Lone Traveller

When Mr. Jules was a teenager, the eldest of five – three gorgeous sisters and a brother growing up in a  house on the Lake of Constance – he refused to be seen as part of the family to the point where he would sit in another carriage on the train if ever they travelled together. 

Even today he has a hard time being part of a group.  At Heathrow yesterday he walked his usual five steps ahead of the girls and I, carrying his LV black Keepall and looking sharp.  I am the pack mule with overflowing handbag and overstuffed Longchamp full of water, spare jumpers, magazines and all the paraphanalia that comes with being a mother.  To say it irritates me, seeing him all suave, sophisticated and cool up ahead is an understatement.  It enrages me.  

We have time to kill at the airport.  We wander around lovely Terminal Five (I can say lovely because all my luggage turned up unlike some of the other poor people on the same flight).  We buy DVDS for Ollie who has remained home partying hard celebrating the end of two weeks of IB exams and school forever.  Lexi holds the sixty quids worth of CDs (a couple for me) in a plastic HMV bag as neither Sophie nor I can.  She goes over to her dad and asks him to take the bag of six DVDs.  He takes it from her and unbelievably hands it back to pack mule Jules.

“Put it in your bag,” I say eyeing the dents in the leather caused by air circulating freely.

“No room,” he says with a straight face. 

I give it back to Lexi and of course,  a  nine year old, in charge of a floating bag will leave it behind on the chair in the Departure Lounge.

We arrive in Geneva sans bag.  Tempers flare, assumptions are made, accusations fly.  Not because of the effing bag of DVDs but because this is symbolic.  I feel a lesson is to be learned here.  We argue through customs, while paying for the parking ticket and all the way home.  Sophie’s copain V. calls and she rightly tells him how pathetic we are arguing about a bag of DVDs.

It is pathetic, childish and a stupid ending to a lovely four day break.

Mr. Jules is, whilst I type, surfing the net for a suitably stylish wheelie for travelling.  The LV bag will now be used to contain leaky juice cartons, old newspapers, official documents, hair scrunchies, water and half-eaten sandwiches.

He is out of the dog-house.

PS Mr. Jules wants it to be known that his is a black leather cuir épi LVkeepall (soon to be stained and bashed about in fact I gave it a kick just  now) and not the one in the above photo.