I am a last minute annie house is in uproar day before with 2 teenage girls and hubby all into clothes mountains of shoes.Love it when its all in the cases. Then the scales argument starts with us all trying to get on them. We have the ones from tj hughes this time sure we will all still argue.

Sorry Shirley, I just realised I called you Helen, feel really embarrassed now.

No problem Doe. People mistake me for my sister all the time

my packing isn't a problem i have all my holiday clothes in one wardrobe, all i need do is chose what colour and how many shirts, which trousers and which ties for the evening shoes are there ready and i also have a holiday stock of cotton socks and skiddies, on the other hand the pendle witch is a typical female gets stuff out i pack then changes her mind i un pack re pack and the next day its all changed again

wizard

Those of you who pack a week in advance - do you not get things back out of the case again to check that you have everything? Or do you trust that you put everything in you require and leave it alone once it's packed?

HI SandC. I have a list that I tick off as I go along. That way I know I'l have packed everything bar the kitchen sink

We are going next thursday and I have got the cases down from the loft but that's it. I'm a late packer, if I did it early I would probably end up re-doing all again the day before anyway. I will try to make sure everything is washed and ironed by the weekend and start to put things in the spare room ready for packing though. I do all the packing, I actually quite enjoy it, on the way there that is, I hate doing it on the way back and things just get shoved in!

We have 80kg of luggage between us this year as both girls now have their own allowance so at least I don't have to worry so much about the weight limit.

Just pulled out hubby's vests for the daytime. As usual they were all crammed into a drawer & are a mass of creases. I did say I wasn't ironing before I went this year - but if he goes out with those on he'll look like a rag and bone man!!

Just pulled out hubby's vests for the daytime. As usual they were all crammed into a drawer & are a mass of creases. I did say I wasn't ironing before I went this year - but if he goes out with those on he'll look like a rag and bone man!!

Don't tell half a story Helen. Come on, share with all these nice people what you told me. How many vests did he have?

23 & not one was in a wearable state

I normally pack a week in advance and I'm the one that packs everyones except other half as he likes to do his own,my youngest daughter loves to keep looking in her case and having a fashion show with all her new clothes I think it gets her more excited

Well my 7 year old granddaughter picked out all of my jewellery yesterday. I must say I was impressed. I had to show her all of my outfits, & she picked the accessories. She put a couple of things together that I wouldn't have thought of. They're now in a shoe box on the spare bedroom windowsill.

We travel next Wednesday. We are currently laying out our stuff on the spare bed a bit ata time. Clothing is checked and one or two things will be washed before theyare packed. Similarly some things need ironing. We have a pile for books and other stuff. We are self catering and driving down so we shall have a small box of foodstuffs to tide us over the first weekend till we can shop. Also we have already placed a litre of milk in the freezer together with a selection of bottled water, bacon and other bits and peices. These will go in a cool bag and by the time we reach Italy will have thawed out for use. Also little things like matches, a torch, Swiss Army knife, adaptor plugs etc all piled up ready to pack.

Also our car is a lot smaller this year (Megane cabriolet rather than a Scenic) and so I have been looking at ways of making space. I have taken out the large foam moulded block that holds the jack etc and packed everything into a small cardboard box. This has freed up a really large space under the boot floor which will hold all the shoes, bedding, towels, books and lots of other bits and pieces.

I fly next sunday 09th, so Il pack friday and saturday(im off friday). I have a word document of stuff I am taking, so clothes shoes toilitries, etc, and when saturday night comes when I am finished time to weigh the case, and if its over 20 kilos out comes some stuff that I wont wear...then bed, up at 2am, out the door in the taxi at 4am..manchester is only 20mins away from me, so plenty of time to wait for check in to open... so yes I am a late packer.

I always promise myself I won't be on the last minute, but every time I always end up doing so much the day before, I'm shattered and fed up of it all by the time we're ready to go! I'm like the girl on the Boots advert, getting in bed at silly o'clock and the alarm going off one minute later - I have actually gone to bed at 1am by the time I've finished doing everything, and had my alarm set to go off at 4:30am so I'm ready for my taxi at 5:30am to be at MAN for 6am check-in...
When we went to Fuerteventura at Easter (and Tenerife last Easter) I was working right up to the day before, so I had to be pretty organised - got the suitcases out the previous weekend, printed off my Word checklist and did a bit of packing each evening, but found it stressful because I wasn't getting my usual evening relaxing and watching telly
When we've been away during August I've thought it would be easier because I'm not working for at least a week before we go, but I still end up getting stressed the day before with everything all over the floor and bed and still not sure what I really need and what stuff I'm realistically not going to use And in addition to the packing, there's all the other stuff like getting hair done, getting holiday money, charging batteries for the iPod, camcorder, camera, phone etc, cleaning the house, setting the video, light timers etc... Sometimes I get so stressed I wonder why I'm bothering, but it's all worth it when we get there

Ive been throwing stuff (mainly from Primark/Asda/New Look sale sprees!) in the general direction of my suitcase in the spare room for the last couple of weeks. I have just sorted through all this, removing the tags and making sure my 75p bikinis fit (yup 75p ) My last ebay purchase (flip flops!) arrived today so I think I have everything we need now. Trouble is that its all in a heap in the suitcase and I havent added the toiletries yet I will have to go through everything and be fairly ruthless I think. We leave saturday lunchtime and have a family meal friday night so think I better start packing tomorrow, this gives me time to pack and unpack a couple of times until I am satisified!
The other half says he will do it sat morning, in his words 'all I need to do is chuck a few pairs of shorts and a couple of t-shirts in a case' Good job I have thought about and bought sun cream, insect repellent....etc etc!! guess whos case all the toiletries will be going in!!

I always had the cases on the spare room bed and would pop things in for hubby and myself as the clean laundry came back upstairs. However, I stopped doing this when we arrived on holiday and discovered he had 24 pairs of socks and NO pants . Now I put the things on the bed and check them into the case the day before. Off now to add to the pile on the bed for my trip next wednesday!!

No Helen I would say over 3 days everything is ready to go but I only put it in the case the night before we set off ....colleen

We ususally have an early morning flight so stay over at airport the night before. First job of the day before we fly is take the dog to the kennels. Only when that is done can we get the suitcases out (she gets upsets and sulks!!) Pack the clothes neatly and put toiletries and shoes in a seperate bag. Weigh the cases to find, as usual, that they are overweight. Insist hubby checks exactly what he has packed. Last time he had packed 9 teeshirts for wearing during the day!!! We were in a villa with a washing machine. Made him remove 5 of them. Made a token gesture by removing one pair of shorts and a top of my own . Weigh again and hope the airport scales are the same as ours. Get ususal comment off hubby "not going on holiday again, it's less stress to go to work".

At that moment in time I find myself agreeing with him

we havent had our cats a year yet so this is the first time we will have left them for longer than one night (We have a friend popping in everyday to feed them) I got the suitcase out and they both jumped straight in so I reckon they know something is up!!