Preface: I just finished reading Mick Herron’s latest novel titled ‘The Secret Hours’ in the ‘Slough House’ (aka Slow Horses) series. In it the Deputy Director General of MI5 is referred to as First Desk. I got so into the book that I’ve started referring to the woman who seems to be in charge of the remarkably wonderful High Park Hotel on Nilaveli Beach, as Front Desk.

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Our hotel breakfast is at eight o’clock in the morning. About 50 metres from where we were sitting, crows, big enough to fly off with puppies, were squawking loudly. Suddenly, out came Front Desk with a small wand which had a tiny cylinder attached to the end of it. She held it above her head and waved it slowly back and forth. The crows, all that distance away, immediately went silent, then flocked off. I asked Front Desk what had happened. She told me that the little cylinder was an unlit firecracker, and that firecrackers, lit or unlit scare the devil out of crows. Imagine the vision and/or communication skills these birds must have. The entire band had scattered away from the property in seconds.

In pretty much all of this new world we inhabit, temperatures are rising. Here in Sri Lanka it’s ungodly hot. To make it worse, the heat feels more intense, because of the current high humidity. Elenka and I wash our previous day’s clothes early every morning. In Cambodia or Thailand you’re able to take your dried clothes off the clothes line by eight or nine in the morning. Here in Sri Lanka, on these rain-less, but humid days, you’re lucky if you can bring them in at sunset.

A young German lass who lives in Sri Lanka has befriended us. She told us of a job she had at a hotel. Because food and bunkhouse accommodation were provided, she was expected to be ready, willing and able 24/7. Her monthly salary was $100US per month. 

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The sea is calm and thankfully coolish, now. Elenka and I can both now groove to the waves.