This is what happens when you go on holidays with your family and your parents

I'm ba-ack from 10 days in the jungle or the desert or whatever you call it. I went to Africa on safari with my family and this one time? It hailed. Apparently that is highly unusual in the desert.

I know this because as we were huddled in our open truck next to a bush with lightening striking all around us and my shoes filling with water and HAIL coming down on my head, our guide did say "THIS IS HIGHLY UNUSUAL" while my son shouted over the noise of the hail, "BUT IT'S MEANT TO BE THE DESSERT".

[Is it desert or dessert? I always get mixed up].

The whole trip was great actually. We went with my parents, my brother and his daughters to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my Dad emigrating to Australia from South Africa. We arrived in Johannesberg and I promptly got food poisoning. With total confidence I can tell you that my highlight in Johannesberg was the needle I got in my bum from the emergency hotel doctor on the first morning.

Nothing else would stop the vomitting or the pain in my head. After that? All good.

So we caught a light plane to the game park where we'd booked to go on safari in the Kalahari Dessert.
For the next four days we went out at 6am for about 4 hours and then the same again at about 5pm.
Me. In an open truck for 8 hours a day. With no connectivity.

Didn't stop me trying. My Dad took this photo and sent it to the family captioned: Mia On Safari.

No wifi in the Kalahari but I was making notes about something on my phone - which, in my defence, I had with me to use as a camera. And a security blanket.
Clearly, it runs in the family. Here is another candid moment with my Mum, this time in Capetown:

Look, if you've read this, you'll know what happens if I try to cut off from work and the world completely. Shit can get ugly. I enjoy what I do. I miss work when I'm not doing it. So I dipped in and out and still managed to have a lovely break because I got involved when I wanted to not because I had to. Big diff.

Back to the safari. I'm not a photographer. And because I'm not at all sophisticated when it comes to holiday snaps, I prefer mine to have people in them. Otherwise I could just download some animal shots from Google and you wouldn't know I was there, am I right?

So it became a bit of a project to take a series of Safari Selfies. I got quite good at it despite being teased mercilessly by my family.

Look: Selfie with baboon (Capetown)

Selfie with Giraffe in Tswalu, Kalahari:

Selfie with Cheetah and small child, Tswalu.

Selfie with Aardvaark:

Shoe-selfie with meerkat who thinks my shoelaces are a grub:

Selfie with Sables or Oryx. Tswalu.

Selfie with Bambi, Tswalu.

So there you go. Here's the guide we had. Brett. We loved him.

Had a blast. Back now.

This is an excerpt from Mia's weekly email, Things I'd Tell You If We Were Friends, where she writes about her life and shares links to her favourite online reads of the week. You can subscribe  here.