‘You’re running out of things to say,’ John remarks.

‘Yeah,’ I agree. It’s a first for me. For a moment we are stunned into silence.

I think it is because life has simplified itself down to just necessities. I think in single syllables now. Beach. Book. Beer. Mango. Oh wait. That last one is two syllables. And syllable is three. But whatever.

Sue me.

Back to one syllables. See what John means?

I had to piggy back lula to nursery this morning because John left her shoes on the beach yesterday evening. We stopped at the chai shop on the way to buy her some banana bread and me some samosas then I continued on like a pack mule.

I left her playing barefoot in the little play area at nursery, banana bread in hand, as grubby as a termite  and I wandered back down the dusty street, past the cows, through the little village stopping to admire our landlady’s festival sari and for a chat with Chan the tuk tuk driver who yesterday negotiated me all over town to the liquor store, the vegetable market, the general store and the fruit stand cutting me all the best deals. Then I clambered over a few walls and through some backyards and made it back home where I now sit and ponder my next move.

Book? Beach? Beer? Mango?

The only things left to do today are to take back a dvd to Suresh and tell him that the dvd in the packet most certainly wasn’t the titular one and pick up the laundry. Oh and go persuade the cake man to make me a chocolate mousse tart. And then take a tuktuk into town to find some cutlery and some bleach. John has turned into some kind of Aggie cleaning obsessive. Then again he has had more encounters of the close kind with our six legged nuclear-armoured little friends than I have.

I can’t believe this is my life. It is heaven. And a husband who cooks and cleans on top of it all.

So…book? Beach? Beer? Mango?