Sincerely yours!

This lovely man is the person who I bring my trousers to when I'm in Kovalam he's really good at changing the length of M&S trousers into Sally sized! He usually charges about £1 a pair and does an excellent job. He's also good at replicating garments too. I've managed to resist buying a very nice skirt from him, because, realistically, I'd never wear it. When I was chatting to him today and asking if I could use his photograph, he even dropped the price by 50%. I felt mean, but still said no. Hope you like the make of sewing machine, he tells me Singer are no longer available!
I'm definitely into wind down mode now, which is just as well as the weather is getting really hot and humid. I had my usual pre 9am swim in the sea then moved back to the pool side. The waves got really big just before lunchtime so I was glad I'd gone early. I walked across the beach to the Leela, a 5*hotel. I didn't go in, but waited at the bus stop outside. I realised after a long wait that no buses had passed in either direction so walked across the road and got an auto. It cost £1.50 to the top of the hill and back, about 5km in total. Worth it though not to have to walk in the hot sun.
I meandered slowly around the back lanes, ending up in the Lonely Planet Restaurant once again. Today I had spicy poppadom with tomato salad followed by pineapple fritters, delicious. The extra shows the little lake/pond by the restaurant, it's normally really peaceful there, but not quite so today as a family with 3 very noisy children arrived. They were all over the place, even winding up the staff. Never mind, at least I couldn't understand them (they were Russian). The Russians seem to have taken to Kovalam there are many of them here, noticeable as their skins are usually even paler than those of us from the UK. They are very taken with the Ayurvedic treatments on offer and can be seen wandering around in rich green or orange rough cotton sarongs. Often with what looks like thick dark mud plastered on parts of their body.
Last nights dinner, in the Rock Café, was grilled prawns, just 4 huge ones weighing 250g before cooking and costing me £3, freshly caught that morning.
My bags are more or less packed and I've checked in online, so that means I can enjoy tomorrow. I have the whole day. I'm leaving the hotel at around 1am on Thursday morning for a 4am flight, yuck! I'll enjoy the day up until that time though.
I've put in a late, but exciting extra! There was a strange noise in the hotel lobby so I asked the receptionist what it was, a fan or something I thought. It's two birds, he said, sometimes they sit on the old building next door at night, come he said I'll show you! So I went and we looked and he pointed them out. What are they I asked, they were very far away so I couldn't see. He said the Malayalam name is Moonga. I googled it, they are owls! The picture came out remarkably well considering it is dark out there, and they were on the 3rd floor and I only had my phone, but you can see they are definitely owls. How exciting! Screech owls I would think they certainly weren't saying tuwhit tuwoo!