The Uninvited Guest

You can fly to the other side of the world

You know you’ll only find

I’ve reserved the seat behind you

We can talk about old times....



Salex has been promoted as a good preventative for air-borne viruses that have a nasty habit of infecting you on aircraft journeys. Like the one that hit me and the Elf on our way out to Mombasa, and laid us low for nearly the whole duration of our stay there. So in future I shall be dousing my nasal pasages with saline ( if they dry out in dry aircraft air, then the viruses get a good foothold ), and probably loading up on zinc at the same time.



Needless to say, training nosedived. My dry run on statics for the next competition, dissolved in a haze of perspiration and fits of coughing. I managed about 3 sessions of my 4 minute ‘A’ tables before I took to my bed. Emerging several days later, I was in no fit state to attempt even one repitition of a 4 minute hold, let alone eight. I need to establish now if I have enough time to restore conditioning to pre-holiday levels, before the end of February.



Still all was not lost in the tropics. The Elf and I put together a 1,000 piece jigsaw. We swam with ( and photographed ) a Whale shark. We fed ndeezis to the local population of bush babies. We ate Nyama Choma at Rongai’s, the big butchery / eaterie at Ukunda, without the aid of cutlery or plates. And we were nearly swept away in the boxing day tsunami. If that sounds flippant, it isn’t meant to - the tide went from low to high in about 5 minutes flat, with a ripping current flowing at several knots northward parallel to the shoreline. It took all our strength to get out of it, wondering what the hell was going on - we hadn’t seen or heard any news for a good 24 hours at that stage.



So now we’re back in our safe haven, away from the ravages of nature and the threat of parasitic infections. We hope.