Hayestack

We rushed through Raleigh/Durham Airport and descended the escalator.  At the bottom, Emily stood rocking a bundle in her arms. A tiny face appeared in the bundle and we had our first glimpse of Poppy, our first grandchild. With her mop of dark hair and pretty little face she looked the most adorable baby ever. It was love at first sight.

“Drew told me to use the GPS to get home as I always get lost,” said Emily as we shot down the highway missing our exit. The coloured line on the satellite navigation display doubled back on itself. Emily looked annoyed. “Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out,” I said, ” Keep straight on,”  We shot past another missed exit as I peered at the screen. The Satnav was talking to me. A disembodied female voice, indistinct, but, I fancy, slightly tetchy seemed to be saying, “Idiot, you missed another exit.”

At last, we swept into Juniper Avenue and came to a halt outside Drew and Emily’s house, an imposing building bordered by a church, a cemetery and funeral home. “Be careful as you get out,” advised Emily, torrential rain swept half the drive away yesterday.” We opened the front door and we walked into Christmas. The tree and lights were stunning.

We had arrived in time for graduations, Emily for completing her Nursing Qualification and Drew for his Master of Divinity. We had arrived in time to attend both.  In the meantime, there was Poppy.

She smiles at the drop of a hat and really seems pleased to see you. She has the prettiest face topped by a thick mass of dark hair. Complete strangers would stop us in the street to admire her. One elderly woman accosted Poppy and I in a mop-cap shop in Williamsburg. After cooing over Poppy for some time she began to tell me about her grandchild. She took my polite nodding as genuine interest and began recounting the life story of her grandchild.  I seemed to have joined the Grandparents’ Club.  I only wish I could have been as interested in her grandchild as she was in Poppy.

The phrase,”I’m going to climb into bed” was literally true for our bed at Emily and Drew’s. Any higher and Georgina and I would have needed a grappling hook and crampons and oxygen for the altitude. Fortunately, neither of us suffered from vertigo. It had been made by a friend’s father who had assembled it using the wrong sizes screws, a thing we found out when I tried to move it flush to the wall.  The earth would have certainly moved for us had we been in it at the time.

We had come from an African summer of 37 degrees Celsius to a North Carolinian 7. I, for one had forgotten what it was like to feel cold. In the event, I took the precaution of counting my fingers and toes every morning to make sure i had not lost any to frostbite in the night. Georgina was less concerned. Her body naturally runs at a temperature at least 5 degrees higher than ordinary mortals. To say she is “hot stuff” is literally true. I could fry egg and bacon on her back in the night and have breakfast already in bed in the morning.

Drew and Emily’s house was quiet and relaxed, as one would expect when bordered by church, cemetery and funeral. But it has bags of character. We saw little activity from the neighbours. The business at the funeral Home seemed particularly dead.   Everyday, sometimes twice a day, I enjoyed the mournful hooting of a train in the distance, a hauntingly romantic and evocative sound as only an American train can be. The low rumbling of the wheels would reach a crescendo then gradually disappear.  Georgina and I would rush to the bedroom window to see the locomotive pulling a long line of freight wagons as it passed by the end of the road. Occasionally, if you were lucky, there would be two locomotives pulling the wagons, a “double-header”, as rare as an egg with a double yolk. But, even greater fun could be had in the bedroom – Drew’s super broad and super fast wi-fi internet connection.  Back in Rundu we have a dongle which is so expensive to run you need permission from your bank manager to switch it on.

We did venture out of the bedroom occasionally. Most days we took Poppy out in her stroller. We braved the arctic chill to visit the local library, the post-office, the emporia and the  Olde English Tea Shoppe where Poppy’s parents worked. The Union Flag at the entrance welcomed us.  The interior was snug and homely. You might have been in a maiden aunt’s quaintly decorated parlour, one who collects bone-china teasets and decorates the walls with them. It was a charming place in which to partake a cup or two of Earl Grey. Judy, the proprietor and an obvious anglophile, was delightful and effusive. She greeted us like long lost friends, a skill for which Americans have a particular knack.

