I had the last of my injections today, Typhoid and Hepatitis A - and I have the bruise to show for it!

At the weekend I plucked up the courage to venture into an Outdoor shop - an alien world for me. Stepping over the threshold was like travelling back and forth between the real world and Narnia, quite simply another world - there was very little I recognised, and there was definitely a whole new language.

As I understood it, the entire/only sales pitch was, "oh and you need one of these, without one of these you will die" (this was repeated over and over again as we circumnavigated the shop). Does anyone know whether I really will need a backpack with an integrated water bladder sack and an over the shoulder drinking tube? A bottle of Evian is more my style.

My particular favourite was the sales assistant educating me about insect repellants, and in her sales pitch, on summing up the powers of one spray saying, "it's so strong it will burn through plastic" - and she wasn't smiling or joking. I bought the spray, despite knowing that it will remove layers of my flesh, in the hope that it will also live up to the promise of keeping the mosquitos away (albeit keeping them away from the weeping wounds of my Deet spray injuries!)

I decided it was time to flee the shop 10 minutes into the sales explanation of head-torches. I will need a head-torch. But, I rapidly realised it was too complicated a matter to jump into uninitiated, and to my shame I had to admit that I had no idea how many lumens I would require, nor did I know the optimum projected light range, or whether I would also need red or green lights (something to do with night vision)....if you don't believe how complicated the world of headtorches is check this out http://www.theheadtorchstore.co.uk/