in question.

And so for the rest of the holiday, the interior of the camper van is adorned at every stop with a varying array of his drying laundry, like a Tibetan prayer flag offered up to the god of hygiene.

So at least he can be considered hygienic.  Not so, it seems, his swimming trunks – but that’s another story…

The next post will reveal all – well, nearly all.

Lost in France

Office du Tourisme, Senlis - Image via Wikipedia

Every time I go to France, it is my ambition to be mistaken for a French woman.  This is not so much to do with my linguistic powers, but with the ability to appear effortlessly elegant.  I’m not sure why I feel this compulsion, given that I’m usually such a scruff, but feel it I do.  And I’m on holiday, so what the heck, I’ll self-indulge.

So I’ve planned my holiday wardrobe carefully, packing crisp, simple linen shifts (well,  the two that I possess, anyway).  A trilby serves as a sunhat – a regrettable necessity for my English fair skin.  (I don’t suppose that French women wear sunhats unless they have to).  Simple leather flats, just a couple of pieces of jewellery and a totebag complete the look for a stroll down to the market through the ancient cobbled streets of Senlis, half an hour north of Paris.

When I pause at the tourist office en route to ask whether there’s a swimming pool in the town, the helpful assistant, Raphaelle, asks me which country I come fro.  I experience a fillip of triumph that my accent is not immediately identifiable.  This gives me the confidence to decline her kind offer to converse in English.

Having established the pool’s whereabouts and opening hours and that it’s decouverte (open air) – a welcome discovery on this hothouse of a day – I head down the hill to the market.  Carefully I choose the best strawberries in the most promising barquette , hoping I’m indistinguishable from the milling French housewives.  In my exchange with the stallholder, I take a different approach to my grandmother’s tried and trusted “speak English in a very loud voice”.  Instead, I speak French in a very loud voice.  I not only to sound more confident but feel more confident too.  To my delight, the old farmer running the stall treats me just the same as his other customers.

“I think I’m getting away with it,” I smile to myself.  Even so, I am filled with admiration for those war-time spies who successfully infiltrate a foreign country, passing themselves off as native.  Travelling as I am with my husband and his unique approach to the French language, recollections of the English policeman’s comical Franglais in “‘Allo, ‘Allo” are never far from my mind.

On my way back to the camper van, I browse the rails outside a couple of dress shops, now selling off their summer ranges at a discount.  I note contentedly that the most popular style is very similar to the dress I’m wearing.

In a little cloud of self-satisfaction, I potter back up the cobblestones.  I’m reaching the outskirts of the shopping area when a white Renault Clio pulls up alongside me.

“Madame, s’il vous plait?”

A pleasant looking Frenchman leans out of the window to peer up at me, enquiringly.

“Bonjour, monsieur,” I venture, loudly.

He fires off a rapid, complex query as to how to find a particular address in Senlis.  My smile disappears.  He might as well be asking directions to Mars.  I’m fooling no-one after all, not even myself.

“Desolee, monsieur,” I falter in a small, low voice.  ”Je suis une etrangere.”

I am a stranger/foreigner.

He nods and waves in sympathy before driving on.  My confidence shattered, I take a wrong turn, lose my way, and for the next fifteen minutes, I am Lost In France.  When the camper van with its GB sticker eventually appears on the horizon, this tiny piece of home territory is a very welcome sight indeed.