To reach Henties Bay we had to cross the Namib Desert. This is reputed to be one of the oldest in the world and I hoped our little Sirion car was tough enough to bounce its way across. This was no place to get marooned. As we approached the Atlantic coast the sky became overcast and fog began to develop. It only took five minutes and I began to miss clear, blue skies and sunshine. We had passed from summer to autumn in a few moments. The sky was leaden and the air cold. We hit the Atlantic coast at right angles and headed south to Henties Bay. This stretch of coast is a favourite for South African fishermen who gather here in shoals. The town was shrouded in mist and deserted. I had not felt so miserable about visiting the sea since we had turned up at Morecombe Bay in the drizzle many years before. This certainly wasn’t the hot, sunny Africa we had become used to. We had brought tents but we could not bring ourselves to face the inevitable misery involved. We found a tolerable apartment advertised in a local supermarket. Once we had a roof for the night Georgina announced she wanted to drive up to Cape Cross to see the large colony of seals. To me it was a plan guaranteed to make us more miserable. But it was good. As we walked onto the boardwalk viewing platform the noise and stench from the fat, slimy creatures hit you. There were thousands of heads bobbing around but only one toilet, the beach. The colony was a huge food store for hyena and black-backed jackals. We had seen a jackal on the road to the beach and were warned that they were often rabid. On the edge of the seal colony a dead jackal lay on the rocks and, sure enough, it had been foaming at the mouth.

I was delighted to leave Henties Bay behind us early the next morning hoping we would escape the gloom in Swakopmund. We didn’t. Either the depression followed us, or it was already there. Admittedly, we did not see Swakopmund at it’s sunny best, but one could get the idea of this Namibian Weston-super-mare, teeming with South African and German holiday-makers and wishing you weren’t there. We did, however, have a delicious mug of hot chocolate in a smart cafe just around the corner from the beach, but the owner, who welcomed us with open arms when we arrived, greeted our departure with brusque indifference. Maybe we didn’t spend enough? Still, the hot chocolate and restrooms were welcome. We visited Paul’s antique shop and marvelled at the souvenirs from the Third Reich but resisted buying a German military helmet, though it might have fitted under the bed and been useful at night.

Swakopmund was a disappointment. Walvis Bay was worse. It is a working fishing port and has an air of shabbiness and decay about it. Fresh fish would be the natural thing to eat for lunch. But the best we could find was a Kentucky Fried Chicken, which we took to the attractive lagoon in the better part of the town, where we sat eating our American fast food looking at the flock of flamingos.

Hopefully, the world’s highest sand dunes at Sosousvlei would be different. They were spectacular and were at their best at first light looking just like the photos you see in the guide books and the Windows desktop image. We drove down the winding road between the dunes to reach the car park and the short trek to the main dunes, meaning to take photographs of the dunes we passed on the way back. Of course, the light had changed by then and most of the dramatic shadows had softened. We climbed the ridge of one of the highest dunes and galumphed our way back down the side. I didn’t break my neck and felt ten years old again.

We headed back towards Windhoek as there were only a few days before Sally’s flight to the UK. The dirt road through the scrub seemed endless and our bodies continued to vibrate even when the car had stopped. It was a relief to arrive at the tar road at Malteghohe and find our campsite for the night. This was situated in the front garden of a house and craft studio. The lady of the house kept a few dogs which she let prowl around the camping area at will. One of these was large, powerful and aggressive. “They are good dogs and won’t get in your way,” she reassured us. One, a powerful-looking Rottweiler, she kept caged up during the day, letting it scare off intruders at night. She had to introduce it to us so that it did not take us for burglars and eat us. It sniffed our tent, cocked his leg and weed on it. We lit a fire to cook our food. The dogs sat with us looking hungry and expectant. I, for one, was not prepared to argue if they decided our food belonged to them. We cooked and they stared and licked their lips. The tension became unbearable. In the end we had to ask the owner to lock her pack away from us, which she did. “By the way, she added. I always let the pony out at night to have a walk around.” We cowered in bed that night listening to the clip, clop of heavy metal hooves inches from our heads and we hoped the pony would not copy the disrespect to our tent shown by the Baskerville hound, at least, not while we were in it.

