Beating the Aussies

Saturday 6th October

Another beautiful dawn and another beautiful sunrise, but I never get tired of watching it.

Today is changeover day and this time next week we will be leaving, but for it is the majority of the other guests who are going and a new batch of victims arriving for Debrah to analyse.

In true Debrah fashion, she tries to change our hotel room for a better one but the place is fully booked for the next week so we have to stay where we are.

At the Beach Club we overhear one of our fellow guests, for whom some things are not quite good enough. “This sand’s not quite the right colour, is it?”, he intoned. Oh, please just go away.

Lunch as ever is very good at the Beach Club. Today we share a kofte ekmek, a minced lamb burger with roasted tomato and onion, and a fatoush, a tomato, cheese, basil and bread salad, all washed down with a carafe of rose.

We miss the minibus to come back up to the hotel but one of the staff takes us back in his own car which is very good of him.

I discover that the England v Australia game is being shown on the TV at the hotel and, despite what I said the day before, my sport watching instincts get the better of me. Debrah settles herself by the pool for a while. Agonisingly, for some guests they have to leave before the end of the match to get their flights home – a phone call from reception to the bus driver will have cheered them up. Sadly, there don’t appear to be any Australians staying.

After the game Debrah and I enjoy a glass of wine and a tin of stuffed vine leaves sitting on our terrace in the quiet that always descends at dusk, just as it is at dawn.

We have dinner at the Beach Club. It is a superb setting – the ideal place to completely forget all your cares for a few hours. Debrah forgets to bring a cardigan and the temperature is just slightly cooler than previous evenings, but ever attentive, the hotel staff produce a pashmina for her.

Back at the hotel, I catch the second half of the France v NZ match and witness another fabulous display by a Northern Hemisphere team. Sadly, the only Kiwi at the hotel left this afternoon.