Well, we made it to Om and Half Moon Beach and another one still further away and can confirm the malign influence of Gokarn extended well beyond the town boundary. Although it seemed to be the people rather than the topography that caused this, even without people something unpleasant still hung in the air.

This is all subjective, of course. We know a Frenchman who spent a couple of his formative years in Bognor Regis and remembers it with incomprehensible fondness.

Well, two highlights I remember from your neck of the woods are Hot Water Beach, where you need a spade to dig a hole in the sands, and then you can wallow in a delightful hot bath, and you could – though this may no longer be possible – swim out to some mussel encrusted rocks and peel off your supper material; and a little further south, in Tauranga, where there is a campsite on the right hand side just before you cross the river/estuary leaving town going South. It has a fantastic thermal pool, where once again you can sit and wallow. This is especially good at night when the air temperature is low.

Clearly, New Zealand isn’t limited to wallowing, but I found something deeply soothing about it.

 

So, the Gokarn question has been settled! I trust you saw the massive wooden chariot that looked as if it had stepped out of an animated film? As for the trousers, their utter ludicrousness defies analysis.

Try switching your phone settings between automatic and manual. That may give you coverage. I did this in Spain and it worked. According to the Virgin ‘map’ you should have been okay in Goa although out in the sticks it’s patchy. Also, try the Fresh sim. Being able to send and receive texts is definitely worth it, so maybe if you find a cheapo Indian sim. Apparently, you can call overseas on them for the cost of a lassi.

Just in case you’re missing them, here is a photo of the pigs. They demolished the house we built, so I had to construct another one with the last of the hay bales. 

 

 

Check this out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TdMMGVRKqY

At least I can’t be accused of giving myself a pretty face; although I have to say, I thought they were all rather more splendid in their original colour, rather than various shades of orange.

I played badminton with Jacques and a couple of his Monday night cronies this evening. I was handed the special, highly prized, most finely weighted shuttlecock to start the knock-up with. Everyone else then declared a need to relieve themselves first, so I blasted the shuttlecock around on my own, and managed to hit it so high it lodged on top of one of the light cages. I offered to purchase a new one but of course it was irreplaceable. Pure Larry David!

All the other nylon shuttlecocks were declared to be unplayably slow, so we settled on some feathered missiles, which were so fast the game became unrecognisable. What made it even less like the badminton I remember were the rule changes. No longer do you have to serve to score; now every point is either added to your or your opponent’s total. Muff up a serve and you don’t merely fail to gain a point, you hand one to the other side! What’s worse, your partner doesn’t get to serve after you. And you need to get to 21 to win.

Jacques and I lost the first game, won the second, and then lost the third. We switched partners and Tim and I lost the first and won the second.

It was good fun but I was too used to the old style of scoring and the slow shuttle to ever feel on top of things.