Plan B:

The passport has arrived! With a confirmed visa! Yes!
It's really a bit of an anticlimactic little piece of paper stuck in my passport, next to the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis. Despite myself I giggled when I saw the name of the Issuing officer. It seems to be written out as 'Aeeeeeebeeeel'; but I may have mistaken the 'b' for an 'le' that are very close together.
Alright, time to revert to Plan B!
Between Canadapost and myself we came to the conclusion that it would be best for me to leave Wednesday, for very little money ($225.05), than last night, for $1400.oo. It helps that I didn't get my hands on the passport until about 5:30pm yesterday, and the flight I was looking at left at about 2pm that afternoon.
The result of all of this is that I will be missing almost the entire UK portion of my trip, and arrive Thursday just before noon, then leave very, very early Friday morning. While this is incredibly disappointing it is better to miss the London bit than the Africa bit, neh? Also, it sounds like the boys are having an excellent time. As we speak, they could be bonding over footy and a pint in the neighbourhood pub.
So, the total cost of my learning experience becomes missing London, and being out about $500 worth of flights. All considered, that could have been significantly worse. The greatest difficulty was finding things to keep myself preoccupied with. The condo is now quite clean.
The good news is that I fly out tomorrow night at 5:45pm. I have my ticket (in my hand), my passport (in my hand), my visa (in my passport in my hand) and everything is still packed being as I did not unpack.
Cue the celebratory music! I'm on my way!