Why did the chicken cross the road? - 19/09/07

Having spent most of the morning sweeping up mangled corpses of various insects and arachnids (I’m killing indiscriminately now – it’s no longer just the mosquitoes that must be destroyed), I decided to wander down to the beach. I’d been for a jog earlier in the morning so I reckoned I deserved some lazing about time – well I am officially on holiday until Monday so I can do what I want. Ha!

I went past the half kitten to inspect it so I could file a progress report, and I can now inform you that today it’s not even half a kitten. It’s just a bit of squashed and dirty fur with the almost recognisable remains of a cat face. Someone had a feline feast last night... Yuk.

My neighbours, the Rastafarians, were smoking and playing drums when I walked past and on to the beach. As I got closer I saw a group of people in the water, all in a neat formation and all waving their hands in the air. I panicked at first because I thought they were all drowning (in a very orderly fashion) but then I realised that these serried ranks were in fact grannies doing aqua aerobics in the sea. And it looked like they were having a great time! I hope when I’m a granny I can have that much fun.

I spent an hour on the beach – any more than that and I would have frazzled. I was wearing factor 30 sun cream but I don’t want to risk the humiliation of being the stupid Brit that fell asleep on the beach only to wake up looking like a lobster. I took some pictures while I was out and about but the ones of myself are appalling. I always look confused when I’m trying to take a photo – it’s clearly very difficult to smile AND press a button at the same time.

I saw a VERY weird caterpillar today that was red with long furry tufts of black hair. It looked like a really small and brightly coloured bog brush. I also saw a chicken crossing a road which was funny – I really wanted to ask someone why it had but I wasn’t sure if the joke existed in France so I decided not to risk the embarrassment.

Tonight, after almost burning down the house (The oven has two settings; Extremely Hot and Raging Inferno.) I dined on mildly charred chicken with limes and hot chilli sauce and stir fried vegetables. I’m trying to avoid buying things that aren’t local wherever possible due to the enormous cost but there’s a bit of a limit to what you can make with bananas, coconuts, limes, rum and sugar – apart from punch of course!