Englishman Light

 

I consider myself a true Englishman. In other words, I'm a complete mongrel as my mother's family were French Hugenote and my father's were German Jewish. There was a bit of Irish thrown in too and some from Upcotts from Devon and Spencers from Northamptonshire.

But we don't talk about the latter.

The coeliac disease seems to have come down from my paternal grandfather, who died in his forties or so, mainly of smoking, asthma and drink. Or that's what my father told me! My father had a lot of coeliac symptoms, including the ability to fart for England. He too died earlier than he should in his sixties because he smoked.

So why is this piece called Englishman Light.

Because I'm travelling around with very little in Celia's old backpack, in which she used to transport her legal papers around. It's under the size allowed by EasyGo and Ryanair and full it weighs about six kilos.

So all I had space for was four shirts, one spare pair of Daks trousers, one cashmere jumper, six pairs of socks, five pairs of knickers, one DK travel guide to Italy, two paperbacks, one toothbrush, one tube of toothpaste, a hair brush, one tube of Savlon, a camera and a charger for my reliable Nokia 6310i, which looks a bit like the ruins that Napolean knocked about a bit.

But I could have taken less! But not much less!

I didn't bring shaving gear, as I don't. I could have have brought smaller Sloggi knickers to save weight and I could have left out the spare jumper.

But it has so many advantages and there is so little to carry, that I can walk about a city on the way from the airport or train station to the hotel and not notice it.

Next time though, I'm going to find a slightly bigger and lighter case, so I can actually buy something.