Travel Health

We've had two medical appointments in the last 10 days. Other people's worries were beginning to rub off on me a bit so I was appreciative when both our own doctor and the travel health clinic nurse brought me back to my senses. If you listen to all the scaremongering you'd have a hard time travelling anywhere these days :)
So we are happy, healthy and will be fully prepared by the time we leave. There was not a hint of disapproval from them about going to Africa with a baby, and the nurse had recently been to Cameroon and was jabbering away about how wonderful an experience we were going to have.

So one of the costs of travel, and not only in money terms, was that we've had to have a bunch of jags (or 'shots' in Canada). For a mother who considered not vaccinating her children, I've certainly done a good job of ignoring all the research I did on the topic. Brendan had typhoid, Hep A and Yellow Fever vaccines at the clinic. He sat on my knee, facing me and cuddling after the first one, and he cried as I talked about how we needed to do this so that we could go and see Uncle Paddy and Aunty Caitlin in a big plane and see giraffes and monkeys in Africa etc. I was trying not to cry myself. I experienced a very strange tangle of strong emotions but thankfully it was very short-lived as he only cried for a really short time. Phew, thank god that's over with.

I had a couple that have lapsed and we got a Yellow Fever waiver certificate for Tadhg because he's too young.

So preparations are underway. I used an old cotton curtain liner to make a mattress slip for Tadhg's little tent today. We can use it on both sides and then wash it out every few days and it should dry in no time. I adjusted a shoulder bag I've had for a while but have already decided that I'd rather make a new one from scratch so that it's just the right size and has the right number of pockets and dividers in it. Ummm, we'll see if that can be brought to fruition. Watch this space.