getting ready for visitors

In the past 10 days the coast has filled up with families; now at the beach, between the pines and the water is a deluge of spattered orange and red and blue and green - the colours of people and their beach possessions. Towels and mini tents and inflatables, umbrellas and fluorescent bikinis. This shot is before the deluge of school holiday folk.

We lie on the beach and gaze up at the pines overhead - it amazes me that there is such nice dappled shade just a few yards in from the sea, and provided by such insubstantial leaves as pine needles.

In the evening we get news from David, who is joining us in a few days, flying in on Sunday.

We asked him to bring us a few things; tea bags that taste of tea, reasonably priced ibuprofen, and branston pickle. We seem to have become the parody of expats living abroad, we need the things you just cannot obtain here.

Then I am off to go and get a couple of extra chairs. We only packed two chairs for this trip, the plastic garden chair being our preferred option, since it is both very light and quite comfortable. The local Plodine supermarket sells them for K30 each, which is about £3 (unbelievable isn't it?)

With the chairs strapped to the motorbike I get more than the usual admirers of bikes, and lots of thumbs up from others. It would have been funnier still with someone seated on the chairs....

Home for a lovely fresh pasta supper with trimmings, eaten, as always al fresco.

And David is even bringing us some light bulbs - I could not think where to obtain the 12v halogen bulb that provides our outdoor lighting, and I decide to take a photo and send him this..

and then this; where to get them online if he has time...

And he replies - he has loads of these! - he's using them to light his animation puppets with, as they are small and quite bright for their size. He will bring some with him - Hooray!