So what did I do on Christmas day? Well, it wasn’t the UK story of snow and ice and a red peaked northerner pulling a sleigh. It wasn’t holly and mistletoe and carols at the door. Here in Ghana there are black-skinned red peaked equivalents who are sleigh-less as far as I can gather and there are no chimneys for them to climb down. But I had little to do with them, either. It is the winter solstice period but that still means that temperatures are around 32 degrees. There is a national holiday for most and, taking advantage of this, we are staying three hours away from Accra on a beach. The chalet is simple but air conditioned and the seascape is rural and undeveloped with sheep outside the door, coconut palms a few metres further on and the breakers rolling in beyond that. Vultures the size of geese seem to like our roof, eyeing egrets hopping behind the sheep and picking up their droppings. Walking on the beach, we meet eight year olds who shimmy thirty feet up the palms to bring me coconuts which they prepare for me to drink. As I mentioned many blogs ago, coconut water can be used as an alternative to blood plasma, it being sterile and containing a large array of vital traces minerals.