Friday, January 5

 

 

About 4:00 Irma woke to the sound of the temple in full action. She got up, closed the windows, and switched the large, noisy air-conditioning unit on. I woke up and took my pillow and sheet into the other bedroom to sleep.

Irma woke about 7:00 and I woke an hour and a bit later. We spent the first half of the morning out of sync.

I took Bruno for a walk while Irma unpacked the case she packed yesterday, and transferred the contents to another, slightly smaller, suitcase. Bruno met his four dog friends and abandoned any pretence of accompanying me in favour of having sex and then sitting in the bushes with the gang.

I thought Anib had had him castrated, so either Bruno engaged in enthusiastic sex or he did a very convincing impersonation; one that seemed to fool the other dog as well as me.

I walked down to the National Highway and back, but he still wanted to lie around when I passed them. He came in about thirty minutes later.

After breakfast I noticed his friends lying around outside our front gate. Irma went out and gave them the rice and dogfood mix Bruno had shown no interest in. They ate it all up, and then lay down and fell asleep.

At 14:00 Irma and Naa went to the beach with Tangarat to have massages. I did some cleaning and some ironing.

At 18:00 we all went to the beach with Tangarat. Naa had got an invitation to a party and Irma and I had decided to have our annual tandoori. We sat at Leo while Naa waited to get instructions. Eventually Anu arrived to lead her to Abby’s 32nd birthday party at Spice Village.

We talk with Kumar the waiter and I go and choose my snapper, from the eight on display – six red and two white snappers. Irma decides to have chicken tikka tandoori. We sit and wait and eventually my fish arrives looking pretty perfect.

I asked for spicy and I will feel very glad I did. I would describe it as mild but still tasty. If I had asked for mild I would have ended up with an unseasoned fish, as I did a couple of years ago.

We will get our rickshaw home and Naa will send a WhatsApp message at 22:00 to say she will spend the night with Abby and her sister Chelsea, who have a spare bed in their beach apartment.