Ruby Grimshaw justifies her holiday habits

Normally, technical news on Radio 4 of a breakthrough in the battle against dengue fever would not even register with my dwindling brain cells. However, when the report was announced that the mozzie carrying this nasty disease had been identified and therefore could be used in completely eradicating it, I paused over my porridge and paid attention.

I sometimes feel a little guilty about taking so many holidays. But I am fortunate to have a lot of friends who don’t like to travel alone and who ask me to go with them. I suspect that it’s more a case on their part of being able to avoid paying a single supplement than wanting the delights of my company. In fact, one insomniac friend G always complains bitterly about my ability to go to sleep wherever and whenever I feel like it, and often when I don’t. My friend swears that one night, on holiday in Greece, while we were chatting about the delights of our recent island cruise, I nodded off mid-sentence. I can appreciate this could be most infuriating.
Anyway, I had decided to cut my holidays down this year and had cleverly organised one hit to take care of four of us – plus dog – by booking a week in a lovely cottage in the west country. There will be three bedrooms and as I am going to share with younger daughter S, there should be peace and harmony all round. Okay, watch this space…

“A journey to the Indonesian swamps of Borneo to be with orangutans is not so easily explained”

I try to join a sponsored horse ride for The Brooke Hospital every year, and although I have not heard yet, it might be in India or Kenya. When I received an email from my cousin/god-daughter in Australia telling me that I was expected at her wedding in Melbourne in February, how could I possibly refuse such an invitation? So, three breaks would not be too greedy, would they?

How I was then persuaded into joining my primate-mad friend L on a journey in June to the Indonesian swamps of Borneo to be with orangutans for 12 days, is not so easily explained. It is a big step from visiting Monkey World every summer and adopting a naughty chimp called Arfur as L’s birthday present.
Hence my sudden interest in dengue fever. The list of injections and tablets we must have before we go is a bit daunting, and I shall definitely have some sauna sessions to prepare me for the humidity and heat of the jungle. What I do for my friends.