"Don't panic, Captain Mainwaring!" as Corporal Jones would be shouting at this point. Thankfully I'm not trying to control the Home Guard in the 1940s, but preparing to go away for a year is still proving somewhat troublesome. Even with all the techno-gadgetry at hand to make things easier, or perhaps because of it, there still seems to be so much to do! Okay, so Darwin had to travel the hard way, but I'm betting the HMS Beagle didn't restrict him to a 15kg luggage allowance... and relying on sketches rather than photographs meant that recharging batteries in the jungle wasn't an issue! He probably wasn't all that bothered about whether or not his watch, if he had one, was waterproof, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be concerned about missing the next U2 tour (although I reckon he would have been a fan...). Of course, none of these things are all that important, and it's obviously preferable to hop onto a plane than spend five years at sea on a ship that I imagine would have been at best, reasonably comfortable and at worst, a nightmare. At the end of the day, I know where my passport is (something that couldn't be said earlier on in the week), I have the appropriate bits of paper to cross the borders and enough anti-malarial tablets to last the year.
I also have the added advantage that I know, roughly, how long my trip's going to be. A year's not that long at all really, and standing on Plymouth docks in 1832, I don't expect Mr Darwin had much of an idea about when he'd next see his friends. Actually, I don't suppose he knew that he'd end up publishing something to get him firmly etched in the history books either, but that's another matter!
Anyway, enough of this rubbish or else you won't be back to read the interesting bits (of which I hope there will be many!) I bought a lottery ticket yesterday, after being weakly drawn in by that 'It could be You' motto. In a way it is though, and I'm feeling really lucky to have the chance to visit a place I've dreamt of exploring since I was a toddler. If you were wondering, it wasn't me that won the lottery. Maybe next time!
Words, Wildlife, Rock & Roll
Borneo, Wales, Infinity and Beyond...
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2 comments:
Rachel, Darwin wrote of the Beagle that 'the want of space is an evil nothing can overcome'. So it probably wasn't 15 kg, but it was cramped and he realy had to pare his gear down. And he shared his cabin with a man who went on to live in Pembrokeshire. Which is why we're building the replica HMS Beagle there.
Pembrokeshire's a nice part of the world. Thankyou for your comment :)
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