Getting lots of reading done, but on unpacking my case I was surprised to see how few books I'd actually brought with me. I had put aside a few for fear of being over my weight allowance (baggage not me this time), but had a lot fewer tomes with me than I had intended.
Luckily I have my Kindle, which I haven't used too much in the last month or so, but which has a couple of Margaret Atwood books on it, plus the compete works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. So that should keep me going for a while. And aside from not being able to leave it on your lounger when you go for a swim, holidays are where the Kindle really comes into its own. You can take hundreds of books away with you and not have to worry about weight allowances. I wish I had downloaded bit more before I'd come out (though another beef with this device is how few books and authors are available on it at the moment) as there is unsurprisingly no wireless signal for it here, but I have plenty to be getting on with. I motored though most of Atwood's "The Year of the Flood" which I had read 26% of a couple of months ago (yes I can be that precise as the Kindle tells me that), but which I had to restart.
The hotel we're in is massive, with hundreds of guests and five restaurants. I was worried about there being too many people around, having enjoyed the secluded nature of the place we stayed in last Christmas, but of course one actually has more anonymity in a massive hotel. There are so many people around that no one gives you a second look or bothers you or notices when you have spent every single day on the beach and done nothing but eat, drink and read. In a small hotel you are bound to have to talk to other people, but in a big one you don't have to. And that's pretty much all I want from a holiday. Not to have to talk to any strangers. Or make friends with anyone. I have enough friends.
We dined in the poshest restaurant in the complex tonight which opened out on to the beach and had a five course set menu (I had managed to get by with just a banana for lunch - which we'd cunningly stolen from the breakfast buffet). It was romantic and relaxing to be eating by candlelight with the ocean lapping at the sand just feet away. I gave some of my pudding to a tiny, skinny cat who was loitering under our table, so maybe I am keener to make friends than I pretend.
At the end of the meal I thought I spotted a seed in the bread basket, which was now emptied of its impressive range and tasty breads. I picked it up and popped it in my mouth, biting into it expecting it to make a satisfying crunch. Instead it made a bit of a squelch and deposited liquid on to my tongue. I removed it rapidly and put it back in the basket, looking closer in the gloom and seeing several legs waggling in dismay. It had been some kind of insect, but I didn't want to look too closely. I mainly felt sorry for having killed or gravely injured an innocent creature, but was a little perturbed when the end of my tongue started to feel numb and my lips slightly swollen. Had I just ingested some deadly poison? I figured it wouldn't be enough to do me in and remained quite calm in spite of the numbness and the bitterness. Maybe I should have agreed to be a contestant on "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" after all, as I had been happy enough to munch away on that one insect. But I suppose it would be hard to confuse a kangaroo penis with a sunflower seed.
I survived through the night. Which is more than can be said for the poisonous seed beetle or whatever it might have been.
