At 62, I have started saying yes to more nights away, and it is because of a bag
At 62, I have started saying yes to more nights away, and it is because of a bag
Six things the Joyvana gets right that weekend bags get wrong, from a woman who does not review luggage.
Caroline Richards · Customer · Nottinghamshire · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Caroline, I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and I have never in my life sat down to write about a bag. What I am actually writing about is something that happened in the spring. My daughter rang and asked me to come and stay for a couple of nights, and I heard myself starting to say no. I caught it halfway through the sentence and thought, hang on. Why am I saying no to this?
The honest answer, once I had sat with it, was the holdall. It is in the loft, behind the Christmas decorations. It smells of the loft when you get it down. The zip has stuck for about six years. And it is heavy before you have put a single thing in it.
The bag I have now is called the Joyvana, from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition that I could be completely honest in it.
It is a camper van. In hot pink. I know. Read on.
How it happens
Not one of those things about the old holdall is a reason. Say any of them out loud and you would laugh. The zip sticks. It is up a ladder. It smells a bit. Nobody has ever cancelled a trip because of a smell.
But that is not how it works, is it. They do not arrive as reasons. They arrive as a small grey feeling when somebody says come and stay, a sort of tiredness that lands before you have even thought about it, and then you hear yourself saying that it is a busy few weeks. And it is nobody's fault and nothing anybody would ever challenge you on, because you have given a perfectly good answer.
I had been doing that for about two years. I had no idea I was doing it until the day I caught myself.
What I had wrong
I had thought of a weekend bag as luggage. A thing you own, like a stepladder, that lives somewhere out of the way and comes out when it is needed. So of course I bought a sensible one and put it in the loft, and of course I never thought about it again.
The bag was not the luggage. The bag was the thing standing between me and the trip, and it had been standing there for two years.
So this time I bought one I actually wanted to look at, and I put it where I can see it. That is the whole strategy and I am faintly embarrassed by how well it has worked.
The day it came. I ordered it expecting a flimsy novelty and I owe it an apology.
IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE LUGGAGE
It looks like somewhere nice to be going. The whole side of it is a camper van, quilted and stitched into the fabric rather than printed on it, with a rainbow across the windscreen, a peace sign on the front and great white daisies down the side, the big ones with a little smiling face in the middle. On a rack of black holdalls it is the only bag anybody looks at twice, and it is certainly the only one nobody has ever picked up by mistake.
The daisies up close. The smiling faces are the detail that finished me.
Two women asked about it on the platform before we had even got on. Nobody has ever asked me about a bag before.
Joyce B., GothamIT SWALLOWS A PROPER WEEKEND
Two outfits, my shoes, a wash bag, a book and the cardigan I always pretend I will not need. It all goes in and the zip still does up along the top without any wrestling. The larger size is meant for two to three days away and that is exactly what it does, and the smaller one is an overnight or a gym bag or a roomy cabin bag. I have stopped doing the thing where you pack, look at it, and take something out again.
Packed for three nights at my daughter's. That is genuinely all of it.
Took it for three nights and everything fitted, including the shoes. I had expected to be squashing things in.
Freda N., SelstonTWO HONEST SIZES, AND THEY TELL YOU WHICH ONE
There are two, and both are printed with their measurements rather than described as medium and large and left to your imagination. The 40 centimetre does an overnight, the gym or a cabin bag. The 46 centimetre does two to three days with room for shoes and a towel. And the boutique comes out and says that most people are happiest with the bigger one, which I thought was rather decent of them, since it is not the cheaper option. They were right, incidentally.
I took their advice and went for the 46 and it was the right call. You never wish a weekend bag were smaller.
Muriel D., TrowellTHE STRAP ADJUSTS, SO YOU CARRY IT HOW YOU LIKE
There are the two rounded handles over the top, which are done in a rainbow tie-dye so even the practical bits have been thought about, and there is a strap as well that you can set to the length you want. So it goes in the hand down a platform, or over the shoulder when you have a ticket in one hand and a coffee in the other, which is the bit that matters at a station. I am not tall and I have spent years with bags that hung wherever they felt like it.
The handles up close. Even the load-bearing bits got dressed up.
Handles for short walks, strap over the shoulder at the station. Both comfortable, which is not always the way.
Nancy H., Cropwell BishopIT EARNS ITS KEEP BETWEEN TRIPS
This is the part I had not expected. It is not only a weekend bag. It has done the gym on a Wednesday, an overnight at my sister's, and it carried a load of things down to the church hall for the tombola with a good deal more cheer than that job deserved. The old holdall came out twice a year and went straight back up the ladder. This one has barely been put away at all, and a thing you use is worth a great deal more than a thing you own.
Back in the sitting room between trips. It does not get put away any more.
Bought it for weekends and it does the swimming bag and the grandchildren's sleepover kit as well.
Olive S., AwsworthIT LIVES WHERE I CAN SEE IT, AND THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT
Mine sits on top of the wardrobe, out in the open, because I like looking at it. And that one daft detail is the thing that actually changed my year. It is not up a ladder. It does not have to be fetched. There is no small grey moment between being asked and answering. Somebody says come and stay, and the bag is right there, cheerful and empty, and the honest answer turns out to be yes.
It is the first bag I have owned that made me want to go somewhere. Silly, but there it is.
Sybil M., KimberleyThe Joyvana, against the holdall in my loft
That one is still up there, to be fair to it. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Behind the Christmas decorations, up a ladder
Black nylon, identical to every other one on the rack
Heavy before you have put anything in it
One vague size and no measurements anywhere
Out twice a year, and quietly a reason to say no
On top of the wardrobe, because I like looking at it
A quilted camper van nobody could mistake for theirs
Light, and it takes a proper weekend
Two sizes with the measurements printed
Barely put away since it arrived
About the price
The Joyvana is £32.95 for the 40 centimetre size and £35.95 for the 46, down from £66.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that the autumn sale is on and the larger size goes first. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with a thing, and four trips in, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
By the door with the flask, waiting to go. Four times since April, which is four more than the two years before.
What I would tell you if we were friends
If you and I were sat in my kitchen and you asked me, this is what I would say. Think about the last time somebody asked you to come and stay and you said you were busy. Were you? Or was there a small grey feeling first, and the busy came afterwards to explain it?
If it was the second one, go and have a look at what you would have had to fetch down, and where it lives. I am not claiming a bag fixes anything important. But mine turned out to be sitting squarely in the way, and I had not noticed it for two years.
I did not buy a bag and become more adventurous. I just stopped having a small reason to say no, and it turned out that was all that had been happening.
There are a good few designs in the collection if the camper van is not you, though I would point out that the camper van is more people than admit it. Go and have a look while the larger size is still there.
Caroline
JOYVANA | Quilted Travel Duffle Bag
- A quilted camper-van scene with daisies, a rainbow and a peace sign
- Takes a proper weekend without wrestling
- Two honest sizes: 40 x 20 x 20 cm £32.95 · 46 x 23 x 23 cm £35.95
- Two rainbow carry handles, plus an adjustable strap
- Does the gym and the overnight as well as the weekend
- Part of a whole collection of designs
- Free UK delivery and 30 day returns
The autumn sale is on now, half price. The larger size goes first.