Tuesday, January 7

We both had a late morning and I did no writing, for the first time in ages. Being lazy felt good though.

The girls had their surfing lesson which ended in two different types of disaster. I sat in Leo reading a novel by Wendell Berry and watching them on the beach. Auo hated it from the first moments and came into Leo covered in sand and crying after forty minutes. She sat sobbing for fifteen minutes then asked for a glass of water.

Naa came in, scarcely able to move after seventy minutes, both of her calves cramped. Surfing, apparently requires very strong leg and stomach muscles.

Now Irma and I are in Challai and we are buying coffee from the coffee shop. They recognise Irma immediately and there are hugs and coffee all round. We will also buy vegetables and a big bowl. Later we will go to Modern Book Centre and Big Bazaar.

In the evening, when Irma has made a salad in the big bowl and we have defrosted the snapper from the freezer, we will go to Hari’s party which he is holding in the round house that is literally over the road from us. Andy and Eileen will be there with ten other people, all of whom are Swedish. Auo will eat very little, and then leave early and fall asleep at home because she says she doesn’t feel well.

Just before we leave it will start raining monsoon-like rain. My trousers will get soaked up to my knees as we walk five hundred metres home.