Two people, ten days, one rucksack

For years it has been my dream to walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall until various musculo-skeletal issues made me think it was off the agenda for ever. 

However, foot surgery, Pilates lessons and my excellent osteopath Claire have made me think I could do it.

Nigel is a hero for agreeing to carry most of our crap.  But I don’t want to break his back, so we have been giving a lot of thought to how to minimise the load. 

For the first time, we went to an outdoors store and bought lightweight clothing which would dry easily.

Our toilet bag contains only toothbrushes, toothpaste and anti-perspirant.  Instead of sunglasses, we have filters that clip onto our specs. We have downloaded our reading books to our phones.

My only luxury is a tiny watercolour pad and paintbox.

Pascoe, who undertakes v. challenging expeditions felt we still were not taking it all seriously enough – we should saw the handles off our toothbrushes to shed a gram or two.

I had a flashback to a long walk in the Lake District when Pascoe was just a little boy.  He was weeping with tiredness, which was not like him.  To help, I took his rucksack from him.  It was unexpectedly heavy.  On investigation, it appeared that at some point he had put a full-size brick in there, and had forgotten to take it out again.

Oh how times have changed!

Welsh Wine Lake

Going off with my mates for a walking weekend to the Gower. I tried to disguise the fact that I'd brought too much stuff by keeping my main suitcase small but putting walking gear and provisions in several carriers that clustered round my suitcase like satellites round the mother ship.

This meant that when Carol and Caroline came to pick me up I had to make two trips between my front door and Caroline's car boot. 

It was in between the first and second trips that The Incident occurred. 

I returned to see a pool of red wine seeping out of one of my bags onto the road. 

At nine in the morning my cul-de-sac was heavy with the scent of fair-trade merlot while a stain reminiscent of Silent Witness spread a surprisingly long way across the road.

None of us recalled clacking the bottle so there may have been a weakness in the glass. 

Being practised domestic goddesses we sprang into action and had the puddle cleaned up in no time. Before my neighbours confirmed their worst suspicions about me.

And would the loss of the merlot ruin our weekend? 

Not a chance. I had a second bottle in one of my other bags.