out into the real world

We have just realised that we are leaving the nursing home tomorrow to travel south for a week... a day sooner than we thought. We have been preparing ourselves for independant life by visiting the big city of Colombo. This was such a sensory shock of sounds, smells and sights that we were forced to take refuge at regular intervals in places like the British Oriental hotel, where we had breakfast overlooking the harbour, and lunch at the Galle Face hotel, a veritable gem of old colonialism. It is pictured below... Mysweet is looking particularly pleased with himself and in his element dont you think?

By the way, the real photos, taken with his enormous camera, will be posted when I get home. The files are too large for these poor but honest computers to open, so you will have to make do with phone cam for now...

We were not permitted to take any photos of the harbour because it was full of military ships, and, in fact the whole fort area was sealed off with full body checkpoints rather reminiscent of airport security. I was groped by a succession of ladies in beautiful saris. I think it might be true to say that there is still a wee bit of political unrest here...

Security was particularly stressed next to two giant modern buildings which housed the gem exchange and a shopping mall. The complex was called Twin Towers, which I personally thought was rather an unfortunate choice of name...

We found the only way to progress without being attacked by people desperate to sell us something was to continue to walk even if completely lost. To stop or even worse, to consult a map, was asking for trouble.

Back home in the safety of our enclosure, we arranged a tour of the lagoon in a boat this morning to see the animals and birds at 7 in the morning, with Edward of Tesco fame. I was entertained by his devotion to detail with the Tesco experience...it is even on the ticket look 'every little helps'

Mysweet took lots of pictures and so did I, but you cant see anything on mine.

In the previous post, I showed you a photo of the chefs and the food inspector. Mysweet has discovered that the chef in black is in fact a super chef imported from Dubai to give our lot a training course, which of course, includes the carving of vegetable decorations. There are five kitchen staff whose time is devoted to doing just this...