Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Forward planning

I love lists. I will have a list somewhere for almost everything I do in my life. I have so many that my husband calls me Schindler. I have been told that passes as humour, but I'm not convinced.

Anyway, it's six weeks and five days until we head off for our next camping trip, to Gairloch on the West Coast of Scotland, (midgie hi-season, must put repellent on the list...) so I am feeling the need to find a fresh notepad and get listing!

A list of what we need to take, that's always a good place to start, all the camping equipment we have gradually acquired, (mustn't forget the new Electric Thermo Cooler) and stored at various locations around the house and garage. If it's not on the list, I won't hunt it out!

Then there'll be a clothes list, for each one of us. Even down to the amount of socks and pants to take. Funny thing is, I never count them to make sure they all get packed and come back home again. Strange.

Then there will be for stores list, which ofcourse consists of two lists, dry stores and fresh stores. Oh, three lists, a 'to buy when we get there' list.

Then there'll be the meals list. I usually manage to restrain myself from making a list for breakfast and lunch will generally be a packed one, with the occasional treat at a nice local public house. Dinners have to be planned, because then you can work any shopping you need to do into the days' events...

...which ofcourse, have to be listed. Can't always plan that to the day, it tends to be somewhat weather reliant, (must put waterproofs on the list) but atleast if I have a few ideas up my sleeve I can ususally deal with any eventuality. Usually.

We do a few walks if we can, to take in the beautiful countryside. The children are pretty happy about that most of the time, the trick is not to overface them and be careful it's not too hot. Wet doesn't faze them too much, so long as there is something stunning guararanteed. We've seen woodpeckers, roe deer, red squirrels, all sorts and it thrills them everytime. What does this have to do with planning, you may ask?

I research the area and the walks, using my small library of OS Pathfinder books and a handy little website I found, www.walkingworld.com and then I buy the relevant map. Using the co-ordinates, I plot the walks and it makes it easier to choose when you can see the gradients involved.

Maybe I do get a little obsessive about it all, I think it may just be my inactive mind finding ways to excercise itself.

Must put getting fit at the top of the list.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope that the children are better. It's awful when they're ill (they have a nasty tendency to wake up in the night and things like that).

I wish I was a list-writer. I'm really disorganised and becoming more so with age. I lose people's phone numbers (which I keep on scraps of paper and never get round to entering in my address book); I never know quite what I need when I get to the shops and have to send someone out at 10.30 in the evening to buy bread and I never pack anything until the morning we leave for holiday.

Would this be a problem if we were to go camping....?

Louise said...

No, definatly not.I just have an obsessive compulsion to list. Nothing else is organised, but I survive with routines.
School mornings go like clockwork and we leave the house each day by 8.40am, with up to three extras (DON'T ask...) in tow, so long as I stick to the routine. My house is, er, lived in, a home, cleaning happens when it has to, it isn't routine or listed!
I have to make a shopping list, I like to shop once a week, the list has to be made in the order of the aisles and woe betide anybody (dear husband) who writes on it and if it's in a different pen, disaster! I have been known to rewrite such defaced lists...
Do you think I have a problem...?!

Anonymous said...

No - no problem at all, I am married to such a list-maker. He too writes shopping lists in aisle - order. but tell me this: how do manage one shop per week? I'm never away from the shops. I seem to need to go almost every day..... don't tell me - I should write a list!

Louise said...

Well, I make a menu for the week (aka a list of meals!) and shop accordingly. Obviously, I buy mostly fresh produce, so I might occasionally have to pop in for a top up on a Friday, but I do try not to have to. With careful storage, date checking and a freezer, we get by. Trolley's damn heavy though...