EXPEDITION PACKING

I am packing my ruck sac for my Raide Cevennois. It's important to get it right as there are long distances to walk, no habitations on the age-old transhumance routes, and only camping sauvage at the end of each day. I say "only," as one of the greatest imaginable pleasures in life is to doss down in the Cevennois wilderness after a hard day, with only the moon and stars above you and and a fire beside you.

Packing like this, for the absolute minimum of weight, and working out where everything should be tucked away so that it comes easily to hand in the right order is also a great pleasure. it reminds me of endlessly packing and repacking bergens and webbing so that you know exactly where the full magazine is when you need it, and no farting about.

It also brings to mind a trip I took to the Hoggar mountains, back when it was safe(r) to travel overland in Algeria. Lashing and Stashing became a twice and sometimes three times daily routine of enjoyable problem solving so that the roof rack on the Landrover would just about be able to survive the endless bashing it took over the desert pistes. You have a choice on these rutted tracks: drive very slowly and safely but get shaken to bits and frustrated with the lack of progress, or drive at between 50 and 60 mph, floating over the surface of the ruts, but with dangerously little control. I wonder if you can guess my preference? The roof rack did in fact survive. Just. Only three of its spars were unbroken by the end of the trip. Whereas the Landrover itself just ate the journey, leaving me with an enduring respect for these machines. Only two breakdowns: an almost unbelievable wearing out of the contact point on the rotor arm, which was fixed by adding metallic paper from inside a fag packet; and a broken leaf spring. Amazingly I had learned the French for leaf spring (lames de ressorts) and had no trouble therefore getting it clamped and welded in a tiny Algerian settlement, by a bloke with a welding kit, watched by a herd of goats. He charged me the equivalent of 40p for the job. The clamped and welded leaf spring was still on the Landrover when I sold it tens of thousands of miles later.

All the packing and repacking of this sort has another dimension too. It convinces you that you are in charge of events, ready for anything. Pleasurable, but false. People and events take the oddest turns. If you are not careful you can turn your life into one big chess game, full of control based on predicting the actions of others. This has the danger of getting you what you wished for. And, as we all know, you need to be careful about what that is, in case you get it. Instead, it is a good man indeed who can see that the real joy of life is the essential item lost and the fumbling and cock ups that result, the broken and damaged things you've packed into your life. These are the treasures. Just give me the eyes to see them.