4. Weather

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3. Preparations

Preparations for our great adventure continue apace.

May is working hard to augment her wardrobe and doing plenty of overtime at Waitrose to swell her funds. She intends to create a record of the visit incorporating photos, video and of course, sketches. So she will be dragging her macbook, stills camera and video camera around with her, along with her sketching materials. She'll have muscles on her muscles when she gets home.

Roshan has begun to look at the various guidebooks that are scattered around the house and is currently wrestling mentally with whether he wants to actually ride on an elephant or just look at it, gingerly, from a distance.  I’m betting on the latter option but he might yet surprise us.

I doubt I’ll personally get any closer to an elephant than a glass of Tusker beer and then only if we end up in Kenya by mistake.

Helen is counting down towards the end of term and is as preoccupied with her excessive workload as she is always forced to be at this time every year. The upcoming trip is the light at the end of that particular tunnel for her.

Meanwhile, I’ve paid the balance of the bill (a severe blow to the finances) and got a prepaid Mastercard (to avoid extortionate bank charges) for when we get the urge to spend. An urge I can’t see any of my family remotely resisting.

We’ve all had the necessary jabs and to be on the safe side I’ve had a dodgy filling done, an in-growing toenail stripped, a cinematic exploration of my large intestines which, thankfully, gave the all-clear and am due a couple of cortisone injections into my knees just before we go. My neck and spine will have to take their chances, I'm afraid.

We’ve got the required adapter plugs  for recharging netbooks, cameras and mp3 players and something like a years supply of DEET. 
So, true to the spirit of Baden Powell, we intend to "be prepared".

Just five weeks to go now and the excitement is, palpably, beginning to mount.