09th June – Rotherhithe
2 days before the Scoresby Sund Expedition starts

Despite being years in the planning I now find myself in a flurry of last minute panics. To be fair, we are only driving to Scotland tomorrow (via Yorkshire) so not exactly off the planet. If I need to buy some woolly underpants or another bloody charger cable, I’m sure I can sort that out before sailing off to the distant Faroes.
However, there really is no excuse for me still needing to sign off my Will in Blackheath tomorrow afternoon! My appointment is in the afternoon because tomorrow morning, I need to collect my rounds of ammunition from a West London dealer as the firearms supplier in Oban couldn’t source the correct calibre in time. It’s all legit, no grubby brown envelopes needed.

I couldn’t find my old courtesy flags anywhere, so I ordered some new ones from J W Plant which have just arrived by an express Fed Ex bike van.
I bought the shoes last night from Cotswold Outdoor who gave me 20% discount when I showed them my RNLI Governors card which I thought was pretty generous.

It is rather boring as these are my third pair of Scarpa Trail GTX shoes, I simply can’t find anything to match them for versatility.


The only other thing I buy time-and-time again are the Montane Terra Trousers which are light and packable, immensely hardwearing and very quick drying. I’ll take two pairs with me plus a pair of brilliant Devold trousers made partly from merino wool but probably only available in Norway. No jeans allowed.

To add to the frisson of excitement, the dog carer pulled out yesterday so half the day was spent scrolling through the “Rover” website to find another one. Happily, that is now resolved, I hope.
Then I discover my bank card reader has a fault so I was unable to open up the mobile banking app. That took all the morning and I’m no nearing to resolve it. As I am away for three months, if I owe you any dosh, then tough, you’ll just have to wait!
And now there is a planned train strike, just when Dom had booked his return ticket from Inverness. Not sure how that will be resolved. It’s a long way on a Brompton.
Oh well, I never thought the trip would be easy.
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