I WASN’T out to test my parents’ sense of humour deliberately; on a four-week trip we were bound to get enough purely fortuitous trials!
Two of the areas – the Drakensberg and Zululand – would be new ventures for me, but Deidre and I had travelled most of the rest of the route and I had included all my favourite spots.
I did not, however, plan to re-visit Jangamo Beach with its bluebottles and sand omelettes.
Instead, I included a visit to Inhaca lsland where, although we would probably still find bluebottles, the cuisine was superb and the sanitary arrangements most modern. This information I had gleaned from a hotel brochure, but we never had the opportunity to verify it, because I was told, at the very last moment, that the whole island was booked up for the week by a fishing convention.
Meanwhile, with David and Margaret’s arrival imminent, I began to assemble my ‘anti-Africa kit’. In addition to my normal first aid kit, augmented by an extra packet of aspirins for hangovers, we had to have an adequate supply of anti-malaria tablets.
Then I was persuaded to take snake-bite serum as well, though I am sure I would have done more harm than good, had I ever tried to administer it. We had mosquito coils, anti-mosquito spray and anti-mosquito lotion. I had very little faith in any of them and added three tubes of antihistamine cream to take the itch out of mosquito bites.
As an anti-sunstroke precaution, I had purchased a supply of hats. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to persuade David to wear one, but he took to his yellow towelling creation without undue fuss and was still finding it useful 16 years later.
Mind you, he didn’t always use it as a hat later on. But as a bag for carrying beer, doing double service as a cloth for cleaning the car, it was unbeatable. Someone else obviously also appreciated its extraordinary properties – it was stolen off the washing line in December 1989!
I chucked in, under the heading of ‘anti-ignorance kit’, the bird book, the animal book and a complete list of all the trees in the Kruger Park. The ‘anti-thirst kit’ had a box to itself. Though Margaret had always remained faithful to her brand of Scotch, David’s tastes were inclined to change from time to time. He had been a G & T man when I left England, but that had been a couple of years before.
I played safe and packed some of everything.
It looked a lot, when it was all assembled for packing, but with the exception of the snake-bite serum, we found a use for every single item.
For a bit of pre-holiday fun, I gift-wrapped the whole lot, and left it for David and Margaret to open when they arrived.
As a final preparation before picking them up at the airport, I thought I had better clear out the boot of the car. There wasn’t much in it – an umbrella, a riding crop, a spare fanbelt, an adjustable spanner, a screwdriver and a corkscrew.
It was an odd collection, but possibly a useful one, so I left it there.
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