"I'M going to Morocco at Easter..." The old dear was busy reading the paper and I'd said it so very nonchalantly - if I could just mooch out before she asked questions? "Oh yes? Is it a school trip?"

"Mother, it is not a school trip, I do not go to school any more, but uh, yes it is sort of."

Lovely - she's back to the paper. Now I just needed to quietly retrace my steps and? "Are a lot of you going?"

"Could be, could be."

"Flying from East Mids or Manchester?"

"Err, we're driving actually."

"Driving? All that way?" Damn it - it was over, I could see that now. The paper was almost entirely forgotten and attention was almost entirely on me and my excursion. Well played, Hannah.

"Yes. It's for charity."

"So you're taking a coach to Africa for charity?"

"Well it might be a coach. But it might be a lorry, or a white van or a sports car."

"What?"

Shouldn't have been so cryptic. I was going to have to be straight up with her.

"You're hitchhiking! To Africa!"

"Oh, be reasonable, woman. It's for charity. And don't worry I'm going with a boy."

"A boy!"

Good grief, couldn't say anything right today.

"Yeah a really tall beefy one - hang on, is this making the situation better or worse?"

I myself think it sounds absolutely amazing - I got the travelling bug after my European adventures in the summer and can't wait to see a slice of Africa.

However, annoyingly, I'm with my mum in the fact that I'm a little apprehensive about the hitching part. Ever since I was old enough to understand the term, my parents have - rightly, but frustratingly - impressed upon me the dangers of hitchhiking and picking up hitchers, and I've viewed them always with utmost suspicion, viewing the activity as akin to putting your knife inside the toaster or standing on the cracks in the pavement - that is, I never dared to try them because bad things would certainly happen.

I remember my parents picking up a hitcher on a recent holiday on a very sleepy island somewhere warm and unthreatening, and feeling absolutely appalled that they broke this family mantra or moral code.

"Parents, I don't know you any more, " were my exact words if I recall. Of course being a young girl it's all very different for me whatever, yet even with this acknowledged and the necessary safety measures in place (accompanying male at all times; regular phone-ins to track progress etc) it feels odd to be given the green light to jump into strangers' cars and go wherever they're going.

I'm a little consoled by the fact that it's a charity hitch, so there's a chance that we may get picked up by people who aren't perverts or murderers. It's a chance I'm willing to take.

Although the charity angle to proceedings is a bit of a pain in itself - we need to raise £300 for charity in order to be allowed to go, and let me tell you, raising 300 squids is no mean feat for people who rip open the Hoover bag when they think they've accidentally vacuumed up ten pence (it's saddest when it turns out to be a paper clip).

But no matter! Valentine's Day is coming up and I thought I'd sell a few kisses - seeing as I'm raising money to stand on the side of the street waiting to be picked up, then I may as well start as I mean to go on (a year ago that would have been a joke?)