The Dik-dik Skin

This tiny antelope, little more than a foot high at the shoulder, is a dik-dik. Dik-dik are common throughout eastern and southern Africa: I photographed this one in Namibia.

They're beautiful creatures, shy, self-effacing, a pleasure to watch - though too few tourists bother as they're more interested in 'big game'.

I feel a little ashamed therefore that one of the items in the little brown suitcase is a dik-dik skin. Like all the other things in the case, it has wandered the world with me. I remember buying it, in the little Indian Curio Shop in Mombasa, probably when I was on holiday from prep school in the mid-50s, though not why I was so keen to have it - unless I wanted to show it off to my fellow pupils when I returned to school in England.

I could, and perhaps should throw it away tomorrow but there's no point - and anyway, it's come so far with me it might as well accompany me on the rest of this journey. Someone else can dispose of it when I've moved on.