Four stops before the checkout

Cardiff, United Kingdom

Stop one

Cardiff Castle

Yonex Team Tennis Backpack: Right, everyone stand still, because you are currently standing on three separate centuries and one of them is Roman. Under your feet: a Roman fort. On top of that: a Norman keep on its own mound. And wrapped around all of it: Victorian Gothic rooms of gold leaf and painted ceilings, done for the third Marquess of Bute, who was said at the time to be the richest man in the world. The richest man in the world. And he looked at the money, and he looked at the options, and he thought: what this needs is more ceiling. I would love to tell you I would do differently. I would not. I would do exactly that and then charge you to see it, which, well. Look around.

Stop two

Castell Coch

Yonex Team Tennis Backpack: Castell Coch, up at Tongwynlais, three round towers with conical red roofs in the middle of a wood, and it looks like a castle drawn from memory by somebody who had only had one described to them. William Burges rebuilt it in the 1870s on genuine medieval ruins, for the same marquess, and the interiors are honestly extraordinary. Here is the punchline, and it took four hundred years of build-up so I want it appreciated: they barely ever lived in it. Barely. Ever. The richest family in Britain built a fairytale in a forest and then mostly stayed somewhere else. That is the most relatable thing I have heard all day and I own three unused water bottles.

Stop three

Coal Exchange, Mount Stuart Square

Yonex Team Tennis Backpack: The Coal Exchange, Mount Stuart Square, down in Butetown, and in this galleried hall men once stood and shouted the price of coal for much of the world while the ships waited out in the bay. It is said the first million-pound cheque was signed in this room. A million pounds. In the eighteen hundreds. Written by hand, presumably by someone whose hand was shaking, and countersigned by a man going, are you sure, Gareth. Today it is a hotel, so people now sleep in the room where the global coal price was set, which is either a beautiful ending or the single most Cardiff sentence I have ever said out loud. That one landed. I could feel it land. Do not take that from me.

Stop four

National Museum Cardiff

Yonex Team Tennis Backpack: Inside this white Portland stone building in Cathays Park, under a dome, there are paintings by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne and van Gogh. In Cardiff. In the rain. Everybody does that face, that exact face you are all doing now. They came from two sisters, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, granddaughters of a man who made a fortune in coal and rail, who bought quietly and bought early, back when that sort of painting was still widely considered a mistake. And then they gave the lot away. Coal at one end, water lilies at the other. That is the greatest set-up and punchline in the history of this country and neither sister was even trying to be funny. Free entry, incidentally. Free. I have nothing. Go in.

The Cardiff, United Kingdom track

Yonex Team Tennis Backpack

Written for this world alone.

I spent my working life inside a ship's hold making sure the load sat level, because a badly stowed cargo will roll a vessel over. Packing is not a small thing.

The Yonex Team backpack is stowed properly: a dedicated racquet compartment so the frames are not grinding against your kit, a main compartment sized for shoes, a change of clothes and a water bottle, exterior pockets for the small items that otherwise migrate to the bottom, and padded straps that carry the weight on your back rather than your shoulders.

Two frames and a full kit, on your back, hands free. That is the entire brief and it meets it.

Cardiff, then, and I will not be brief about the coal. In the Coal Exchange on Mount Stuart Square, men set the price of coal for much of the world, shouting across the floor while the ships waited outside — and it is said the first million-pound cheque was signed in that room. Say the number out loud.

At Cardiff Castle, stand still a moment: under your feet a Roman fort, above it a Norman keep on its mound, and around it William Burges's Victorian fantasy. Castell Coch, three round towers with conical roofs deep in the trees, was rebuilt by Burges in the 1870s on medieval ruins for the same marquess — and was barely ever lived in.

And in National Museum Cardiff hang Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and van Gogh, given by two sisters, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, granddaughters of a man who made his fortune in coal and rail.

You will get use out of this bag everywhere from a wet morning court in Bute Park to a dry indoor hall in the middle of January, and by the way, it is also perfect for a Welsh Saturday of rugby and a pint afterwards, because it goes under a seat, sits on your back through a crowd, and leaves both your hands free, which on that particular afternoon matters.

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Yonex Team Tennis Backpack

Yonex Team Tennis Backpack