Back in Windhoek we had a proper bed at the Rivendell Guest House, and, boy, did it feel good. Our little Sirion had brought us back safely and looked weary, having travelled thousands of miles around Namibia, as it sat in the car park caked with mud. “What would Simon, our car expert in the family do?” I thought to myself. So I gave it a good wash.

It was sad to say goodbye to Sally and watch her drive off to the airport But we had Christmas to look forward to when we would meet up, not only with our children, but the Maust family, too. Wow.

Though Sally had stated that she had come to see us and not Namibia, our first expedition took us eastward towards Katima, Zambia and the Victoria Falls. We stopped overnight at the campsite at Nunda, a favourite of ours that overlooked the Kavango River and where we had heard the grunts of carousing hippos at dawn and dusk. If you want to make a campfire make sure you have a Girl Guide or a Scout with you. Sally made blazing infernos with just a few little sticks.

The border crossing to Zambia at Katima was confusing and I’m still not sure what happened. You need to have certain documents and pay certain amounts of money. The guards at the Namibian border took a certificate out of the hire car’s documentation and let us through. We drove to the Zambian border and looked for the control post. There didn’t seem to be one. There would surely be one around the next corner, or the next. There wasn’t. We were practically in Livingstone, the town next to Victoria Falls, by the time we realised we had missed the control post. So, there we were, illegal immigrants in a foreign country which didn’t seem to like the British (nor the Americans) particularly since the visa charges for us were so high. If we were stopped at a police checkpoint we could be deported or even imprisoned. Fortunately, we didn’t meet any and survived the trip.

The Jolly Boys Backpackers was our overnight stop. This was a sprawling hostel for, mostly young, budget conscious travellers who didn’t mind too much about their surroundings. The tiered camping greens were ideal for us as we were there for only one night. Our site had easy access to the kitchen where Georgina spent most of the evening hunting and squashing cockroaches. We drove to the Zambeze Falls Hotel and watched an interesting play directed by a Canadian woman which depicted the harshness of life growing up in Africa. It had everything, the poverty, the mobile phones, the chaotic education, the disease and corruption. It neatly fitted our experiences of Africa. The Zambeze Falls Hotel , with it’s lighting and plush decoration, was like a Disney Theme Park. It must be where the millionaires stayed. Livingstone, the Zambian town dedicated to Victoria Falls tourists, was bustling but shabby. There was no sign of the huge amount of money tourists had brought to the town. Admittedly, the 10 kilometres to the Falls was being tarmaced, but even this was probably being financed by some generous international organisation as are most things in Africa. The main money often lines the pockets of politicians and other government officials. The local underprivileged certainly don’t see it.

The Victoria Falls are truly stunning and surely one of the most breath-taking sights in all Africa. A path takes you along the cliff edge to see the waterfall on the opposite bank, and allow yourself to be enveloped in the mist that rises from the cascading water if you don’t mind getting wet. The sparkling rainbows produced are magnificent. Baboons roam the area scavenging food from the bins and mugging tourists holding carrier bags. A large baboon grabbed Georgina’s bag sending the contents flying over the ground. Unfortunately for the animal, the bag contained no food, just bottled water and reading books, which, apparently did not appeal to the baboon’s literary tastes. It would, no doubt, have been more interested in “Food for Free” or “How to Mug a Tourist”. Incensed at this unwarranted attack I waved Georgina’s expanding umbrella at the mugger. The metal rod expanded more than expected, launching its main body at the baboon not unlike a missile. Badly aimed, it fell harmlessly to the ground, but gave the baboon a moment of concern.

The descent to the “Devil’s Boiling Pot was slow and arduous. At one point, the jungle became so thick we nearly needed machetes. The path had been washed away by a fast flowing stream halfway down which meant we had to paddle across a stream. A couple of enterprising locals sat on a log leasing flip flops and other water proof footwear for the crossing. We eventually reached the Devil’s Boiling Pot and the pleasure at the views was only marred by the thought of having to make the return, steep climb.

