How It Began

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It began with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Well, sort of.  By Obi-Wan Kenobi, I really mean the actor playing him.  Not the first one, Alec Guinness, but the second, Ewan MacGregor.  And, to be more precise still, it was not MacGregor himself who catalysed things, but his 2007 motorcycle trip across Africa.  This journey was documented in a television series called Long Way Down, as my estimable cohabitant was explaining to me on a damp December morning in Vancouver.

“He and this other guy started in John o’Groats,” he said, “and went all the way down to Cape Town.”  He clicked through a few windows on the computer.  “It’s almost finished downloading.”*

“Cool,” I said, skimming the Across clues of the  Saturday morning crossword.

“Yeah! We should do something like that someday.”

He looked me. There was a pause. I set my pen down on the arm of the couch.

“Okay,” I said.  “When?”

And that was how it began.

*Entirely legally, naturally.