I’ve been working on packing today — I’m on round two. First I made a pile of all the clothes I wanted to take, and stuffed them in a suitcase to see how much it was. Then I went through it all again and considered what I really wanted to take with me, and added some books and toiletries and shoes and a coat.

The suitcase(s) I’ll be using are lent from a friend at work, and her cat is apparently fond of napping in them, which would explain Pippa-cat’s fascination with them. Either that, or she’s hoping to come with me. I could probably bring her along, I just wouldn’t be able to bring her back…

All told, I have slightly less than one full suitcase worth of things. And that’s excluding things like the cat, or my laptop, and camping gear. I will be bringing some hiking boots, and a rain jacket. With all my clothing in neat little piles around the living room, I took a moment to ask myself what outfit would I be able to pull together if we did manage to get somewhere mountainous and more chilly? And how many skirts do I think I’m going to wear in Beijing, given that I very, very rarely wear skirts in the States? More importantly, what sort of American am I, if so far I’m not planning on taking a pair of jeans with me?