Did I mention our trip to South Africa later this year? No, I didn't think I had.
It seems remiss not to, as it will be the longest trip the Warrillows have undertaken since our honeymoon in Jamaica - and that was in the days when Paul Gascoigne was a highly-talented footballer, the United States had not yet invaded Iraq and Sky TV was still two years away from dominating televised sport in the UK.
The holiday is in honour of a round-numbered birthday, one of those which come along every so often to mark the passing of another decade and remind us that Father Time is creeping up behind us with an ever-quickening step.
Whose birthday? Mind your own business, other than to say that Mrs W and I decided several years ago that one of us was taking a baseball road trip around North America for their ??th and the other was having a safari - and the road trip is still three years away.
Being the Warrillows, of course, this is a safari with a difference; we’re stopping at a well-known naturist venue which has a game reserve close at hand, allowing us to enjoy the weather as nature intended and see some of the wildlife which most of us only ever get to see on television.
Preparations are already underway. The holiday is fully paid for, travel arrangements to various airports are lined up (it’s a 12-hour flight, with a stop-off in Northern Europe before going on to Johannesburg) and last week saw the moment which I've been dreading about the whole thing - the inoculations.
I don’t do needles. Despite being married to a phlebotomist and regularly having donated blood before my epilepsy put me on the ‘banned for life’ list, needles still needle me.
I still hate blood tests (and as a practising epileptic, I’ve had a few); the soothing phrase ‘it’s just a sharp scratch’ really isn’t convincing and although I don’t scream the place down as I used to when I was a child, I still have to look the other way and count to ten when the needle goes in the vein.
It’s why I have such enormous respect for those who practice phlebotomy for a living, especially those who carry out phlebotomy on children and especially babies with tiny veins.
Nevertheless, it had to be done; three injections to stave off the various life-threatening diseases which lurk in southern African climes - two needles in one arm and one in the other.
It’s fair to say I wasn’t in the best state of mind. Various business appointments had taken me to Solihull and Burton-on-Trent earlier in the day and I was feeling fairly frazzled by the time I got to the surgery.
In some ways, that was a good thing as I didn’t have much time to think about it; in some ways, it was a bad thing as the shock when I walked into the treatment room and saw three needles, each the length of my middle finger, was all the greater.
And suddenly I recalled that Mrs W, who had already been given her inoculations a week earlier, had mentioned how one of the needles in particular, ‘had made my arm ache really badly’. Thanks, dear........
In the end, of course, it all went smoothly. The aching arm was only a mild irritation for a couple of days, there were no adverse reactions and it turns out that we don’t need yellow fever inoculations, which come at a hefty fee.
So here we are, counting down the days. Having got the inoculations out of the way, I’m now worrying about driving in South Africa, so if anyone has been there, done it and has any advice, I’d be grateful.
Otherwise - ??th birthday celebration, here we come...
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