This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Just when you thought our site couldn’t get any more zany, we have added BackPacking Granny to our team. She is fun, full of life, has no husband, currently, four children and loads of grandchildren and when it all gets too much she takes off and travels the world to parts that we can only dream about. Her ‘Grannying’ skills are unique and in between her travels she will give us tips on how to become a most adored Granny! All of this she does with a huge dose of humour and a very witty pen so look out for her posts exclusive to our site……………
“ Your suitcase is very small”, I said to my mother, as she left Heathrow for a month in China in the 80’s.
“ Two bras and two panties”, she scoffed, ”one on, one off, and that’s pretty well all you need”.
Since then I have heeded her words travelled light and washed my underwear in the great grey Zambesi River, the mighty Mekong, and a Laotian lake. I’ve dried my panties and bra in the wind on the aerial of my hired car in Zimbabwe, as we drove through the Bundu, watching the Antelopes and Warthogs. The worst experience of travelling so light, however, was finding my bra and pants frozen stiff, in a very cold B & B near Invercargill, last stop in NZ before Antarctic. It took an hour and a half to thaw them out!
Perhaps I should explain, I have always loved travelling, I have a long bucket list and a short attention span, and travelling seems to suit me very well. Since the divorce, 5 years ago, I have become a Back Packing Granny. I am not one bit grand. I have travelled in the back of trucks with the ducks, ridden, and fallen off bikes, invented a new painkiller for a broken pelvis, (4 shots of rum to one of pineapple), guaranteed to ease the pain, been rowed up rivers in sampans, watched sloths fall out of trees in darkest South America, and managed to bluff my way through a border using my very old Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea library pass, (any thing with a coat of arms works wonders). AND I’ve had a ball.
My kids and grandkids don’t need me, though I do sometimes wonder at their insistence and encouragement of my staying away as long as I like, but there you go, you can’t have everything.
I’m off very soon to Bali, and those nice CountryWives have invited me to report back so I will.
The Bali trip is rather special and not my usual sort of ground roots adventure because it’s a wedding invite, well I couldn’t say no, and the groom is the most gorgeous Aussie boy, well known In Brisbane for his good looks and charm; I have been his surrogate English mum for the past 10 years, a job I put myself forward for of course! Anyway it will be BLING, like only the Australians can do, so I have begged, borrowed, not yet stolen, a selection of brightly coloured, flouncy, jewel encrusted dresses. I have my 6 inch gold sequinned wedgies, (a present to myself for getting divorced), and I’m nearly ready to go. Just two more things…. fake tan and eyelash extensions, a must for Back Packing Grannies, saves space as mascara and suntan cream take up such a lot of room!!
I will tell you all about it, and Bali, when I get back
Happy Travelling
BPG