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Woolly says – Christmas had passed, and my Aston Martin seems to have got lost at the North Pole, I have sent a quick email to Santa to get him to look into it, Jo says I should be happy with all the presents I got ….. what does she know! Father Christmas had also bought Zoe a cold, she lay in a pathetic heap sniffing and coughing everywhere before very unkindly passing it to me and Jo for a Boxing day treat.

Getting onto a flight with a streaming cold wasn’t the best, as we settled into our seats the mammoth sneezed, twice, covering several rows in front of us and the stewardess who was passing by, everyone looked at us, I sneezed into yet another tissue and tried to look apologetic through my streaming eyes.

Woolly says – As another sneeze started to erupt I shoved my trunk into the handy bag that I had found in the back of the seat in fear of being thrown off the plane for maiming people with the flying debris. It was a long flight, luckily as my ears were so blocked up I could barely hear the screaming child a few rows away. Jo and I watched a film and shared the tissues and throat sweets whilst Zoe offered occasionally sympathy in between bursts of laughter as my trunk got redder and redder from blowing it. Seven and a half hours later and we had arrived at the first airport. As we stood with everyone else transferring to another flight I tried to peer out of the windows to see what Delhi was like, it was hard to tell but thanks to the olbus oil that my trunk was now full of I could pick up the scent of dust, Delhi would have to wait for a month or so however, I noticed that Jo had that teacher look on her face, the one that said she wasn’t happy and that everyone needed to get to their seats immediately before she started handing out detentions. She was waving our boarding passes around and having glimpsed at them and then at the nearby clock I suddenly understood her disgruntled manner.

Our transfer flight was boarding, and we were miles away from the correct gate, I blow my nose, cleared my throat and smiled at the lady in orange who had told us all to wait. Having shown her our boarding pass and pointed at the clock on the wall I asked if it was possible to go, the other passengers crowded round me…. well there has to be the one Brit who asks and today it was me. She looked at her watch and spoke into her radio before looking at the fifty or so of us crowded around her, ‘you go now, go, run!’ Run, really, I looked at her before realising that we had no choice, the half an hour we had stood there would have meant a brisk walk, we now had a sprint on, I glanced round for the smaller member of the party and failed to spot him, hopefully he would use his incentive and get there somehow. We set off at great speed.

Woolly says – I failed to see the need to run as the nice assistance trunk sped past the girls, I waved and told them I would stop the plane as we sailed past. Ten minutes later the lovely driver, who’s name was Aran, told me it was my gate, I hopped off and hurried to the counter to tell the steward that a heard of humans were on their way and that two of those humans belonged to me, no problem he replied and used his radio to tell the crew. I sat happily waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Puffing our way onto the flight and collapsing onto our seats I could barely get my breath as the plane started to pull back and we set off on our last leg of the journey.

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Woolly says – As Jo coughed, hacked and spluttered into a pile of tissues I thought it might be a good time to fill my friends in about our destination. Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located southeast of India and northeast of the Maldives. The island is home to many cultures, languages and ethnicities which include Christians Moors, Burghers, Malays, Chinese, the aboriginal Vedda and the Tamils. The countries history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years, I wonder if they had mammoths! Sri Lanka was formerly known as Ceylon from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972, after its independence it was named Sri Lanka. Its recent history has been marred by a thirty year civil war which ended when the Sri Lanka Armed Forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), known in the UK as the Tamil Tigers, in 2009, something that I know Jo had followed on the news at the time. As the pane descended into Colombo, it’s current capital I was eager to see what it had to offer. Having collected the backpacks and negotiated a taxi to take us to the nearby town of Negombo, I sat back and watched as the small green and red tuk tuks fought for road space with the colourful lorries and scooters that honked continually.

The country looked lush and green, I was thankful not to be driving as we overtook, undertook and drove on the wrong side of the road.

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Woolly says – Having booked into our accommodation and dosed up on cold remedies once again we set off to find somewhere to eat. Being slightly off the beaten track meant a scary walk along pavement less roads with transport coming in all directions, I stopped looking at the traffic situation and found my eyes were drawn to the houses. Each house had a Christmas tree all beautifully lit and twinkly in the darkness, next to each tree was a nativity scene each one was different, and all were splendid. A church up ahead was amazing with bulbs lighting up the main part of the building itself and the courtyard, we stopped and stared as Jo snapped some pictures, stunning was the only way of describing it. Having finally found the beach and some much needed sustenance we sat happily mopping our noses and sneezing into the evening.

We had all agreed on a slow start to catch up on sleep and to give the mammoth and I a chance to fight off our colds followed by a day on the beach, a rare thing indeed in our lives.

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Woolly says – Things always look differently in daylight and as we retraced our steps from the night before I was able to admire the palm trees and crows that seemed to be everywhere. Breakfast on the beach couldn’t be beaten as I tucked into a plate of fruit and some fresh orange juice whilst we watched the fisherman on the beach emptying their nets into huge buckets before heading out to sea once more to bring another catch in. Ladies and young men carried the buckets past us and straight into the kitchens you really can’t get fresher than that! With full tummies we set off down the beach to find a place to lie and supress the snuffles, we hadn’t gone far when a friendly gent called Sham approached us and asked if we would like to go on his catamaran. Having refused his kind offer he then told us that if we wanted any trips to head into the hotel he worked for and they would be able to sort us out. The women didn’t need telling twice and half an hour later arrived at the sunbeds I had located with receipts for two trips, I lay happily in the sunshine with a warm breeze tickling my fur and dreamed of the tuks tuks and elephants to come.