Dr Fossey's cure for the common cold and other related winter ailments

The amount of information you can pick up on the internet for a trip like this is truly amazing, particular if hours of procrastination have honed you into a lethal Googling machine like me. As with anything, you need to exercise prudence and carefully weigh up competing data in order to determine the most appropriate course of action. For instance the Foreign Office's "We continue to advise against all but essential travel to Honduras due to the ongoing political crisis" and "(Re: Colombia) You should be aware that the long-standing policy of the British Government is not to make substantive concessions to hostage takers" is blatant xenophobic scaremongering and can be summarily dismissed, where as Nigel Soladu from Nigeria's business opportunity offering a 3000% return is clearly a must have, particularly as he has chosen me out of the literally hundreds of people who use the internet.

Medical advice is equally forthcoming, and while at times I have resembled a poorly shaved porcupine while receiving a myriad of expensive and questioningly necessitated injections, it is of course better to be safe than sorry. Especially when safety and cost are so neatly correlated. However, one thing we have all ascertained from the internet is a hitherto unexplored cure for the common cold and other related winter ailments. The practice is only in it's testing phase but they are now about to begin clinical trials on people, which many of you will be aware is the final level of testing before a medication can be released. The medication itself has one of those pseudo-latin type definitions which tends to take a particular scientist's name and add "anusanitis" on the end, but the more common name is "six and half months of summer". Phil, Tom and I have all been accepted onto the trial program and we can't stress enough for you to do the same. Here's a quick look at the prognosis.
 

Disclaimer:

I am not a real doctor. I'm more of a doctor in the sense that Dr Pepper is a doctor. Although my advice is clearly sound, we take no responsibility for anything, whatsoever.

Please be seated

This is my first contribution to our website primarily due to the fact that I have been mostly sat on my derriere over recent months, so it's seems only fitting that my initial comments should focus on the comfort levels of the aforementioned posterior. One thing I have discovered about teaming up with two ex-forces chaps is their incredible appetite to cut, carve and bastardise their way through virtually every bit of perfectly serviceable kit we have, in order to create something tailor made to our needs that in no way resembles my GCSE Design Technology project. The latest effort involved taking out the rear bench seat in Barry (the Toyota) and replacing it with a single seat to free up some apparently much needed storage space. I was tasked (when did I start using phrases like that?) to locate and procure a single right hand side rear passenger seat from a geographically appropriate salvaging unit. However, as I was not overly keen on spending 6 months sat on something about as secure as the ejector seat from James Bond's DB5 my lack of enthusiasm no doubt led to my failure to find and buy one from a nearby scrap yard. Luckily for all of us Phil managed to acquire a suitable seat from a Citroen Synergy and happily informed us that the seat is in fact designed to be removable. Quite right, although the intention is you put it back in the Synergy, not a Toyota. Of any description. Regardless we pressed on and after quickly removing the bit of the seat that made it detachable, which was in the way, Tom fashioned a supporting bracket out of his former wooden kitchen work surface and bolted everything together in a euphoric explosion of rugged manliness, back to basics handiwork and most importantly overriding safety. Unfortunately it didn't fit. Not even close. But again unperturbed by this minor set back Tom returned to the drawing board, as opposed to the ironing board that was no doubt next on his kill list, and re-fashioned another bracket out of yet more wooden kitchen work surface.... And you know what? It's bloody ruddy brilliant. It fits, it's secure, it's kept it's original reclining function and it's startlingly comfortable. Which means I can go back to sitting on my a*se. Three cheers for the army, hurrah!

Tom in action	The seat	Tim breaking out a mental sweat	Phil enjoying a post-installation espresso

Survival Training

Decided to learn the art of sourcing ones food from off-of-the-land so hunted down and dispatched the wild beast known as the chicken. Pics here show the plucking and gutting of the ferocious creature; it was actually a cockerel known as Tiger to some and feared by all. He was laid to rest in the form of a very nice curry. We imagine that turning llamas into food will merely be an extrapolation of the process.

Mud Wrestling

This weekend saw the truck's first outing doing what it does best. Lots of mud, water, muddy water and gnarlyness (including wet muddy gnarlyness!).  We deployed on a miserable December Saturday night in preparation for the main event on Sunday (Note to those who care: roof tents are for winners).  Under the proficient tutelage of Tom Millward we put the beast through her paces on Salisbury Plain.  The pictures tell the story better than I could, though it suffices to say that we were impressed, not only by our innate skill, but by what these 4-wheel-drive machines can do. Final score: Tom 1 (despite getting the truck stuck twice), Phil 1, Tim DNS. However, at the end of the day, off-roading was the real winner.