Why you must always take your case with you

So much for my Hand Luggage Experiment. “I will only take hand luggage,” I announced to everyone prior to our rather long journey around the French overseas territories. “Because it’s so much quicker and there is no chance of losing it.” However as the hand luggage-sized case somehow ended up involving four pairs of shoes, several books and two swimsuits, it became wholly unsuitable for lobbing up in the overhead luggage bins (as I believe they are termed), since it ended up weighing about 15 kilos.

Hence, it went in the hold along with everything else. Hence, when we arrived in Martinique, after a 20-hour journey involving three connecting flights, with our luggage booked right through, it did not turn up. Hence at the moment my wardrobe is currently a toss-up between my son’s gym kit and a dirty black dress. I’m only ramping it up a little if I say I rather hope my suitcase of clothes doesn’t turn up. It’s a blessed relief to be without Clothes Choice. No choice is a certain sort of freedom in my view. I have discovered that being 4000 miles away from home has meant worries about what to wear have dwindled with alarming speed. Maybe Trinny and Susannah should try it. Furthermore, since I have no meetings to go to or lunches with important employers or would-be employers, I don’t need to worry about impressing anyone with my fashion sense.

The only dull point in all of this is that the fashionable French, with whom I am amongst, and who are usually several notches above us Englanders in style, are currently in a different stratosphere from yours truly. “Er, je porte le costume de sport de mon garcon,” I explained casually at breakfast today to a French banker with whom I happened to fall into conversation.

He is leaning up against a wall beside the swimming pool stylishly glancing over a copy of Le Monde. Clad only in bathing suit and glasses. The trunks in question are long, and light blue, with a print of promenading camels. There is a large linked watch on his wrist and a gold chain around his neck. These pieces of jewellery are not flashy, but carefully chosen. They adorn a body which is of course ideal; small in stature, lean in proportion, hairy enough to be manly, but by no means covered with something which closely resembles a pelt. He is a banker. Yes, in France even those with the most urbane of jobs are things of beauty.

And although we were discussing the fiscal problems currently facing France and her overseas territories, I felt the need to tell him why I was standing there in a PE kit consisting of a white M&S T shirt and a pair of Nike shorts (stained). Whereas this sort of information might have excited an Englishman beyond compare, I don’t think it impressed him one bit.