It was my birthday last Thursday. There’s a tendency when you get to my age to try and forget about birthdays but when family and friends make a fuss with cards, presents and messages and when the sun actually makes an unexpected appearance, well maybe this birthday lark is something to smile about.
Having spent a morning in town spending some of my birthday money, Mum and I had a relaxing afternoon in the garden drinking Pimms, having ridiculous conversations and soaking up a few rays of sunshine before the clouds returned. En route to the fridge for a top-up, I stopped to check my emails and was quite delighted at one which, having wished me a Happy Birthday, asked me if I’d like to choose and review some travel items from Matalan. It was at this point that Mum became very animated and reminded me that the case she had brought with her had been bought from her local Matalan in Newcastle. She loves it: a light, spacious, robust piece of luggage called Sub 0 G. My brother had even borrowed it for a long-haul flight to Malaysia and it coped admirably.
For the uninitiated, Sub 0 G cases are the world’s lightest structured cases, extremely well-designed and very strong. Dougie and I already own two of their very small cabin cases which are perfect for stringent airline regulations. We took them to Madrid and I managed to squeeze a full three-days worth of clobber in mine.
So would I like to choose some travel items from Matalan? Absolutely! The website was very easy to navigate and, with Mum’s help, a tape-measure and using her case as a guide, I chose the following two cases which will be perfect for trips where a cabin case isn’t quite big enough. Both the cases are labelled ‘small’ but as they measure externally 65.5 x 41 x 23.5cm they are actually pretty big. Weighing only 1.78kg and with a capacity of 53 litres, it’s a perfect size and would have been ideal for the BritMums Live conference when my teeny-tiny case just couldn’t cope with the extra goodies I had to take home.
Conscious that these cases may well be swirling round an airport carousel at some point in the future, I chose designs which will hopefully stand out: apple and snake.
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| Sub 0 G  Small case – Apple £40 |
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| Sub 0 G Small case – Snake £40 |
I pored over other items on their site and was very tempted by Havaiana flip-flops but, in the end, picked three beach towels in blue, aqua and lime. These have obviously proved very popular, only the lime seems to be available now.
So thank you to Matalan for the unexpected birthday presents: certainly the icing on the cake for me.
It's times like these that I know you are a professional traveller.
I think i'm more an enthusiastic amateur who likes luggage!
By the way, have just arrived in Sweden today so apologies in advance for lack of blog visiting and updates. Trying to keep off the computer!
But did you stop and think for a moment how many snakes it takes to make a suitcase of that size? I do like the iCase though.
May have to adder them up and check how many.
What a lovely treat for you!
I know, it came just at the right time.
I like both of them, but my husband is very conservative, so all our bags are blue, black or grey, which means they look like everyone else's bag.
HAPPY BIIRTHDAY! How lucky you are to have your Mom to share it with.
It was great to have Mum with me, she came down to visit for a few days. A treat for both of us.
All our luggage is black, I dread the whole carousel thing where you're sure someone is about to nick your luggage and you've actually got the dirty underpants from some dude in Leicester…
Liking the apple.
Ew, imagine that! Someone else's dirty pants!
We used to have some old battered cases many years ago which Dougie had fixed with duck tape- that made it easy to spot, as well as cause a degree of shame at the carousel.
Good plan, choosing funky designs which are easy to spot. I've often wondered why everyone has black. Makes it complicated at the luggage carousel.
There must be a lot of blog post material from carousel behaviour, don't you think. How the men all gather at the end of the belt, so they can be first to spot their cases, all the jostling, all the similar luggage.. You've got me thinking now!
That's interesting because I never would have thought of Matalan as being first choice for luggage. That'll teach me not to be such a snob!!
It's good to sometimes be surprised by a shop: I've had some great things from there in the past and Mum lives so near her branch she's a keen spotter of good value stuff!
Anywhere I can buy flip flops (we call them jandals) with other things is the site for me. (You can never have too many pairs havaianas)
I had just bought two pairs of flip flops or jandals that morning before I received the email, otherwise it would have been a no brainer!
But did you get to use the beach towels in Sweden? Hope you had a fabulous time, anda fabulous birthday of course! 🙂 xx
Still in Sweden at the moment. Will do my blog when we get back. So much scribbled down already!