Green oranges on Lion Mountain

When your Dad can crash his aeroplane into two water buffalo, life is unlikely to go according to plan.

Even so, Emily Joy puts on her rose-tinted specs, leaves behind her comfortable life as a GP in York and heads off for two years to a remote hospital in Sierra Leone.

There she finds the oranges are green, the bananas are black and her patients are, well, really ill.

There's no water, no electricity, no oxygen, no amputation saw and Dr. Em is no surgeon. And there's no chocolate to treat her nasty case of unrequited love.

Then the rebels invade! Dr. Em's problems are tiny compared to those faced by the people of Sierra Leone.

If they can remain so optimistic, then what's Em's excuse?

Our green doctor is a bit of a yellow-belly, often red-faced, trying to fight the blues.

But green oranges give sweet orange juice. Never judge a fruit by its colour.