The unhappy bananas and the boy with red hair

Hmm, our beach paradise was rudely awakened...well we were, in our beach cabana.

We were staying in a place called the Full Moon on Unawatuna beach. The manager was charming enough but did not mention something rather important.

Every Friday night, there is a rave disco next door at the "happy banana".

The night before I had been unable to sleep because of the noise of the pounding sea on the beach two metres from our door, and the rain pouring down our naturel wooden roof.

On Friday, this was no longer a problem. The only thing that I could hear was the insistent pounding beat of the bass. It was like lying on a disco floor with a thin sheet over me...

Luckily at 1.30 in the morning, there was a power cut and silence except for residual gnashing of teeth from an exasperated Mysweet. Perhaps he had bitten through the cable.

The next day, the Full Moon was less full as we moved to a wonderfully welcoming unpretentious, quiet place called Surfcity, where the cook excelled himself with a whole grilled fish for our last meal before leaving.

But enough of that delightful as it was.

Today I staggered in to meet my autistic musicians wondering if my jet lag would put us in the same sort of space musically speaking. And I found to my distress that it had all got too much for the boy with red hair. He was no longer there. He had been taken to hospital yet again soon after I last saw him just before I went on holiday. He had started out in an open ward, then had to be placed in a closed ward, and was spending considerable periods in the "chambre d'isolation" (a room on his own for his own protection and that of others).

The carer told me that he was more and more unable to control his actions, which had become very violent. That last time that I saw him left me with a strong impression of someone trying so very hard to control himself and his emotions. He wanted desperately to hear the music but swung dramatically between tears and extreme joy. He was very fragile and I am so sorry to hear that he seems to be losing the battle for the moment. He is in a hospital nearby. Perhaps I will contact them and see if they would like to be visited by a musician...