I was woken from a fretful slumber around midnight. There was a sound like heavy rain, but there was no accompanying drilling noise from the tin roof. I clamoured out of bed and made my way in the dark towards the sitting room. I don’t know what dream I had awakened from, but for an instant I didn’t find it odd to be wading through what seemed to be a small river, as I wended my passage into the kitchen and discovered a sea of rising water, fed by a fierce cascade emanating from beneath the kitchen sink. Peering inside, I saw a pipe had burst.

I bleated out a distress signal and then hared off down the path to switch the water off at the mains. Having done that, we decided we would leave the mess until the morning, and return to bed. I was sweating fiercely from my short run, and went into the bathroom to have a shower. Of course, there was no water! I sluiced myself down with a bottle; but one of the peculiarities of this climate is that even the most innocuous activity can generate a head of perspiration and nervous energy that take an age to die down; and I found myself wide awake, hours later, nestling in a damp cocoon of bedding, listening to the steady drip of sweat as it ran off my forehead and nose, onto the pillow.

I discovered that Coco had changed the kitchen taps, replacing solid copper pipework with some flexible tube that was clearly made of substandard materials. It was what burst. The wrench Coco left behind was a lovely bit of kit, though!

I had prepared two separate boxes, one for the bike frame, the other for the wheels, and stuffed both full of frying pans, muesli, flip flops, mosquito tent and assorted stuff. They weighed in at 20kg each. I made them out of original, full length bike boxes from Halfords. Big mistake!

I got them to exactly the Air France regulation size; but when we pitched up at the check in desk, lo and behold, Mr Jobsworth himself was there. What was in these boxes? Err, mostly pans and muesli and clothes. Not bikes? No, not at all. Why, then, were they in bike boxes? I explained they were not ‘bike boxes’. per se, but bits of boxes that had once held bikes. The problem was, Mr Jobsworth continued, they had pictures of bikes on them, so the luggage minions would assume they were bikes, and since it took two minions to lift a bike, this added to Air France’s costs, which, he regretted to inform us, we would have to bear. 40 Euros each box.

If, I ventured, I had covered them in non transparent tape, so the bike pictures were blocked out, would they have been okay. Indeed, he said. How about, I suggested, I get them bubble wrapped? That would apparently be okay, too. Wait a moment, I then said. What about the second box? It doesn’t have a picture of a bike on it. No, he riposted, but it does say ‘Halfords‘.

We scurried to the bubble wrap place, where they only had clear polythene. We had our boxes wrapped, so now the bike picture and the ‘Halfords’ motif shone through  in gloss rather than matt, and headed back to check in, where we were informed by another Air France stalwart that we would have to pay 40 Euros for each box anyway, as they were non regulation size. I explained that they confirmed with measurement gleaned from Air France themselves. Yes, but they weren’t ’suitcases’. No, I agreed, but they held our entire wardrobe, and could therefore be deemed proper luggage.

Finally, they relented. But we had to take our boxes to a special drop off place, where they would be scanned. My mouth went dry as I considered the possibility of Mr Jobsworth asking the scanners to check my muesli story out. There were four packets of muesli in the boxes; but they were there as padding for the illicit bike.

The boxes proved of interest in Seychelles, too. We were one of the first out of the plane but the last through customs on account of choosing the immigration queue run by a lady on Valium. We strolled through the Nothing to Declare line and were asked what was in our boxes. I admitted to a bike. Asked to open a box, I worked up a nasty sweat ripping off the ludicrous plastic wrapping before exposing the contents. The customs man peered at the rusted frame of the Rudge, sighed and said in a dry fashion.

“One used bike”,

before dipping in and extracting a pair of bright yellow Crocs, a bag of Agar Agar, mud encrusted flip flops and a pot of jam. Thankfully, none of it was deemed worthy of import duty.

He sent us on our way, round the corner to the Air Seychelles desk where we were relieved of 88 Euros each for a one way ticket to Praslin. Iniquitous.

Needless to say, mosquitoes are still as plentiful as ever. So, whereas in England, we were living in one room of our house trying to keep warm, here we‘re living in two tents, trying to keep from being bitten :

These were the unlaid eggs from the dead chicken. The pouch affair becomes the shell:

This was one I ate, having declined the offer of fried pouch:

I took a picture of what seems a cheap and cheerful wooden climbing frame made of poles and half cuts bolted together.

Imagine my surprise, while surveying the minutae of the vegetable patch, to find a stray husky dog leaping and bounding about the place, running backwards and forwards along the electric fence, terrorising the chickens. I clapped my hands, but it didn’t appear to notice. I started chasing it, but at that moment, one of the chickens, in  a serious error of judgement, decided to leap outside the electric fence. The husky was onto it in a flash. I redoubled my efforts to catch it, and we parried back and forth among the vegetables. I cornered the dog, and aimed a kick at its flank. I hit it well, with a satisfying clunk, but this species is made of stern stuff, because it didn’t seem to register that I had even made contact. It barely glanced at me, but shook its head violently, presumably breaking the neck of the chicken lodged in its jaws, and then legged it for the open spaces, pegging it out through the open gate, which the thoughtful postman had omitted to close.

Meeting the owner across the road, where he had prised the carcass free, we both sucked our teeth in mutual exasperation. He offered to pay, but really, the bird had only cost £1. I took it back, and the resident butcher’s assistant drained the remaining blood and plucked and prepared a cari poulet.

I discovered a new kind of pain the other day when I inadvertently stepped on a nail while perambulating around the vegetable garden. It was buried amongst some hedge prunings. The nail penetrated the feeble sole of my fake crocs, bore through my foot’s leathery outer tissue, and sank itself deep into my instep.

Close scrutiny will reveal the top two thirds of the nail cleansed of rust, which might account for the raised red nature of the wound, and the curious crablike motion I now have to make when ‘walking’.