My mother-in-law told me that an abscess is as painful as child birth.  Having never experienced the latter, I guess I have to accept that as gospel, although a part of me (my jaw) feels that giving birth is child’s play in comparison.  I imagine it is probably even less fun when driving down a “four wheel drives only” road, so when I was in South Africa I went for a check-up.  All was good, although I’ve been grinding my teeth.

I guess working in a bank will do that to you.

A two week repair on a car that takes two months doesn’t help much either.  There has been a bit of stress in the Taylor household since January hence the lack of posts – broken car, packing up house, cleaning house, moving house, moving country, finishing work, closing down company, visa’s, documents, etc.  These are all what I call First World Problems, and normally when somebody moans about a First World Problem the standard response is to take a teaspoon of cement and harden up.

The car is back and although it is hard to stay cross with our bundle of joy, earning our trust will take a bit longer, with every shudder, squeak and moan resulting in anxious glances between Jules and me and heart palpitations.

We were hoping to have the whole of January and February to work out how to pack it and do our various mechanics and off-road driving courses, but it has all been condensed into two weeks.

We’ve got some more gear, which I’ll cover in another post, and we’re haemorrhaging money on grudge purchases like insurance, which I’ll also cover.

Other than that, life is good and it looks like we’re still on track to leave on 18 March.