Heavy

I am busy having the flappiest flap.

It is not easy to organise a new life for a teenage boy, and it is occupying a very great deal of time, contemplation, and regrettably, cash.

His uniform has now been purchased, except for the Black Leather Shoes Not Trainer Styles, and the trousers. I have bought the trousers, but in an absent minded moment seem to have purchased two pairs of dark grey and one of black, not the other way round. I did not realise this until I had turned them up, named them and cut all the labels out, in accordance with all of his little peculiarities, and so now it is too late and I will just have to ring Marks & Spencer and order another pair. Also I forgot to get white socks.

Apart from that, and the yet unfinished project of affixing the name labels, I am organised with the uniform. It is the other bit, the Complete Expedition Kit, which is causing the flappetty crisis.

Elspeth explained that the thing that makes an expedition bearable is being able to carry all of one’s kit without one’s knees buckling under the massive load. This means that everything that you need to take needs to be of the lightest weight possible. Even ounces make a difference, because they add up so very quickly.

When a person is as small and thin as Oliver, this is important just so that he can keep up with everybody else of his age. He is thirteen, and quite comfortable in Age Ten trousers, but he will not be going on expeditions with people who are ten. He will be going on expeditions with all of the other thirteen year olds, and they are all bigger than him. Some of them are so much bigger than him that they are already in Age Fifteen trousers.

If he has got to carry a heavy pack he will be left behind at the very start.

We looked at the list of necessary kit. This starts with a new rucksack and sleeping bag, and diversifies into practically every household item imaginable, like knives and plates and forks and travel towels and torches. None of these can be ordinarily heavy stuff, so not a single thing that we already have in the cupboard will do. It will all have to be extra lightweight, so that our poor fragile boy can transport it up to mountaintops.

You will not be in the least surprised to discover that the lighter the kit, the more noughts on the end of the price tag.

We considered this, with growing gloom, in front of the computer.

The world has changed a very great deal since our youth.

We both had recollections of school walking trips which, far from opening our eyes up to the great outdoors, entirely convinced me that I never wanted to go for a walk again in my entire life.

Now, with the wisdom of old age and a great deal of new information about outdoor equipment, I can entirely see that this problem was largely caused by rucksacks designed in the nineteen seventies, and uncomfortable boots.

It turns out that not only am I probably quite normally capable of going for hikes up mountains, but that all twenty-first century walkers are exactly like me. It seems that nobody likes carrying massive packs full of camping stoves made of solid lumps of lead, sleeping bags stuffed with a couple of dead sheep, and a box of earthenware crockery.

The modern outdoor movement is competing with itself to design the lightest, most efficient, environmentally friendly, ethically sound equipment any mobile hippie could ever wish for, except that no hippie could ever afford even to try it all on in the shop.

Mark and I looked at it all.

Everything was carefully wrapped in bags that squished it down so that it would fit into the tiniest of spaces. Written beside the picture were the specifications, size and weight.

It is possible to purchase an ethical, waterproof sleeping bag, one which promises to keep you warm when the temperature falls to minus six, which weighs a mere twelve ounces.

That is less than a loaf of bread.

We lit a candle to the Money Gods and came out to work. We are going to earn a sleeping bag.

We thought cheerfully that it would not be wasted. We both thought that we would quite like to go walking if we had comfortable backpacks which did not double our own body weight, and maybe if Oliver does not take up expeditions as a hobby, perhaps we might.

Obviously we will not be going walking anywhere right at the moment, partly because of Mark’s knees getting crumbly, but also because we are fully occupied building a conservatory and earning enough money to educate a boy. All the same, we chalked it up as something that we would like to do when the school fee years are over.

I hope we are not too old.