When you are learning another language, there are always going to the be inevitable moments of face-covering-embarrassment. You might think you’re making polite conversation about the weather, but the strangled sounds that penetrate the ears of your audience may mean something quite different.

The phrase ‘Aide de camp’ is a case is point. It means a sort of personal assistant to a general (“a military officer acting as a confidential assistant to a senior officer.”) I confidently shouted it across a crowded dining table this summer (18th of June – the date forever etched in my memory) to someone who had answered an abandoned, ringing mobile. Silence fell. Only to be replaced with something worse: peels of laughter.

What I had in fact said, was “Eh ducon” – translation: “Hey asshole” – and not to be confused with the proper way (I now know) of saying it: “Aid du con” although the ‘n’ on the end of ‘con’ is silent [sorry, must get on with learning that phonetic alphabet].

So you can imagine my surprise when the guys over at Aide de Camp HQ here in Singapore sent me this box through the post a mere two days later. I wasn’t sure whether my faux-pas had gone global or whether this was just a well timed gift.

The ADC brand is homegrown here in Singapore and their plan is to design camera bags that people actually want to use. I took one of theirs to New York a while ago and it was a great success (you can read the post here.) I couldn’t have used it more.

This, however, is from their new collection:

It’s roomier than the first series of bags and lets you stow a laptop and a mass of other stuff besides a cameras and its lenses (see photo at the very top of this post where it is packed with an odd assortment of things I want when I’m travelling). It also fits neatly on to a retractable luggage handle.

In fact, I made my way to the airport with it this morning:

On the plane, it fitted under the seat in front of me pleasingly perfectly and, what’s more, I was able to  whip out some of the padded dividers and use the space for pretty much whatever didn’t fit into my overflowing suitcase.

The French all thought it was for carrying wine in and asked where they could buy one; until I explained it was really designed more for a camera and its lenses. But I had the whole summer to road test it and wine glasses turned out to be quite a neat fit. Indeed, a picnic is not a picnic if you’re drinking out of plastic cups.

I was gifted the glorious Nadine Travel Tote by the nice chaps over at Aide de Camp. More info on them and their products can be found here.

PS: In love with my new cocoon coat/cardi which is perfect from travelling and comes from here.