Surprises

When you wander around London you can have some unexpected encounters. Only a few minutes after encountering Dutch royalty wandering round the street, I was suddenly almost face to face with one of the great Antarctic heroes. Well, I would have been if I'd been twice as tall, now I was literally looking up to Ernest Shackleton in full Antarctic gear. Impressive...



I've been reading about Shackleton again, or rather reading about the part of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition that he was not immediately part of. While he was dealing with his own little problems in the Weddell Sea there was another, smaller, party working for him on the other side of the continent, laying depots of food and fuel for his team. They ran into a lot of problems of their own, but still continued their work, not wanting to let the boss down. An amazing story, but unfortunately the outcome wasn't quite as good as that of Shackleton's own party. Not all members of the party on the other side survived.

I've also been watching the adaptation of the story of the main expedition for television, with Kenneth Branagh playing Shackleton. I'm halfway through now, and it's interesting. I'll get back to this one when I've seen all of the series.