Out of Africa – postscript

My son returned, apparently fit and well, from Malawi last week.

He brought with him a variety of gifts – bracelets, beads, wooden carvings and, for me, crushed chillies and Mzuzu coffee.

Bearing the legend 'Placing Your Health First', the latter is said to:

• Improve mental health performance
• Improve alertness
• Improve athletic performance
• Reduce the risk of lever [sic] cancer
• Reduce the risk of diabetes
• Reduce the organization of gallstone
• Protect from the development of Parkinson Disease
• Protect from colds

Sounds like the secret elixir I have been searching for all my life.

On Monday I then drove him and three friends to Brighton where they had arranged to stay in a Travelodge, 30 minutes' walk from the beach and other, er, attractions.

I'd be lying if I said I was totally relaxed with the idea. Nevertheless I reasoned that at the same age I was allowed to spend a week in the Lake District, 200 miles from home and similarly unaccompanied.

Anyway they came home on Friday and whaddya know? Having survived three weeks in Africa, my son found himself in hospital on Wednesday night complaining of severe sickness and stomach cramps.

"I thought I had malaria," he tells me, unconvincingly. Tests proved negative.

Interestingly, though, when he mentioned the m-word and Africa he was fast-tracked to the top of the queue quicker than Rowan Atkinson in a McLaren F1.

God bless the NHS!