Ok, it’s time for me to confess that I like a man bag or two. I really appreciate a stylish and high-quality bag and have to admit I have a few. I don’t buy them at a rate like my partner does (along with her shoes) but when that time arises, I take a trip to France! Join me in this post to discover my various bags and what’s in them bag – inspired by one of my favourite blogs Lifehacker.

Inspired many years ago by the various stories of ‘Featured Bags’ from Lifehacker and ‘What’s in our bags’, I’ve always wanted to write one of these posts for myself at the right time – that time is now!

As a SharePoint Consultant who is often on the road, it is important for me to have various pieces of technology & equipment and those other ‘things’ with me for when the need arises. Equally as important as having the right things with me at the right time is having a bag that is high quality, elegant in design, durable and comfortable to carry around. Let me share with you my collection of bags…

The bag collection

I have two French laptop bags, an overnight bag and a Crumpler Good Boy 13″ sling bag. My favourite is the smaller, more recent laptop bag. I received this for Christmas from my girlfriend (thank you, thank you, thank you) along with the overnight bag. They’re both from the same town in France where I brought my first laptop bag a year or so ago.

Where do they come from? Well, the Crumpler I brought in the Crumpler store on the Strand, London a few years back. The other bags…I cannot say. It’ll give away my secrets – I can say though that they came from France!

What’s inside my bag?

Lots of people have asked me what I carry in my bag…here is your chance and theirs, to see what’s inside my bag (on a typical day):

Itemised:

1. A good book to read – at present I’m reading “The man who knew too much” (Alan Turing) by David Leavitt
2. My favourite watch!
3. A strong umbrella
4. Oakley Sunglasses
5. Cacoon Grid-it organiser
6. Canon PowerShot SX280 HS
7. Beats Headphones
8. iPhone 5 (this may become a Lumia soon)
9. MacBook Air 13″ (although I’m sure this might change to something less Apple-based like a Surface Pro 3 soon)
10. Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse
11. Huawei 4G Mi-Fi
12. Leatherman Titanium
13. Powerbank (RavPower Deluxe)
14. Western Digital Pocket drive and various flash drives (all but one encrypted mind!)
15. Various adapters (USB to Ethernet, Miniport to VGA etc)
16. Logitech R700 presentation remote
17. Laptop lock cable (for the bag, not the laptop)
18. Moleskin notebook
19. Bluetooth speaker with microphone – great for conference calls
20. Pens. Pens. Pens. Particularly my Parker fountain pen and a really good whiteboard marker.
21. Welfare stuff like tissues, hand cleaner, wet wipes and some Nurofen!
22. Envelope to stash receipts
23. Peter Rabbit and Paddington Bear – when I travel I like to take pictures of these two in front of recognisable and special places to send to my daughter.

There you have it…my bags and what’s in them.