Here’s the big news. We’re cutting our trip short, yes, no more Christmas Day on the beach (first in 11 years), no more lazing on a sunbed and no more sundowners. We will explain later, but first a round up of the latest goings on from Goa.
This year has seen one major difference to previous trips. Over the years we’ve come to know lots of people who are possibly not coming back, ever. It seems that several regulars are suffering the usual ailments associated with old age…….bad backs, the Big C and dodgy tickers. Then, to cap it all, Tony and Brenda had to fly off to Thailand at short notice as Tony’s brother was taken seriously ill. We wouldn’t say it’s depressing as life moves on and nothing stays the same.
It was time for a boat trip accompanied by Connie, Hugh, Fred ‘n Betty and Yvonne ‘n John. What a lovely day, nice breeze, a couple of dolphins did eventually come and see us and the food: king prawns to start, kingfish for main and fruit salad swimming in Honeybee (local brandy) were delicious. You can’t knock a 5hr boat trip with fabulous scenery, wildlife, unlimited beers and spirits with superb food and all for £12……maybe we should go again?
For a first, at least as far as we can remember, we had rain in December……shock, horror! It wasn’t much but yet another cyclone out in the Arabian Sea brought us some rain and a few cloudy days. It just gave a nice cool spell and didn’t stop us going into the pool. We don’t care what Trumpy says, the world’s climate is changing and it’s changing fast.
Talking of politics……the UK had an election on December 12th. It’s not the first time we’ve been away from home for polling day. We were marooned in Thailand in 2010 owing to that pesky ash cloud and remembered watching the BBC election results program whilst having our morning tea. This time we thought it would be good to have breakfast out and watch the results coming in on a big screen. We were hoping to have a few people join us but, as the exit polls suggested there would be only one result, most people went to the beach. Being 5.5 hours ahead of the UK we got some of the very earliest results. We now have a Government with teeth for the first time in more than 10 years. Things can finally happen instead of the endless torture of being held in limbo with a constipated parliament unable to pass a motion. Worth celebrating with a Kingfisher at 10.00am!
We used to be indecisive…….
Time to explain why we’ve decided to go back early this year. You may have picked up from previous entries that things just haven’t been the same this year in Benaulim. There’s usually something every year in Goa which annoys or irritates but not enough to outweigh the positives. So, what’s so different this year, we hear you say? It’s the major event for us this year, and it’s the fact we bought a house. It keeps calling to us to get back to make it into our home.
We thought we could spend our time in Goa looking over the floor plans, take our time over deciding what we really wanted to do with the help of some internet research, email the changes back to the UK and wait for the next version of plans to be sent back for approval. It was almost a good plan until we realised just how sh*te the internet infrastructure has become in India (the worlds next superpower my ar*e!!!!!). The internet had two speeds – slow and stop. Guess you all remember the original dial up internet? Do you remember trying to upload email attachments? Do you love watching that turning circle just turning and turning? Yup, as enjoyable as pulling teeth without anesthetic.
The uncomfortable weather didn’t help as some days it wasn’t pleasant to go out to take a break when the internet was playing up. Some of you will be aware of Neil’s attention span (what attention span?) and boredom threshold (how low can you go?). You will quickly work out that it didn’t take long for us to reach the conclusion that we needed to cut our losses and go home. We would have liked to stay until just after New Year, but our only options to change flights were before Christmas or only a week before our planned return.
Last days
Decision made and flights rebooked we concentrated on doing all the things we enjoy and the weeks slipped by fast. We had dinner with old friends Jeff and Mary and worked out a routine to fit in all our favourite restaurants. Aditya and Priti invited us to their home along with other neighbours Caroline and Jude for a wonderful evening of dinner and drinks on their terrace which overlooks the pool. We brought a Christmas pudding as a present and Aditya used his newly found woodworking skills to make us a lovely tea light holder for our new house.
Derek and Cathy discovered that the Hyatt was once again doing Sunday Brunch. Yes, this is the Hyatt where, a couple of years ago, Neil did the classic prat fall after consuming a few too many sherbets whilst climbing into a tuk tuk for the journey home. That event produced a nasty cut to his head as he hit the floor, and he promised no repeats!! We had a wonderful day with Hugh and Connie and Derek and Cathy. The food was endless and delicious, the Australian wines a bonus after Indian wines and the Indian bubbly surprisingly good. The location was right on the beach and to cap it all we had no further prat falls from anyone!
We followed that with one final boat trip, this time on our own. Boat trips are great fun as you do tend to chat with friends. However, this means that you tend to miss the wonderful surroundings. This time we wanted to be alone to just ‘enjoy’. We were not disappointed.
Time was running out so we took every opportunity to see the sunset and have a few sundowners before our last few Vindaloos at Jacks Corner. Then we discovered that, just in time, our favourite pizza joint, Luna, was about to open. There were the usual ‘first night opening’ challenges but we have become used to Luna providing what we call entertainment whilst others might call it frustration.
Kareem, Raju & crew at C5 
Milan , Sunni and the crew at Jack’s 
Vishnu, Naryan and ‘Mum’ at Rooftop
Wednesday 18th finally came, time to leave and head to Delhi for our flight home next day. It’s been an unusual trip this year not least of all because we decided to head home early. Benaulim has changed so we will not be back next year, the first time in around 8 years but as we often say, life moves on, and we have other priorities in our lives now plus new places to visit and maybe a few places to re-visit. We have a few ideas of what we might do but they are ‘on a need to know basis’! Suffice it to say, Goa has been good to us when we didn’t have a house to live in but it’s time to move on.
The journey home went well and we emerged into Angel Tube Station to be greeted by a rousing chorus of Ding Dong Merrily on High by a group of extremely good carol singers.
Merry Christmas Everyone.
Cheryl & Neil Our Story 
Neil Sheryl. Have a great xmas in your new home. Cheers Chris and Viv!
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Cheryl and Neil, I understand your decision all too well. I will be making my last trip to Chiang Mai in January to buy Thai clothing for my still lucrative little business as well as to meet up and say “good bye” to old friends. It will be bitter sweet but to me necessary. Graham and I have gone our separate ways. We’ve sold the house. He is living in Montreal and will be travelling to Italy probably for the last time. I have moved into town and want to devote more time to the strong movement towards dealing with the changes that our climate is bringing us. I still want to travel for as long as body and finances will allow, but take shorter trips to places I’ve had on my bucket list for too long: Scotland and one more trip to South America. Our lives are definitely changing for many reasons. The future may not be looking too bright but we can say that we’ve been lucky and had a great run. I wish I could say the same for our grandchildren.
Good luck with your new home. I think you have made a wise decision.
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