We have now been here just over 2-weeks and am feeling soooo relaxed!

Last Friday, after publishing the last blog, Brother Steve didn’t let us down and managed to get a FaceTime call through to me… it was nice to catch up with him whilst we were waiting for our dinner! It seems the issue with not being able to get through to Mum is, as thought, due to using an Indian SIM card and having that linked to my iPad instead of my UK number – doh! Steve is visiting Mum later this week so he will add my new number to her iPad and that should sort it 🤞 Thanks Steve – look forward to seeing you & Mum on Thursday!

Since last Friday, we’ve had a few days (well, afternoons…) on the beach and been on a boat trip (today) which has been great! Here’s some pics…

On Sunday (15th December) we woke to find there was a power cut… although, fortunately, the fans were working, anything powered by a socket was not (eg, Kettle, fridge, Air-con!)… luckily, as we have a gas stove in the apartment, we were still able to have tea & coffee and, as the power had still not come on, decided to head to the beach where we were told the power was out in the whole region but should come back on around 5pm…

We noticed that there seem to be a lot more people arriving for their Christmas breaks now so on some days the beach seems a bit busier but South Goa is still nothing like as busy as the popular beach resorts of the North such as Candolim, Calungute & Baga…

Not sure if I have mentioned but, although there are a lot of individually named beaches in South Goa, where we are is one long stretch of beach which runs for approximately 20miles (30Km) from Utorda beach to the north of us and Betul beach to the south where the River Sal cuts inland, creating the peninsula where Cavelossim & Mobor beaches are. As you might imagine, there’s plenty of beach walking that can be done without a hill in sight! The biggest hill we climb each day is the 63 steps (yes, I have counted!) once or twice a day to our apartment on the top floor of our block!

Anyway, on Sunday we took a stroll northward towards Varca. Although we have not yet spent the day on Varca beach (we tried but the shack we went to were playing their music a bit loud so it put us both off… I mean, after doing naff all in the morning, how am I supposed to have a well-earned afternoon snooze with music blaring?! 🤣), we have walked this way a few times and, when you get to Varca, there are a couple of beach shacks which have a moat of water around them caused by a small river that leads out to the sea from here and the incoming tide each day… however, a few days ago here, it was full moon, so the tides have been very high this past week and these shacks have become marooned. As we neared this part of the beach, we decided to turn around and head back at a point where it looked like there was water rushing down the beach to the sea… as we got nearer, we realised some of the shack owners had dug a channel to drain the water out of their unplanned moat and we arrived shortly after they had completed this narrow drainage channel and it was like rapids with water rushing out towards the sea… we stood and watched for about 30 mins as the narrow ditch that had been dug got wider and wider as the sides collapsed because of the speed of the water rushing through the channel… it was amazing to watch the power of the water and, when we left after 30 mins or so, the water was still draining out but the narrow ditch that started it all was now 10 metres wide and about 2 metres deep! Watching this small, speeded-up example of coastal erosion in action has certainly confirmed that we should probably steer clear of buying a property on or near to the coast when we start house-hunting in 2025!

After the beach, we headed back to our apartment via the local mini-market in the village… it’s generally a challenge to see in these shops at the best of times as they are a bit dingy, stocked in no order that makes sense to me, and a tad on the dusty side but… that said, you can usually buy what you need including individually wrapped chocolate, or butter portions… whatever takes your fancy… you can usually change up money too and, if they haven’t got what you want, you can bet that if they made one phone call, whatever it was would arrive in about one minute flat so they could sell it to you! 😄 On this day though, the power was still off so you could not see a thing! Of course, that’s just a minor issue for the Goans… the shop was still open and we picked up a loaf of bread for tea… the lady whose shop it is said the power should come in at 6pm…

Well, the power eventually came on again around 7.30pm and, despite the ice-cream in the freezer melting… all was good. And, in case you are wondering, after an hour or so, the ice-cream firmed up enough to eat so nothing was really wasted – hurray!

Last night (16th December) we went to see Ida down at Casmy Restaurant as she has said that Pete can have anything he wants to order from Amazon whilst we are here, delivered to her address – we wanted to make sure we had the right details! We again met up with a couple (Dawn & Trevor) from Clitheroe who had proved good company a few evenings before – although they are only here for 12 days and head back to the UK for Christmas, which is a shame… on the way back, we saw a couple of owls and some fruit-bats (no photo of them in the dark…):

Today (17th December) we have been on one of “Betty’s” boat trips… “Betty’s” is not, in this instance the famous Yorkshire Tea Room but a shack-type, seafood restaurant which has been on the Cavelossim Road for sometime… we thought we had done this trip in years past but the trip today was a bit different with drinks and food being provided… of course, Pete wasn’t fussed with the prawns or fish served which meant there was extra for me and the couple (Kay & Dave from Bury) that we ended up sitting with and chatting to throughout the trip… personally, I thought the food was great – they even provided us with a non-alcohol mojito, when all around us others had their’s with alcohol, which was great for me!

The best bit… the trip was billed as seeing dolphins and birds… whilst we didn’t see so many birds (or at least not much new), we did get to see loads of dolphins… see evidence below & apologise for my shaky filming abilities!

After our lunch of fish, rice & salad was served, the Captain of the boat got his tambourine out (Ooer! 🥴) and provided some entertainment – we were warned this would happen by Kay & Dave who have been on this same trip a few times… Captain Gerry (who is apparently 80 next October but doesn’t look it) gave a rendition of Y viva España with the words re-written so it was Y viva la Goa! Followed by the Boney M classic, Rivers of Babylon and finishing up with a Goan song which seemed to be about a man having several affairs with different women and asking his wife for forgiveness & for her to let him back into the house… the word door was mentioned several times… enough for Pete to think the good Captain was singing a song about hanging doors… 🤣 I reckon Pete is having DIY withdrawal symptoms being here! Katy Beck – don’t tell Paul I said that!

As I say, the trip was great – 4.5 hours at a cost of only £13 each… with food and bevvies! Great value 😀

So, that’s us done for the day… we cannot be arsed with going out tonight so have decided to have an evening in! As I’ve already eaten, I shall be having a tea of chocolate lava cake (what a mistake it was to find these in the local bakery in week 2 of our 8-week stay… Delicious but I will likely be twice the size by the time I get home! 🤣🤣🤣) with chocolate ice-cream… what a life we are lucky enough to be living! Namaste everyone x