It’s been a good couple of days here in Patnem. We’ve spent the days at the beach. Swimming, reading and sunning in the morning. More of the same for me in the afternoon, Bob plays rumicube, cribbage or canasta in the shack with the gang, now 8 strong of game players.

We went into Palolem on Thursday night and ate at Dropadi, my favourite restaurant – 9 of us. I shared a chicken biriani with Bob plus an aloo gobi. As usual there both the food and the service were faultless. We had our usual exciting tuk ride through the back lanes to get there. Here are a couple of videos to capture it as we pass from our apartment on the east side of Patnem to the approach to Palolem to the north and west.

Last night Pamela, Bob and I ate at Tantra on the beach. The food was good but the service was abysmal. Not sure what’s happened to that place. They weren’t even busy.

Today I made Bob poached eggs on toast for breakfast and we spent the morning on the beach. He then headed into Palolem for a dental consultation and a clean and scale at the Singing Dentist ie the Palolem Dental clinic. Brilliant place. They have advised him that he needs 2 crowns replaced that he had done in Cyprus some time ago. No time this year but he will get them done first thing after arrival next year. They also think as a matter of lesser urgency he should have some implants done on the other side of his mouth. He will need a scan to see if the bone is adequate. They gave him a letter for that to go to the specialist scanner in Margao. Again it will have to be next year, no time this year. It’s so much cheaper to get dental work done here so if he decides to go ahead, it makes sense to get it done.

Tonight we all met up at Eve’s at 645 and then went down to Casa fiesta for 7pm. It is Hilary’s last night with us before she moves north. She and Janet went to Boomshanka for cocktails at 530 and then met us on the beach. I had the brilliant kingfish steak in garlic, lemon and butter sauce again and Bob had the dragon roll sushi again. He had two frozen strawberry daquiris and I had 2 g&ts. Our entire bill with service was £18. Lovely dinner under the stars in great company. I talked a lot with Kirsty who had a most interesting travelling youth. She’s a lovely woman.

Avoided buying an ice cream and came back to eve’s for more chat and a nightcap.