I am not going to write much because I am drunk.
We have been to visit Elspeth and Mark was the designated driver. He is always this because he was a teetotaller when he met me, and so I have got grandfather rights to the role of drunk idiot.
We have been to see Elspeth to talk about expedition equipment. This is an important part of sending your children to Gordonstoun. Elspeth’s daughter is going there as well, and as part of school uniform our children have got to have things like a three season sleeping bag, a whistle and merino wool socks. The Duke of Edinburgh got all the ideas for his Scheme from his school, because Gordonstoun does survival lessons the way other schools do geography or algebra, and Oliver is going to need a compass just as much as he is going to need a ruler.
It is all magnificent, and I am very pleased about it, only the vital life preserving equipment is both compulsory and expensive.
It is also very complicated.
Fortunately Elspeth Does Outdoors, which I don’t. That is to say, obviously I do outdoor things like sitting in deckchairs or paddling in the sea or going for a stroll along the bridle path to the next village. Elspeth does all of these things as well, but also does proper walking up craggy mountain tops and skiing back down and camping in sub zero temperatures.
I can’t actually remember when she last did any of those things, now I think about it, probably when we were younger and thinner and more excitable, but she still knows about them. She knows which sleeping bags will be warm and lightweight and the right size for Oliver, and which rucksack will sit in the right part of his back.
I have been worrying about this sort of thing for days, because although I have been on walks, it was before the invention of Gortex and I do not really understand what you need. Today’s outdoor equipment is really lightweight, and if you are the size of Oliver, who is made of bones and enthusiasm, this is important. If Oliver is going to climb mountains and sail to the Arctic and sleep in snow scrapes I do not want him to be cold and miserable, like poor Prince Charles. I want him to be warm with the lightest possible pack on his skinny little shoulders.
Tonight we went to see Elspeth to talk about it. I hope Mark was listening, because although I know we talked about it, regrettably we also drank quite a lot of red wine and I can’t remember anything that we actually said. I know we talked about sailing bags and rucksacks, but after that it is a bit of a blur.
I am a bit concerned about this, because it is two o’clock already and we have got to be up at five. This is because Lucy found out this afternoon that she has got to be in Dublin for a festival by tomorrow evening. We have got to do a last minute dash to Lancaster for a coach in the morning.
She has only just got home from her last camping festival, which was very wet and muddy.
Sometimes life seems to be very full of trying to organise other people’s camping equipment. I have heard a very great deal about sleeping mats and rucksacks and boots this week, and today I have spent quite a bit of time scrubbing mud off them as well.
Just so you know, none of Lucy’s will do for Oliver. It is fine for being taken to festivals in a car, but is too heavy to be lugged up to a summit by a small boy.
I think I will sleep on it.
I am too drunk to organise a relevant picture. Sorry.
