We have lift off! Well, nearly. The team have made it to the airport and are just over an hour away from departure.

It's fair to say that so far team leader Carl has had a shocker. After arranging for everyone to meet at Heathrow for 5, he turned up at a leisurely 5.40. With the rest of the team already checked in Carl was left to work his charm on the stewardess in order to get his overweight bags through. He failed. One excess baggage charge later and the whole team had checked in, with our collective luggage exceeding 365kg (800lbs in old money). Most of that was kit and I expect our weight on the way back will be a fraction of that.

We've also discovered that Sarah has a drinking problem. Sparkling water is her apparent tipple if choice, but her attempts at trying to sneak a litre bottle through security unsurprisingly failed.

Personal hygiene (and a fragrant odour) is clearly an important issue for David. He proceeded to douse himself in all the free perfume samples in duty free, somewhat belying his manly ex-rugby player image. Admittedly, he does smell fantastic now. I doubt it'll last.

Finally, we hit the jackpot in the airport bar, bagging a free eaton mess. Clearly the italian waiter is big cricket fan.

Next stop Kenya! (well, actually Ethiopia but I doubt the wifi connection will be up to much in Addis Ababa airport, so the next post will come from Kisumu)

*UPDATE* – Carl has now been transferred to the oversize hand baggage queue. The shocker continues…

 

Callum