If the Falls is a noisy, raging torrent, then the Zambezi, just before it reaches the cliff edge is an oasis of calm. You can even swim in the Angel Pools, but getting to them involves a crab-like progress along a thin concrete ledge submerged just below the water line. You can hold the hand of a guide as you make this perilous journey and we watched one group of three people, wondering if they would put a foot wrong, drag each other into the river and be swept over the Falls. No such luck.

The authorities let you into the town of Livingstone for free, but you have to pay to get out. This was similar to our experience in the Czech Republic where all foreign cars were fined by the police just before reaching the border on the pretext of speeding. It was a routine matter. There was a queue of us waiting to give the cop the remains of our Czech currency. The Zambians don’t make you out to be criminals. They just stop visitors at a road block and ask for road tax. This wouldn’t be so laughable if the roads were in a decent state of repair. I wondered whose pocket my contribution would ultimately be lining. Having said that, however, we did see some road repairs on the way to Victoria Falls, but I think the two men actually working wouldn’t be finished for some time.

Meanwhile, lurking in the back of my mind was the idea that we didn’t have visas. Surely, the officials wouldn’t mind if we paid on the way out rather than on the way in? It was not so easy to leave the country as to enter it. A guard waved us to the emigration building, which was down the road in the wrong direction and obscured by some trees. A burly emigration officer sat behind a long counter and listened to our explanation as if we were confessing to murder. “This is a very serious offence,” he said at last. I could almost hear the prison door slamming behind me. “But a lot of people do it,” he continued. His manner lightened considerably. It will be different when our new office is built nearer the border. I should give you a big fine, but I’m letting you off.” I had the feeling he said this to everyone. “But the custom officers might want to fine you.” He pointed down the corridor. Now we were in for it. We hadn’t paid the duty for importing the car. A group of young Spanish speakers arguing with one of the two customs ladies seemed to have the same problem. The tourists grumbled and looked angry as they handed over a thick wad of note. I don’t know what the Spanish is for “It’s a bleedin’ rip-off” is but I’m sure that was what they were saying. sin her book and quoted a figure, about the cost of a cheap box of wine, hardly anything at all. Was this just a figure she had conjured up? We still had enough money for fuel. We paid up and got out of there before she could change her mind.

Getting back into Namibia was more problematic. When we had left Namibia the policeman had demanded the car’s export certificate which was stapled to the car’s log book. He said we would get it back when we returned. Now, a policewoman was demanding another certificate to allow us back into the country. We tried to explain that we needed our certificate back but, though her English was pretty good, we didn’t seem to be on the same wavelength. I’ve noticed that when speaking to other Namibians. They can have a good command of English. I know what the individual words mean, but when they join them up in sentences the meaning dissipates like early morning mist. I can be in the middle of a conversation with a very friendly Namibian not having a clue what we’re talking about. This can be unnerving.

So, there we were, trying to get back into Namibia, at odds with a policewoman and her male backup, about who should give whom a certificate. Sally and I were becoming more heated, the police adamant, but looking distinctly uncomfortable. The policewoman wanted us to give her a document stuck to our windscreen. We refused. We were all confused and didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Somehow, the matter seemed to resolve itself, probably, as usually happens, with an exchange of money. I don’t remember. What I do remember is driving away, giving the policewoman a smile and a cheery wave as she waved back, still looking distinctly bemused.

We spent that night at a campsite in Katima Mulilo at the very end of the Caprivi panhandle overlooking the Zambezi River. It was clean and spacious with just a handful of other campers. As the light faded, we sat listening to the mournful wailing of hippos in the river. The guard came around advising everyone to put all outside accessories into our tents as Zambian marauders paddle over from the opposite bank to steal portable valuables. We put the few things we had in our tents and tried to sleep soundly.

