BIRTHDAY!

22nd August 2010

My birthday – what luck. Woke to slightly overcast skies with blue peaking through – this was at 7am, it could only get better. When I finally got out of bed and had had the happy birthday conversation with my parents I wandered into the living room, and there was the table resplendent with a birthday feast any person with a sweet tooth would salivate at. Pancakes, nutella, cake, candy popcorn, coconut treacle and ginger biscuits all topped off with ginger coffee. They had even made me birthday cards extolling my virtues as a teacher, not at all sarcastically referring to my tendancy to be a know-it-all…

We headed out the door at about 10.30am, record time for a Sunday and went to meet Priyanka at the bus stop on the way to Mt. Lavinia hotel. But she was dropped off by Dominic’s wife and she insisted on taking us all the way to the hotel. So we reached the beach, with our fluffy hotel towels and sun loungers by 11am, the perfect amount of time to turn ourselves pink in our eagerness to be golden sun goddesses on our return from tropical climes. We had found this excellent deal of 1000 rs (6 pounds) for lunch and the full use of private beach and the shiny pool – we of course spent a little more than that on having drinks delivered to our little settlement of crispy bodies. It was impossible to swim as the sea was like a giant tumbling exfoliation machine; it was rough and chucked sand into the surf to scratch us.

By about half four we realized we may have spent a little too long by the sea, not realizing quite how hot it was due to the cooling sea breeze. We headed back to the pool, which was very soft compared to the sea and lazily hung around the edge watching the sun begin to go down. The showers in the changing rooms were the best we had had for a long time and we probably spent too long in there, but it meant that we didn’t look quite so sun stroked when we returned to the deck to watch the sunset and drink baileys coffee.

Dominic invited us back to the Sansoni house for a drink, and we were spoilt by him, his wife and their charming children. Dominic pours with a heavy hand, so a gin and tonic in we were all feeling very talkative. They provided us with cheese and crackers, chicken curry and after eights and of course a copious volume of vodka and gin, resulting in us stumbling home at about midnight.

I rounded off the evening by speaking to my brother who was back at the pub in England and as a result just as inebriated as me. A lovely ending to a lovely birthday – I was only missing my birthday buddy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUZIE!