No, really, I hate packing.

I find the experience almost traumatic. It makes no difference where I’m going, or how long I’m going for. It’s all just as awful and annoying.

Now here I am, packing for 3 months away. (Yeah yeah yeah, you went to Outer Mongolia for 2 years and only packed one small bag- I do not care.) How do I do this? What if I don’t take enough? What if I take too much? What if I get there and realise that I have 7 posh dresses but no underpants? A variety of pashminas and no shoes?

I don’t think this is something I can put off until the night before, like I do for short trips. Even then, packing the night before is disastrous because I turn up at my boyfriend’s house for 2 days, during which time we plan to do little more than lounge on the couch and eat pizza, with five pairs of jeans and eight dresses.

This website has been helpful, if a little bizarre- I’m not entirely sure if I need knee high stockings and a hair ribbon, but thanks anyway.

So the spare room – which has now become my packing room – currently looks like this.

Utter chaos. I am not very good at this ‘minimalist packing’ business.

Do I need eleven shirts and blouses of varying prints, patterns and colours? What does 20kg worth of clothes actually look like? Oh my god, what about all that stuff I have to take that isn’t clothes?

There is no real point to this post other than to complain, and procrastinate from bloody packing. Are you an expert packer? Will you help me?