Dusk descends as we leave Windhoek for Upington, South Africa. An Aussie accent breaks the silence. He is a boiler maker back home and works for only part of the year to make enough money to globe-trot. On this trip he has already been to India and northern Africa and is on his way to Pretoria, then on to South America. It appears that he has not seen much water on his travels and has certainly not wasted it on personal hygiene. His Medusan dreadlocks move as though they have a life of their own and his bushy beard is, no doubt, the home to many forms of wildlife. This lone Aussie is not alone. As we journey around South Africa we come across a number of antipodeans, each one travelling alone. Maybe they don’t like each other’s company?

There is even less room at the front of these buses than at the back. I try to stretch my legs and end up practically lying sprawled across Georgina’s lap. I hope I don’t push out the windscreen with my feet in my sleep, though this would certainly improve ventilation. We visit more filling stations throughout the night, each one identical to the last, and arrive at the border as the sun rises behind the distant mountains throwing a golden glow over the vast, arid plain stretching out before us. We make the mistake of using the dirty and, no doubt disease-ridden Namibian toilets to freshen up, unaware of the new South African ones at their custom post just down the road. This is no “drive through” border as between France and Germany. We queue at the Namibian customs and everything is checked. Half a mile down the road at the South African customs we do the same thing again. This time a sniffer dog is let loose on the bus and I hope it doesn’t find our sandwiches. At least this is a chance to stretch our legs and watch the sun rise. We are in South Africa. There are few trees and the social weaver birds have built giant nests enveloping telegraph poles by the side of the road. We don’t see any birds, so we assume they are being sociable inside.

The scenery has been created on an epic scale. Huge tracts of savannah spread out as far as the purple mountains on the horizon. There are no people, no animals except for a few zebras and ostriches which stir up dust clouds as they run. We eventually see a few ramshackle huts on the hillside but no occupants. Further along, a township comes into view. These are made of breeze blocks and regimented into tight rows. They seem the human equivalent of battery farming. Some huts are painted bright, garish colours possibly in an attempt to give them some character and individuality. The rest remain drab and ugly. The bus passes on giving us just a brief glimpse. We are lucky. Some people have to spend their lives there.

We are an hour late as we arrive at Upington. This is a thriving, commercial town with a large industrial zone on the outskirts. We learn later that Upington grows some of the sweetest melons in South Africa. The route gives us a tour of the industrial area on our way to the bus stop. Our first impressions are not favourable. When you’ve seen one factory…. Though we are late, our connecting bus will wait. Our new driver stands patiently by the bus that will take us on to Bloemfontein. There is no rush. This is Africa. We are alone on the bus. A few passengers join us. We wait for more. The idling engine fades and dies. The driver tries to restart it, but fails. This is not the luxury bus we are used to. It has seen better days. The engine eventually splutters into life but it is now making a high-pitched whine and peters out after a couple of minutes. Two drivers from our Upington bus take a look. They give our driver plenty of advice in Africaans but the engine still does not respond. They take out their mobile phones and gabble into them incomprehensibly. This, too, has no effect upon the engine. More drastic action is required. One driver lifts up the engine housing at the back of the bus and all but climbs in. He emerges with hands covered in oil and an expression on his face akin to that of Lady Macbeth after she has slain Duncan. “Is this a carburettor I see before me?” Astonishingly, the engine starts first time. Like Banquo’s ghost the whine gradually emerges from nowhere and the driver once more attacks the engine. The offending noise is exorcised and we take off while the going’s good. It is a matter of faith that we will eventually reach Bloemfontein. The whine threatens to emerge several times during the journey but periodic oblations of water are poured into the engine’s parched throat and catastrophe is averted.

We have crossed the Orange River (which is, in fact, brown) and are now in the Orange Free State. The area along the river is green, lush and fertile. We pass acres of vineyards and once more emerge onto vast arid plains. You can almost see hordes of Boers doggedly driving their cattle and wagons across the scrub to find a home free from British interference. The white tribe of Africa were, and still are, a tough race of fighter/farmers. They were up against it then and are up against it now. Their destiny is one of persistence and struggle.

