Wednesday
5th May

Where
does the time go . We're also still trying to get over how wonderful the weather
is. It averages out at 80, whatever that is in centigrade. And at this stage of
our sabbatical I’m not even going to try working it out except to say how
brilliant this wonderful heat it is. How
soothing it is to wake up to the gentle lapping of waves on the sea shore about
15 metres away.

Hired
a car yesterday, a Hyundi. Only done 38,000 Kilometres and it’s already
completely clapped out. It’s no wonder though, the government here has taken
road humps or 'sleeping policemen’ to a whole new level. They’re really vicious
and you have to go over them at no more than 15. More than that threatens to
tear off both the axles. The roads? Well.............. perhaps the least said
the better. Fortunately though, the Health and Safety Taliban are not here and
it’s free and lovely. You just have to be careful where and how you drive. You
would think that some of the drivers may
have just bought their licences by the way they are all over the road . Lovely
and interesting. Perhaps they’re just
dodging the potholes though. Even I have to do this; amazing how you have to
rapidly adapt your driving skills to the other drivers and also the ‘wrong’ side
of the road.

And
sometimes there are no pavements either. It’s also quite amazing how people
actually survive and thrive without all those enormous warning signs and hard
hats and high visibility jackets we have in Britain. All I can say is long may they stay this way here.

Another
advantage of being here is there is no saturation coverage of the elections. Odd articles in the paper and bits on TV, and
that’s all. I like it.

It’s
not been all holiday though, we need to find ourselves accommodation starting
this coming Saturday as our weeks
timeshare runs out. We trawled through the local paper finding lots of places
and made our requirements known to several Estate Agents as well . Today it’s
come up trumps. A beautiful (Dyana doesn’t think it’s that wonderful) studio
apartment right on the famous Simpson Marina. We’ve no boat though. In estate
agents terms its ‘location, location, location’.  5
minutes walk to the beach, 5 minutes to the shops, a boat mooring slipway right
alongside our small terrace. 2 pools and a Jacuzzi, tennis courts and a
barbeque area. For those who know the area, 3 minutes from the famous Jimbo’s
restaurant. We’ve taken it.

It
was a tough decision though because today we went to see a ‘shack’, and the
only thing between it and the sea was the beach. Just paradise. The only
problem with it was the airport runway was at the back and the noise from all
the planes taking off and landing would drive me crazy. A true Robinson Crusoe
place.

Today
was interesting, we went to the French side of the island. To one of their
famous beaches Orient Beach to meet some people we’ve made friends with while
here . There are 5 beaches all together in a strip about 2 miles long and the
last one is the nude section. Just amazing to see how the French do everything
completely in the buff. Lovely all over tans. They’ve obviously been doing it
for ages. At one point they tried to get as many onto a small raft, and all had
a bottle of beer to toast something or other. When they had about 40 on this
tiny platform and it was about to sink, they all cheered and toasted their
success. What a strange sight. No cameras allowed in the area though.

We feel
so much more at ease now that the pressure is off to find accommodation. We can
relax and start enjoying more of the island.