Following a series of last minute adjustments, too-ing and fro-ing, I finally decided that my walk should start on Saturday morning with an 0615 train journey to Edale. I was working right up to Friday evening, and therefore I'd tried to be at least semi-organised by conducting a trial pack the weekend before, but by late on Friday night it was becoming clear that I'd not tried hard enough... :-) I was struggling to get everything that seemed necessary into my Macpac Serac, and I wasn't happy with the absence of side pockets for my flask and the various other bits and pieces I was likely to want to be able to get at easily during the day. At 11pm I looked at the pile of stuff still staring at me from the floor and decided I'd be better able to cram it into the rucksack after a few hours' sleep, so I set the alarm for 0400 and went to bed.
At 0400 the following morning I got up, made a coffee, packed and unpacked the Macpac a few times, stared again at the only slightly smaller pile of things now glaring at me from the floor and began to realise that this was a real problem. At 0530 I accepted that I either needed to just stuff the remaining bits into the pack - immediately - jump into the shower and dash to the station, or go back to bed, seek out a different rucksack later in the morning and put off the start until Sunday. I went for the latter option in the end, which definitely turned out to be the smarter move.
Later that morning I got back up and went out to Black's in town. There, in the sale, I found a nice ladies' Karrimor Cougar SA Coolmesh sack, with side pockets and a capacity of 55L + 15L. I took it home and managed to pack all my kit into it (although to be honest it was still a bit of a squeeze). Once I'd done that, I was able to combine trying it on with an interesting experiment in taking my own picture in a mirror - cool! :-)
After all that my sister drove me over to Manchester in time for dinner at Tampopo - Tom Yam soup, salad, veggie dumplings, white raddish pickle and 2 Kirrin beers: yum! - and early the following morning, after tea, toast and a quick browse through my Collins Gem guide to Mushrooms and Toadstools at the Midland Hotel (with half a mind to breakfasts to come in the field...), I caught the 8am train to Edale.
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