Kimberley was famous for its diamond mines. Now it is famous for its Big Hole. We pass signs pointing to its Big Hole but go the other way. It is trying to turn itself into a tourist attraction, but just how interesting can a big hole be. Something inside me suggests that we have missed seeing a rare and wonderful sight. However, it is not difficult to suppress this feeling as we chug on accompanied by only a faint whine on our way to Bloemfontein. One thing surprises me about Kimberley. It seems that not much of the diamond wealth was spent on the town. The small part we see seems dowdy and provincial. There again, we do not see the Big Hole.

We try to send an sms text Kathleen, but our Namibian cell card doesn’t work here. We are running about 2 hours late and become concerned about poor Kathleen waiting for us in the heat. She may have dehydrated into a pile of dust by the time we arrive.

Bloemfontein lives up to its name. It is a garden city. Trees spring up as you enter its boundaries. Plant-life is diverse and profuse. Roads are grass-lined and well-cared for. People here love their environment and look after it. We drive past the new soccer stadium that will be needed for the World Cup in South Africa soon and eventually reach our terminus. Kathleen has already seen us and comes to greet her. She looks just the same as she did in Walthamstow all those years ago, and not at all dehydrated. These Boers are a tough race.

On Thanksgiving 2007 the Free World should thank God that the only

super power is a democracy that believes in the rule of law, has regard for human rights and does not oppress it’s people nor lock up or kill those who speak against it. Thank God it’s not a repressive dictatorship. Thank God it’s not a country that expects women to cover themselves from head to toe and does not allow them equal rights under the law as men. We may not always appreciate you America, but God bless you all the same.

More photos in Gallery

For Georgina and I, a long car journey can hold a considerable element of surprise. They say (women mostly) that men cannot do 2 or more things at the same time. Well, in my case, they are right. Yes, I can pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time, but I have yet to find a practical application for this. (If you have any ideas please let me know.) I cannot, however, drive a car and faultlessly navigate at the same time. Georgina likes bats (the flying rodent type), so being as blind as a bat generally works in my favour.

“Look at the deer in that field,” she says.

I visually scour the field. Nothing, apart from a large area of green, presumably grass.

“Over there!” I follow the direction of her finger. Still nothing.

It turns out to be not one deer but a whole herd.

“Munich is that way,” she says as we hurtle past the junction. I look at her hands to see if there is an indication whether she means left or right. I suggest she has “L” and “R” tattooed on the appropriate hands. She ignores me.

“I didn’t see a sign,” I protest.

“Why does that not surprise me, even though it was the size of a double-decker bus?” She can be very hurtful at times.

“Turn around and go back!” Her tone is unnecessarily imperious.

By now we are at least 3 miles past the turning.

“We’ll take the next right and link up.” I hate going back. It seems such a waste of time (and an
admission of a mistake).

“How will you know the way?”

“Just trust my sense of direction,” I assure her.

She makes no attempt to stifle an ironic and, I may say, a rather cruel snigger. It only serves to harden my resolve.

Two hours later, a city looms up ahead of us. “See, I said I’d get us to Munich,” I announce triumphantly.

“Then why does the sign say “Frankfurt”?”

“I didn’t see a sign,” I protest.

“Well, at least we can buy some sausages.”

Georgina has the gift of sarcasm. If she read the telephone directory she could make it sound sarcastic. It’s an endearing trait.

Our problem (the navigation one), is not made any easier by the fact that Georgina She can have the soundest and most refreshing sleep since Van Winkle hit the sack, but, once in a car, she has nodded off before it’s left the drive. It’s on a par with Pavlov’s dog...cannot keep awake in a car.

Five hundred miles later she will wake up.

“Where are we?”

“Just passed Nouvion on the Brussels road”, I reply confidently, though I have a sneaking suspicion that we are hurtling towards Paris.

She picks up the map. She and maps just don’t get on. They sulk, they hide things from each other, they do not communicate.

“Find where we are? “ I ask in all innocence.

She ignores me.

I must say, though, that Georgina’s skills are improving. Navigation is no longer a threat to our marriage. Driving to unfamiliar destinations is now a positive pleasure.

