Sunday 13th October 2024

We both enjoyed being able to lie in for a bit this morning, as our first week here has been pretty full-on. Unfortunately, our washing hadn't dried very much overnight, as the air is so humid, and the temperature drops a little during the night, We think it rained a lot during the night as well, and it certainly rained for most of the day, so Sandra's idea of taking us to a coconut plantation had to be scrapped, as it just wouldn't have been that much fun.

I spent the morning sorting out clothes, including doing a pile of ironing - mainly the shirts I wear for school each day, plus the new shirts I bought at Selyn yesterday, so that I have some reasonably smart-casual clothes to wear when we go away with Sandra's family for two nights at the end of next week. We are not sure where we are going, as it is a surprise, but we know it will be a lovely break away for a couple of nights, so we are very much looking forward to it.

Sandra invited us round for lunch, and she picked us up herself. It is only a short drive of around 5 minutes to her home, where we had a glass of wine and a chat before enjoying a delightful lunch of traditional Sri Lankan foods - all vegetarian - with rice, daal, sambal, poppadoms etc. I never know how to spell daal, as it can also be spelt dal and dahl, but I tend to write daal. It is very simple, but one of my absolute favourite foods here.

We returned home about 14:30, just in time to see a large troop of monkeys clambering on the roof tops around us. The neighbours get very annoyed with them, and were firing sling shots at them to scare them away, as they regard them as pests, because they take any sort of food that they can get their hands on. It's not good to leave windows open here, as they can also get in through them and pinch anything that they take a fancy to.

Today's photos show Valerie at the lunch table with all the delicious traditional Sri Lankan foods, plus a number of photos of the troop of monkeys creating havoc in the neighbourhood this afternoon!







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