Day 16 - Fresh Meat.

12:15
I sleep pretty well - sans Zopiclone in the end. Not that I decided against it, but just completely forgot to take one. I wake up around 07:00 feeling pretty bright-eye and bushy-tailed. I check on Vicks’ flight, which is somewhere over the Arabian peninsula, and looks to be arriving a little ahead of schedule. I mooch for a while, and head out around 09:00 for some breakfast, to a cool little bijou place called Cow Corner. They have a very cute little puppy, who I immediately christen Andrex.

It’s only a 300m walk from our hotel, but the sun is already beating down. Feels like a warm one today. Breakfast is a Goan sausage omelette, and is delicious. Goa was colonised by the Portuguese from 1510 to 1961, and there remain some clear links to Iberia - in the language, food and culture. Choris is a locally made pork sausage, which shares a ton of DNA with xorico/chorizo from Iberia. Air-drying meat doesn’t work brilliantly well in the humidity of Goa, so the tradition has become to pickle the meat in vinegar before it’s stuffed into a pig gut to mature. It’s flavoured with chilli powder, paprika, garlic, ginger and cumin. Here, they’ve been crumbled and fried to a crunchy finish, and added to a fluffy omelette. Banging.

I meander back to the hotel to get packed up. The reception folks weren’t entirely committal on what time I could get into our new room, but I’m hopeful It won’t be long past midday.

Contact from Vicki! She’s landed, navigated her way through immigration, and is in her cab heading southwards. It’s a good couple of hours from the new airport in the North of Goa, so we’ll hopefully see her around 14:00. Maybe I should kill some time by heading out for a beer. Oooh - Rosé in the fridge! That’ll do…

22:30
I write this as Vicki lies next to me in bed, gently purring as she sleeps. Bless - she’s had a tough day. She arrives a little after 14:00, and it’s great to see her! It’s also slightly strange, being 5,000 miles from home when we meet. I don’t *think* we’ve ever done anything quite like this before - travelling separately, and meeting in such a far-flung location. She’s managed a few hours of sleep en-route, including a good doze in the cab down from Manohar Airport, but I suspect today will be a low-powered one.

We head out for some lunch, and pitch up at Namaste, on the beach. Vicki’s on the lookout for alcohol free drinking options, but I’ve not seen any since I arrived in Goa a few days ago. She makes do with a banana lassi today, and declares it delicious. A lassi is part smoothie, part milkshake, and uses yoghurt as its base. V tasty. Vicki has a palak paneer, and also declares this delicious. I opt for a chicken xacuti, a wonderfully complex and smoky curry that’s indigenous to Goa. I’ve cooked it at home, and can attest to the complexity of the spice blend used in the curry. My recipe uses 18 different spices or flavourings. Where I’d feared this would lead to a massively confused dish on the palate, the spices are actually added at various stages of marinading and cooking, meaning their flavours are distinguishable. The one I have today is awesome - hot with both fresh chilli and chilli powder, and comforting.

There’s a party this afternoon on Colomb Bay, which sits between Patnem and Palolem beaches. We’re a bit non-plussed, as this has always felt like a bit of a hinterland to us, with much clambering across rocks needed to get from one to the other. We’re a little surprised (but not shocked) to find that there has been some significant development of the area. Several bars / restaurants, a small market, and some accommodation options. One of those new bars is Kala Bahia, the party venue. It’s a very cool spot, overlooking the water, with a decent sound system set-up. We arrive around 17:00 and pick up our event wrist-bands for the next week’s festivities. We grab a drink with Darron and Debbie.

I have to head back to our room, as I’ve a work call / job interview this evening at 18:30. Vicks decides to come with me, as she’s flagging more than just a little after intercontinental travel.

My interview is less interview, and more catch-up - with a couple of folks I used to work with at SHL. We quickly decide we’d like to do more of that, so get into specifics of what the job will look like, when I’ll start etc etc. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d had some nervousness about how quickly and readily I’d be able to rejoin the workforce. That’s largely based on having been out of the workplace for a little over 18 months, but also in no small part on the basis of age and relevance of experience. I’ve been humbled by the interest I’ve had in the past couple of weeks since updating my work status on LinkedIn to state that I’m open to work opportunities. I’d fully expected to take 3-4 months before finding the right role, culture fit and purpose. Having done so before I’d even planned to start my job search is gratifying and satisfying.

We collectively decide that heading back to the party at Kala Bahia is off. Vicks needs a really good sleep overnight to fully recharge her batteries, so she can go fresh at it from tomorrow. I briefly think about leaving her to sleep, and heading over on my own, but I’ve not had a nap this afternoon, so decide instead that a quick visit to the beach to eat some banging fresh fish is in order. We share a kingfish fillet and a couple of monster tandoori prawns. SO good. We womble/wobble back to our hotel, and Vicki declares she’s going for a MINIMUM of double digits of hours of sleep. I set an emergency alarm for 10:00. HOLD TIGHT.Les mer