In the morning Mikey and I ate our rather soggy Subway sandwiches and read to pass the time until we got to Goa.The train was an hour or so late, and kept stopping. I got off a couple of times to enjoy the heavy sunshine and bright blue skies. The countryside was all dry rocks and dusty palm trees.

We took a taxi to our hotel and I was happy immediately. It was a gorgeous, incredibly clean white Mediterranean-style villa with a lovely pool, excellent restaurant, sunshine and shade. I kept asking Mikey if we really could stay here for five whole days and we didn't have to do anything at all. He said we could, but I'm still not convinced. It just seems too nice!

I spent the entire afternoon by the pool. At one point the four-year old grand-daughter of the English owners showed me a frog that she'd found, and asked me to tell her about them. I have no nidea what a four year old would understand but I had a go and tried to explain about them coming from tadpoles. Then she said, "And then they turn into husbands." She obviously realised I was confused, ao she explained that you have to kiss them first. "Grandma said she had to kiss lots of frogs before she god Pops," was about as much explanation as I was going to get. So we went looking for more frogs (in the swimming pool filters) and my attempts at rescue were mocked by the amphibians who took one look at me and dived into the pool. I spent about half an hour fishing them out (the trick is to wait until they run out of breath and come up for air and then you can scoop themup with a net) and then I could go back to my book. A tiny, tiny spider with yellow legs and a metalic blue and purple-striped body sat on my hand for a nit before jumping off. I was very, very content.

We had an excellent supper to in the superb restaurant and they even did Archers and lemonade for me, which made me all sleepy. The beer had the same effect on Mikey and he was alseep before I'd even closed the door!