Sri Lanka, Part 3 – Happy Birthday to Me!!

16th to 21st January, 2026

And Happy Birthday to my dear brother James, of course! And to Dolly Parton and Sir Simon Rattle for that matter. The latter and I were actually born on the same day – as I am sure he mentions to his mates.

Well, other than that (Mrs. Lincoln), what else has been happening? To be honest, not a great deal, though Val and I (and a truly delightful Frenchman called Christian) did manage to win at Pétanque which was a bit of a turn up. I have to say the opposition took it in exceptionally good heart, even when we had a quick round of ‘We are the Champions’, I tried translating it into French as ‘Nous sommes les Champignons’, but apparently that is not quite right…. I did think that a rendering of ABBA’s hit ‘Waterloo’ would go down well, but in the light of their niceness, I refrained.

Before I forget, one very exciting bit of news, nothing to do with the holiday, is that our daughter, Claire, was interviewed by both BBC News and Al Jazeera about AI generated images and nudification. Very proud parents!!!

We have been very good and made some friends. We spent a few very pleasant evenings playing Skip-Bo with a lovely couple from Munich called Aron and Sylvia, who are also terrific dancers, which, one night, coincided with the evening entertainment (of which more later) being a rather good duo who played a repertoire to which one could dance. So Aron and Sylvia set off, followed swiftly by Val and me, which started a trend and about 4 other couples also got onto the dance floor. Great fun and that is coming from someone who is not a natural dancer. Val is excellent and I am fine for a while, but for some reason I then seem to lose the beat. If reminds me of going up the T-bar in skiiing where your two skis are going along quite happily in tandem and then one of them starts straying off the beaten track and has to be brought back forcibly. I remember doing that once when sharing the T-bar with a rather large German gentleman who, after I tried to bring my errant ski back into line, just disappeared! Admittedly, although I couldn’t see him, I could certainly still hear him!!

We also feel we have friends for life in Christian and Marie-France. Christian was part of L’Equipe de Reves (The Dream Team!!) at Pétanque and speaks excellent English and is an absolute delight. His son lives in Haslemere, so we are hoping to see them both at some point in Suffolk.

Of course, the big event was my birthday. Val is now an expert in organising hotels all over the world to produce some wonderful birthday cakes and this occasion was no exception – accompanied by sparklers and a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’.

Other than my cake, we had a nice relaxing massage and a particularly restful day. Oh and a shout out to Lala, one of my many dear sisters, for one of the best birthday cards with the lines of ‘In banana years – you’re bread!’ Loved it!!

The hotel also celebrated Pongol, a South Indian/Sri Lankan harvest festival, enjoyed by Tamils, who make up about 13% of the population of Sri Lanka. I am sure you all remember the celebration from the blog on our trip round Tamil Nadu…

A quick word about the evening entertainment. Now, the hotel has a combination of maybe 2 night stopover guests (it is in relatively easy distance of the airport) or guests who might stay about 2 weeks. So in effect, the music does not need to change as the guests do instead. So effectively that means, I fear, that we may be in for 8 weeks of the same line-up each week. It seems to be a pianist on Sundays (quite good in fact), a local duo on Monday, (so-so), a very soulful saxophonist on Tuesdays (good), another or possibly the same duo on Wednesday and Thursday (not the greatest, but maybe local singing is supposed to sound like that – like Chinese opera, if you know what I mean), Friday a solo singer (sadly worse that the duo) and a good dance duet on Saturday (as mentioned before). Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, they produce the same repertoire each time they perform. Ho hum….

We went for a lovely evening stroll round the hotel gardens where they border the lagoon. Inevitably this was an opportunity for some birds photos!!

Val has been having a number of Ayurvedic therapies mostly for her knee and feet, which seem to be helping and she has had some much better days, though we probably need to factor in the relaxing nature of the holiday, lack of stress, warm weather, etc. Unfortunately she had a touch of gastritis, but the doctor came and gave her something which helped. She also had another fall and hurt her left hand. The latter is slowly getting better….

OK, that will probably do – just a photo or two (or three) of the many crows that the resort and indeed the whole area has. Every half hour or so, by the pool, there is the sound of something akin to a bomb falling followed by a loud bang at which point all the crows fly off, only to come back again. In the evening they gather for an evening drink and bath…

Finally, just to show you what we are up against…

Ok, folks, that’s it. Off for a haircut shortly. All the best.