There's a lot of illness about

Winter vomiting Bug, Flu, aches and pains

Spider (Bug) found in my man cave.... looks like an alien?

I don't know about your family but within my family and extended family there's a lot of sick little and not so little people. They have all been very good about letting me know so I don't walk into a situation where I could catch something so close to our big adventure.

Christmas day was really busy starting out with visits to some great neighbours who wanted to know about our Kili trip. It was suggested at one house that I bring a 'Parsons Hall' flag to the summit. Sounds like a great idea, as long as it's really light weight. Then off to see a few of our gang and Christmas dinner at Brendan's house.

Back to today and the imminent risk of infection. Today we have 18 for Christmas  (St Stephens) dinner. I know there have been some casualties to various bugs so I am hoping they are all over the incubation period and on the road to recovery. I hope they are not offended if I wear a surgical face mask all day, only joking. I did try and get a full body forensic suit but to no avail. Anyway that would probably have scared the grandchildren. Speaking of which, my son is back from the US after three years working out there. They were acutely aware of the dangers of spiders in New Mexico and referred to them as bugs. The two year old overheard someone say that his Irish cousin had a winter bug. He then passed on this information saying Sophie had a spider.

So be careful out there for the next few days. I am off to see my GP in the morning to get a backup supply of antibiotics.