One Crazy Mixed Up Bee

This is the pool where I take my swim every morning, the beach and bay are in the distance, and below is the front of ourbungalow, where I sit and write my blog each day.


Saturday 9 September

We have been here a week today, and beginning to feel all the benefits of our prolonged rest. It is hard to imagine that the people who accompanied us on the train in Russian have been home for four weeks, and probably back in their routines, like they were never away. I know Millie is about to go off on her next escapade, and I expect many others are already planning their next holiday, while we have only completed a fifth of our journey.

The weather has returned to being hot and sunny, with very few clouds today. Perfect for our idyllic life and developing our sun tans.

Today was another easy day, meeting up with Juz and Dave after breakfast, doing a bit of shopping for essentials like wine and beers – oh, and some bathroomy bits too – we are not really alcoholics - and collecting our laundry at last – the ironing wasn’t great, so next time perhaps we will stick with Arnon, the mini-mart man. We later visited Juz and Dave’s villa at the Bandara Hotel. It is very similar in size to our bungalow, except its much more plush, of course, and has its own rain shower and deep bath leading out from the bathroom, as well as a plunge pool with Jacuzzi in their garden. There’s a small gazebo tucked in the corner with lots of flowers in exotic colours and lush green plants around the edges – one bee was buzzing around a corner of the gazebo the whole time we were there – hours – and we never did make out why it was behaving so – at one point it even fought off another bee quite aggressively, but still did nothing but buzz in the greenery – we shall have to see if it is still there next time we visit. But it was very pleasant to sit supping Singha beers whilst in the pool with the bubbles on or lie languidly around the garden. Juz and I also managed a dip in one of the several hotel pools – the one we used looked out over the beach to the bay, which was beautiful.

It was amazing how quickly the time flew. Before we knew it, it was 17.00 and we made our way back to Smile to prepare for the evening. We met up again in the Beatles Bar – this is definitely becoming a firm favourite – for more cocktails – before visiting Mr Tandoori for some very hot curry dishes. When we say medium at home, the food is quite spicy, but nothing startling, so we ordered medium/hot and Juz ordered hot. Wow! Even Colin’s butter chicken – generally a mild dish – was very spicy and Juz’s dhansak was head blowing! But it was all very tasty. Unfortunately there were no cocktails here tonight - Colin has got into cocktails in a big way - so we had to make do with Singhas.

We called in to the Frog and Gecko on the way home, for a last snifter before bed. They had the Chelsea match on a large screen and the boys couldn’t help but watch! Tomorrow is the Italian Grand Prix, so I expect we will be back again to see Schumacker bow out.