People are telling me I should talk about packing for a trip. I have gone carry-on for years now but my latest trip was a challenge because it was so varied. I had to think carefully, starting at the end, and assessing how much I could handle.

My trip: It began with an 18-day luxury cruise of French Polynesia (most of which I had done just last May and June, repeating this time deliberately because the trip promised a conclusion with stops at Pitcairn Island without a landing, and at Easter Island, with two days of excursions, unfulfilled); landing at Lima, Peru (with an extra unplanned excursion because of an emergency, already described); a flight to Dallas and a flight to Vancouver (using a wheelchair because of my vulnerable leg which required easy luggage for the sake of my pusher and me both); then four days visiting a dear friend in Vancouver (good for more laundry, too); then a cross-city bus to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry ride to Gibson’s for another four days with another dear friend; followed by another ferry ride back to Horseshoe Bay and a cab ride back across the city to the train station to board VIA Rail for a 4-night, 4-day journey to Toronto. I did it on one carry-on and a small backpack, mainly to carry my laptop computer and my iPad mini (and tickets and passport and cash). (And a lipstick.)

How?

Well, as I’ve said before, you have to brace yourself: do not mind that you look like Ll'l Orphan Annie, same outfit day after day - but not entirely. I had to dress (sort of) for dinner every night on the ship, not formally but what they call golf club casual. I had one long, black, embroidered Guatemalan dress and a long black skirt with different tops some of which doubled with cropped (black) pants or long (black) pants. I won’t go on. You’ll notice my colour scheme: black and white. Everything went with everything else, including shoes (three pairs) and my security blanket: a big, warm shawl, black and white, of course. I didn’t pack it, not only because it was too bulky to pack but also because I needed it, always, (I don’t like air conditioning.)

I had a black, foldable raincoat (nice design, looks like a theatre coat) which as it turned out, I never wore until I needed a housecoat on the train. (They provide terry robes on the ship.) I had a cabin with a sink and a toilet but I had to go down the corridor for my shower and didn’t have a bathrobe, so I wore my raincoat. The only thing I didn’t wear was my bathing suit; my leg wasn’t quite ready for the pool.

That’s all.

I think, though, that I need a lighter-weight carry-on bag.

I kept on buying books right up until I left on my trip and they were there waiting for me when i got home. I put Elena Ferrante’s four related novels on my reader burt didn’t finish them- I use the electronic reader only when I can’t manage a heavy load of books. I was busy on the trip and I also wasn’t really taken with the Ferrante story. The results aren’t in yet, though I’ll give it/them a chance. I’ve been busy picking up the pieces/remains of what I left behind but I did manage to read four books last week.

The first was the third volume in Robert Galbraith’s new series of thrillers. (I keep wanting to say J.K. Galbraith. I wonder how she chose that name - maybe a family name?) Anyway, to my mind, they got better. The second had a lot of unnecessary verbiage; I suppose it’s hard for an editor to argue with a phenomenally successful writer. But the third book, while just as long, has added substantial tangents related to the main story, so I didn’t mind the extra reading. People have complained about the violence, but it’s a trend - a growing trend and growing violence. The alternative, I suppose, is what is called a “cozy mystery”. W.H. Auden wrote a good essay years ago, of course, about detective stories. They are allegories of redemption, and I guess “cozy” goes to that point. It doesn’t wallow in gore; it goes about setting one’s universe back in place (“God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world” were it so!) Anyway, I enjoyed “Career of Evil”.

Next, I read “Fates and Furies”, a novel by Lauren Groff, a writer new to me, recommended by a friend (and apparently by President Obama). What a dazzling writer! Well. yes, but apart from the felicitous phrasing and the astounding metaphors, the physiological insights blew me away, and then the surprises, the twists and turns and different perspectives, all kept me rapt, wrapped in this artist's magic.

Not fair to read Lisa Moore’s “Caught” after that. It seemed to me to be tame and predictable, though it’s listed as a thriller. Lisa Moore is a Canadian writer, from Newfoundland, a Scotia Bank Giller Prize Finalist and a Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Finaiist, so i finished the book out of patriotic loyalty. I had the feeling that Moore was play-acting, putting on a show, playing a story that didn’t belong to her. Maybe I’m wrong. I frequently am, but who is more arbitrary than a private reader?

The fourth book I read, I didn’t expect to like at all, but it surprised me. “Fifteen Dogs”, by Andre Alexis, is fey and funny and also profound. Even if you don’t like dogs, you’ll like this one.

Now I’m into “Ice Diaries: An Antarctic Memoir”, by Jean McNeil, one, because I’ll never get to Antarctica and two, because I am addicted to diaries, as some of you know. Well, another surprise/surprises: she is Canadian and grew up in a cold province, which doesn’t explain much. And I am embarrassed to say I never heard of her. She has written ten books, including four novels and a collection of short fiction and she has been short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for fiction,and the Journey Prize, and she has won the Prism International Prize for Short Fiction, and also for narrative non-fiction. And here’s why I never heard of her: she is the co-director of the Masters in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia and lives in London, England. She doesn’t live here any more. Sigh.

Post-script to a comment: Yes, Ruth, I am the person you think I am. If you send me your address, I will write you. Cheers.