Saturday, December 30

As we head towards the new year the chanting from the festival in the temple next door gets louder. Last night it got so loud for so long that Irma shut all the windows and put the air-conditioning on full-blast to compensate. I doubled my sheet up and dragged it over my head. Irma got a cover from somewhere. We went back to sleep.

Bruno seems to have got me into a routine, because at 9:00 we went for the same long walk and, on the way back, he did a big shit in exactly the same spot as before.

We spent most of the day doing nothing much: reading, showering, sitting in the sun, and playing on Instagram.

At 15:30 a car arrived to take us to the beach not far from the airport. Indian families filled the beach, where young men sold them balloons and bubble-makers, and buckets and spades. People ate corn and candyfloss and much more. Horses waited patiently in the heat for children to ride them.

We go to the Old Coffee House, on Shangumugham Beach, which we discovered in a newspaper article last year. We order fruit drinks and a light meal. I watch two Indian women looking out at the beach and into the sun.

Not all our food will arrive when we want it or as we want it, but we will enjoy ourselves anyway. Walking back to the car we will see a pink patrol car, one of the female police services started in the wake of the rape and harrassment scandals a few years ago.

Bruno will race out when we get home and return much later in the evening.