On Wednesday, during a quiet moment whilst chasing monkeys, Kat stated that she was disappointed we hadn’t yet experienced a tropical rain storm. Famous last words. With genius comic timing, the heavens decided to open the next day (our day off) just as I was hanging up my last sock to dry on the washing line! Since then it has been raining on and off with stupendous force. On Thursday I also noticed that my feet, ankles and calves had started to swell up. I had no idea why but it was rather disturbing to look at and the flexibility in my feet was greatly reduced. Rhea suggested that I was probably dehydrated so I should drink lots and sleep with my feet elevated. After we had all gone to bed on Thursday evening Kat got ... read more

On Saturday night I sat on the end of my bed and cried whilst talking to Mum about all the things that could go wrong with this trip. I have a rather vivid imagination and am a natural pessimist so I was creating allsorts of bizarre possible situations. However, even I couldn’t imagine just how much bad luck I was in for over the next 24 hours or so. Getting to Heathrow airport was painless enough as was checking in for my flight. After a painful goodbye to Mum, Roger and Jon, I was comforted by a 30 minute wait to get through security and an exciting frisking by a particularly burly female security guard. The next hiccup didn’t come until boarding was supposed to start for my flight to Madrid at 7.20pm. Apparently someone had ... read more