Back in the summer, Georgina and I were trailing my brother-in-law David’s car as he took us to see my sister Myra in Bordeaux. About 10 miles out we hit congestion. We sit and watch snails overtaking us. Suddenly, David shoots down a side street. Left, right, right, across the junction, left, around the roundabout.. A trail of breadcrumbs would not have taken us back home. We are awestruck at the extent of David’s local knowledge.

“It wasn’t me,” David later confessed. “It was Jane”.

David has a new friend? No. You’ve guessed it we are talking satnavs. Jane is one of the names of his satnavs voices. Ours are “Emily”, “Daniel” and an American voice that sounds remarkably like Drew. These little remarkable boxes are the greatest invention since the wheel, when man ventured beyond his village into the unknown thereby making the satnav invaluable. They are a little short of miraculous. “Emily” knows exactly where we are, even the name of the road. She can plan a route from home to Timbucktoo in a matter of seconds. It would take me a day and we’d still end up in Warsaw. She knows how far we are from the next junction and where the fuel, parking, shops etc are. She knows the instant I take the wrong turn and finds a solution without shouting at me. I suggest that the satnav will save many marriages and decrease much blood pressure.

I was a skeptic. Now I am a firm believer. After all, you wouldn’t go into a strange, dark house without a flash-light?

We had never been anywhere quite so exotic before (if you don’t count Leytonstone at night). I had an image of shabby hotels and grinding poverty, muggings and the white slave trade. We probably wouldn’t get out alive. However, we had paid for the flight so we had to go. And Sally was so looking forward to seeing her sponsored children.

So we made our way by tube to Heathrow on Sunday afternoon. To lessen the incidence of deep vein thrombosis on long haul flights the airport authority makes you walk for about three miles from one end of the airport to the other to find the check-in desk, then the security post, then the departure gate. By then you are desperate to sit down for 9 hours or more. Our journey took us back outside the terminal around the outside of the buildings a few times then a few miles to Zone F. By this time, I was beginning to think that they had done away with the aeroplane and we were walking to Uganda.

We were standing in the check-in queue without moving for five minutes when Sally discovered that our “queue” was just a group of people hanging around (obviously an Al-Quaeda manoeuvre to disrupt check-in). The actual queue was much shorter. Our next problem was what to do with the mountain of sandwiches that I had spent all morning making in case we needed a snack at the airport. I remembered the pain when security removed my packet of mints when we went to America. I didn’t want the same thing happening to my ham and tomato sandwiches. We would have to eat them – pronto. Unfortunately, they were beginning to go a tad mushy. Georgina, as usual, flew to my aid. Stuffing a sandwich into her mouth we approached check-in.

Security was practically non-existent. Were they checking for bombs or not? I could have smuggled a tank onto the plane and they wouldn’t have noticed. For example, the girl x-raying our shoes was more interested in gossiping with her colleague. “What are you doing at the weekend?” Glances at the shoes. “Going out with Lionel”. Another glance at the shoes. “Not Lionel who…” Shoes. “Yes, that Lionel.” Shoes. “Do you know what happened when he went out with Wendy….” Shoes. “No, what…?” By this time I was moving out of earshot as I hopped about trying to replace my shoes which, by the way, could easily have contained a tonne of Semtex. I never discovered what had happened when…….never mind.

Our guide book said that the most fatalities in Uganda were not caused lawlessness, banditry or political insurgency but by malaria and traffic accidents. Don’t get into the car if your driver’s drunk, it warned. The driver we had booked was a Muslim, so hopefully he abstained. So that left malaria. We carried a mobile pharmacy full of pills and potions in our hand luggage. Those mosquito blighters wouldn’t stand a chance while we were awake. But what about when we slept? Sally had her own mosquito net. Georgina and I would be sitting targets for every mosquito within a five mile radius. We were mosquito fodder. We scoured the shops and, do you know, not one of them sold a mosquito net. We could have bought support tights and every brand of whisky known to man (and some unknown), but could we buy a mosquito net? We boarded the plane with a growing sense of apprehension. Georgina finished off the last sandwich and a squashed banana.