Even in ordinary times, it would be hard to read about Richard and Isabel Burton without catching a serious case of wanderlust. In the midst of England’s third national lockdown, however, and a bleak winter to boot, descriptions of the Victorian couple’s moonlit strolls through the botanical gardens of Rio, or nights under canvas in the Syrian desert, proved too much for this north Londoner.
A Rage to Live, the title of Mary S. Lovell’s biography of the pair, perfectly summed up my state of mind after months of enforced hibernation, and I decided to throw caution to the wind, with the Burtons as inspiration: I would live; I would explore; I would travel – all the way to that foreign land, south London.