Final Week To Departure

Monday: Go for a full leg wax at a beauticians in Dulwich. The plus side of getting it done professionally is that they're absolutely brilliant at what they do, and work at the speed of lightening. The downside is that I can't scream "BLOODY HELL YOU EVIL COW, YOU'RE KILLING ME!' the way I can when My Mother does it for me. I used to wax my own legs while on the phone to my best friend-

"I can't do it, you're going to have to count me in" I'd to insist. She would patiently recite '3-2-1-go', and be rewarded with my shriek of pain and a stream of swearwords at the other end of the line. Happy, Happy times.

It's so cold, I can't imagine what stifling, humid heat must feel like. In her infinite wisdom and mercy, My Little Grandma explained to me that the increased temperature is going to make my bum swell up to several times its normal size. She bought me some big pants to help accommodate this inconvenience.

Tuesday: pick out photos of family and friends to take- one of me and The Kid, two visions in leather, dog collars, teeth bared. Meow. Not one to pass round the dinner table for the Reverend to see. My stomach is full of snakes and I'm not sleeping at night. My room is still totally littered with things, I've made no real attempts at packing anything yet. I just like sitting and sorting everything into lots of piles, then messing it all up again. I know that the minute I'm out of the house, GOM will be storming into my bedroom with an industrial shredder to tear everything apart and rearrange it the way he likes it. He does this every time I leave the house for more than twenty-four hours.

Wednesday: Discover I can't actually survive a day in Norwich without being picked up by the police. Now I'm scared.

Thursday: the morning after farewell drinks. Say goodbye to The Raconteur, crawl into bed and cry for an hour or so. Crawl out of bed and meet a couple of other volunteers in London, for a cheerful panic about our circumstances. My Mother spends two hours packing all my medication and first aid stuff together. The problem with knowing several GPs is that when they all try to be helpful, you end up with more drugs than you can carry. I have four different types of antibiotic, and that's just the base of it. Another sleepless night- wake at three in the morning in a cold sweat with the thought of one of my bags going missing somewhere between Heathrow and Accra.

Friday: Work in the morning. All the GPs wish me well, and send me on my way with another sack of medication. Spend the rest of the day trying to pack. My Mother fills suitcase very carefully. Try to weigh it to see if it will fit within the baggage limits. Can't lift the bloody thing up. Take out half the books. Still 8 kg over the allowance. The Scientist suggests I smile sweetly at the check-in, and try to get away with it. My shoulders are already seizing up at the thought of carrying all this. My Would-Be-Godmother is on her way down for one last raucous dinner party to set me up for the journey ahead. I haven't slept properly for a week.

Tomorrow we fly.

Two Weeks to Departure

I bade farewell to GOM's side of the family over the weekend, at a ridiculous seventieth birthday party for a great-uncle - who has a grecian swimming pool and a baronial hall complete with suits of armour, set right in the middle of his 1930s chalet. The cultural car-crash house made the experience a totally surreal one. My Small Grandparents are coming down to London for the next three days so I have a chance to spend time with them before I leave.

It's also starting to sink in that I'm actually not going to see all of my friends for quite a while now. Sitting in the pub with The Actor complaining about life yesterday evening, he suddenly remarked "I suppose we won't be doing this for a while now", and I thought oh bloody hell, he's right y'know... Every time I see The Medic she cries "You're going to Africa! For Six Months! And that's A really long time! Who will tell me off for behaving badly when you aren't here??"

"Perhaps we should start packing today." My Mother said thoughtfully, surveying the mounting piles of stuff littering my bedroom floor.


It had never occurred to me before that there was so much stuff I needed. Stuff like toothpaste. I have never bought toothpaste for myself before. Wandering through Sainsburys I realised that perhaps this was a little shameful... You wouldn't believe the amount six months worth of basic toiletries will cost you. A pack of six disposable razor blades costs ten quid, two bottles of suncream is about the same. I've spent nearly seventy quid on toiletries so far, and I haven't bought any Marmite yet.

There's no way all this stuff is going to fit within my 50kg baggage allowance.

Three weeks To Departure

In fact, it's not even three weeks. More like two and a half weeks. And I can't wait to get out of this NAFFING SNOW!!

Snow is amazing obviously, it reminds me of my youth- (because I'm so old and crumbly now of course)- but the way britain just grinds to a halt when it snows is exceptionally irritating. And now we've reverted back to good old rain, the ground is nothing more than a death-trap. I just had a phone call from My Mother, sounding rather pathetic-

"I fell off my bike... and I hurt my leg... and it hurts..."

ANYWAY, we are flying very, very soon, and all of the volunteers have banded together, united by our slightly hysterical anxiety about the crazy decision all of us have made to go to Africa. The Longest Email In Existence is still running- topic of the day, should we bother booking plane seats or just cram together and force all the other passengers to fit in around us?

In my own time I am making endless lists; stuff I need to get, stuff I need to do; things I have to buy that I really can't go six months without- (Marmite. Lots of Marmite.) It might be simpler to have just the one list instead of the endless scraps of paper I have scattered over my bedroom, but then I'd lose it...

Happy Birthday to The Medic. Last night we drank a lot of pink cocktails, and it'll no doubt be july before I'm recovered.

Four Weeks To Departure

My life is dominated by a flurry of slightly panicked emails between all of the volunteers;

"Hello, who am I? What are we doing?"

"How much malaria medication are you bringing? Are you bringing two months or three months? Do we start taking it now?"

"I think there's paperwork I haven't done. Should I have done something I haven't done?"

"Is it just me with totally numb arms or is that all of us? Should the Yellow Fever vaccine make your arm go dead and then drop off or is that just me?"

"Have you filled out your FCO form?"

"No, have you??"

"What the hell is an FCO form???"

and.... It's snowing! Proper big snow that makes your feet go cold and brings the whole of britain grinding to a halt. I took the dog for a walk; kicking my way through the beautiful sparkly snow. I looked up above my head at the bright green parrots screeching in the trees. I thought now this really is getting weird. If you want evidence of global warming, forget measuring the CO2 emissions, just come to Lewisham and look at the parrots in the snow.

I'm trying to imagine living in thirty degree weather in a matter of weeks, but my brain just isn't coming round to it. On Monday, My Mother and I went shopping for various Ghana essentials- I ended up trying on swimming costumes with the air temperature below freezing.

"That's a nice one.." My Mother said thoughtfully as I danced from foot to foot.

"It's gorgeous, now will you please let me get dressed again????"

The best news of all came in the form of a miracle email from a woman I have never met, but already love, which included the words creative writing, very impressed, and unconditional offer. Then The Chatterback, My Mother and I screamed the house down. My Mother, after wiping away the tears of joy, explained that it was all down to her being my Muse, she was clearly a figure of incredibly inspiration.

Four weeks and counting, and suddenly life is good again.