Paradise found

The approaching storm

Lightning flashes on the horizon as our beautiful weather comes to an end just as Gabrielle finished her last post. It’s still hot though and incredibly humid. The gods are angry as we sip our cocktails and ignore them. Nothing is going to spoil five nights of no hotel changes, no driving and no sightseeing!

The air con is very efficient, continuing to cool even when the target temperature has been reached. We may be found solidified in ice blocks in the morning.

Down in the bar we asked what the wine was. The guy brought red and white bottles and Gabrielle apologised for putting him to so much trouble. “Madam, I thank you for coming to Sri Lanka. Without you I do not have a job. It is no problem to show you the wines.“ Gulp. A very good dinner, well cooked and presented, followed by a few moments contemplating the fact that the tsunami that killed thousands just here and in other parts of the Indian Ocean was the same one that we escaped in 2004. There but for the grace of someone or other …

We wake up, naturally for the first time in two weeks and we raise the blinds. The Indian Ocean stretches away before us through the gently moving palms and crashes onto the beach with a constant roar. A view like that is beyond price and we watch it silently from our bed. Now we know why the bed is up on a staging.

A day stretches before us with absolutely no agenda at all. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Gabrielle asks if I fancy a stroll. My answer is short, pithy and to the point. At breakfast, all manner of lovely food is brought to us. No buffet. We view the sun beds that are in our eyeline and muse on which one to take. Some nationality has already laid towels on a sun bed and a lady who with her husband has already bagged the best view decides that she needs to move elsewhere, taking up another set of sun beds and leaving her husband where he is. Cue gentle bewilderment from the breakfast ranks. And then she does it again, once more enlisting the aid of a staffer to shift her towels, pad and encumbrances. The husband studiedly ignores her.

The view

We make our way to the sun beds and select a discreet location where we can watch the world go by. A beach seller, knowing she cannot come onto the land, shows her wares at a distance, but to no avail. There are no takers. She plods off to the next hotel.

Is it beer o’clock yet? Apparently not at 10:22. Something to look forward to in the coming hours. We have breakfasted well but we know that lunch time will lure us with a club sandwich and a glass of something glisteningly cold. The day ambles by in a haze of reading, gazing, meditating and most of all, recovering. We have all decided that this has been a very demanding trip - not for the faint-hearted as Gabrielle characterised it in one of her posts.

And … it’s beer o’clock. Hurrah. But late at 12:20.  The stress of doing nothing is non existent. Apparently the weather may turn rainy this afternoon so we shall retreat to our balcony in that case. And at around 2pm that is exactly what happened although the rain was short lived and light. Not only rain arrived. Children. I mean, is that legal? A family of four for whom there is little in the way of juvenile entertainment, other than the beach. No doubt they will make the most of the sand and the sea.

And so, the cleaner has done her expert work and our room is cool and inviting while outside is a hot and humid 28C. The day is progressing exactly as expected and, do you know, all is well with the world.