I was sound asleep at 0315 when Bob woke me up. “There’s something dripping”, he said, switching on the light. I was so dazed, I couldn’t register anything for a minute, and then I heard it too. A steady to fast drip of water hitting the carpet. It was coming from a light fitting. Clearly something was leaking in the roof of our little house.

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We went downstairs and got a bowl to catch the water and Bob rang the night manager who promised to send someone in the morning. We went back to sleep. I must say the drip into the bowl was louder than the drip into the carpet had been.

At 0830 it was still going so we called reception. The technician would come to the villa but we had to be out of it before he came. Their staff are not allowed to come into the villas normally, everything is left at the door ie extra dustbin bags, change of sheets and towels – all sealed in plastic. Even the final clean after checkout happens 72 hours after we’ve checked out in case we’ve left any lingering virus behind. Anyway, this was an emergency, he would come at 1030.

So… breakfast and off to the pool. Blistering hot again today so that was no hardship. We are going to be brown as berries by the end of this. At about midday, the pool monitor approached to say that our little house was all mended but that they would ring at 4pm to check if the mend had held.

We went back for lunch at 1 and everything was ok. Had a nice charcuterie lunch and then back to the pool for the afternoon. Stayed until 415 in fact. The mend did hold. So we must hope we are not awakened again by the dreaded drip. In all honesty, I would have slept through it and we’d have woken up to a very wet carpet.

It’s going to be hard to rip ourselves away from the pool with weather like this, but there are some really interesting sounding places to visit around here, and so we will. Our friend John, who lived in Paris for a couple of years, sent us some ideas today which we will follow up.

We are so glad we came. Daisy keeps saying to me how lovely it is to get away. Just escape the UK for a bit. Not that there is anything actually wrong with our lives there, but it is good to escape the unrelenting doom of the news and to be able to look around with a bit of perspective, and not fear. We are being careful, we are wearing our masks when we are inside buildings and in crowded areas, we are washing our hands and using sanitiser but we feel like we are living life again rather than hiding away. Enough is enough of that and we won’t go back to it when we get home.

We have swifts nesting in the edges of our roof, just above the patio and it is fascinating to watch them flying to and fro and bringing food to the young in the nests.