Timing and tenses

I'm exhausted. Or I was. The break in Morocco has been extremely relaxing. I am finding tenses problematic - I am writing this 'live', but with intention to publish it only when I am back home. Not because I'm concerned about being robbed as people know I am abroad (generally would-be burglars would be right 50% of the time anyway), but because I wrote up what remained of the Thailand trip report in what felt like record time and now they're all queued up and this sits behind them. Today, in the present tense, it's Monday. Monday evening to be precise and I'm sitting in front of a log fire near Marrakech. Look, there's the laptop in the photo in fact.

But by the time this hits the world it will be next Saturday as I've got three days of trip report lined up, plus the post before this one when I'd just arrived here, even though I am now back. Or will be. Douglas Adams did this a lot better.

[In another mind-bending leap of tenses I stopped writing this yesterday and went to bed and it is now tomorrow. Or today again if you're me. What it is for you I have no idea.]

The break has been extremely good for me. Although I will now have had a day back in the office and it may all be forgotten. Hard to predict. My brain barely engaged on Monday which I found to be perfect and Mrs L found to be difficult. We are staying at a lovely place, Dar Zemora, a villa in the heart of the Palmerai. Set in a nice garden there are just seven rooms, five of which were occupied when we arrived and we are now down to three. I think the staff outnumber the guests quite considerably. We have our own terrace, several rooms, a log fire and a four poster bed. Meals can be taken on our terrace, which made for an extremely pleasant lunch yesterday when we basically did nothing at all. Unwinding I think they call it, and boy did we need it. It is super comfortable and very lovely.

Daylight. Clearly a different day.

Today, which is now Tuesday, we are going on a little adventure - to a botanic garden in the morning and then to the Medina in the evening. Although this is my sixth time in Morocco I have never spent any time in Marrakech at all, including the world-famous Medina and I am quite looking forward to it. The chaos that awaits us there versus the calm that envelops us now will make for an interesting contrast. You might wonder why I am blogging on holiday and I am wondering that too. The answer is that I felt unable to write anything at home and that has suddenly changed. I hope it continues, and anyway, I have precisely nothing else to do. It's nine in the morning, the orange juice for breakfast was as good as I had hoped, and the first rays on sunshine are creeping across the lawn. See above. A Serin is jangling from that row of trees over there and you'll have to take my word for it that the Bulbuls are extremely noisy. Yesterday a White Stork flew over and that is about all that has happened. We are in a temporary bubble and enjoying it tremendously.