The first “ouch!” relates to the fact that I am sunburnt.

You would never guess it from looking at me but the lower parts of my legs feel absolutely terrible. Quite bizarrely, it seems to be where I have this water retention issue and so I’m wondering if it’s the water that has caused the problem.

I mean – I have been careful. It’s not exactly what you would call roasting temperatures here and I’ve only been doing two hours at a time before coming in. So it’s not a “real” sunburn issue.

The second “ouch” is that I’ve found out what time our bus leaves on Wednesday morning;

Our flight is at 06:15 so I was expecting it to be early, but 02:40 is just ridiculous. I don’t fancy at all the idea of getting up at 02:00. As you all know, I’m not very often in bed before then.

To make things more difficult, my favourite hotels in Brussels and Leuven are booked up Wednesday night, so I’m going to be coming home.And so that’s going to be a REALLY long day and I shall be ill for a week.

But last night, I was in bed rather later than intended and only managed 5 minutes of a film before I was away with the fairies.

And away it was too.

I was wandering around somewhere at my brother’s looking for something. I was searching everywhere that I could think of and in the end I found his car. I looked in the boot and there were dozens of bags full of video cassettes and I was convinced that there were dozens, maybe a whole bag full, that were mine and I wondered what they were doing in there. However I had this uncomfortable feeling that I was being followed, and that it was my brother following me, so I picked up my garden fork which had a grass rake attached on the other end of the handle, and needed my baling fork with a long handle. That was at the doctor’s in Shavington so I went to the surgery, on this strange form of tandem tricycle thing. The door between the waiting room and the doctor’s room was open and I could see a man lounging around, lying on his side horizontally as if he was asleep. At first I thought that it was the doctor himself but it was a patient being attended to by the doctor, and there was about a dozen people in the waiting room who could clearly see what was going on. The doctor was surprised to see me, saying that I didn’t have an appointment and he wanted to know why I had come. I explained that I needed my baling fork so that I could get back on the bus and go round to the Hough and Proudlove’s farm, which was my destination. The doctor made a few extremely unpleasant noises about my coming and told me that I would have to sit in the waiting room and take my place in the queue. And that wasn’t in my plans at all.

The first thing that I did this morning was to draw back the curtains to the window and out there in the distance there was movement on the horizon.

Luckily I have a half-decent telephoto lens for the little Nikon so I could take a photo and enlarge it at my comfort and leisure.

Sure enough, there’s a ship out there heading off into the cean, presumably from Sousse – maybe one of the ones that was in the harbour yesterday. I’ll have to see if I can get out to Souuse and go for a prowl around the docks.

I’ve already mentioned much of what happened today. A rest here, two hours outside there, have food, then repeat. And the afternoon “rest” really was a “rest” too. For a good 40 minutes.

But on my way to the beach this morning I went via the scenic route.

There are more swimming pools here than I had first thought. There’s a big one, complete with half a dozen kiddies’ slides, out behind the annex to the building so I went for a look at it,

But there were too many people around to take a good photograph. I shall have to go for a wander around here when it’s quiet.

After tea I went for a walk around the compound in the dark. I’m still keeping up with my walking routine while I’m here.

First thing that I wanted to do was to go and inspect the swimming pool that I explored earlier today. The whole complex here round by the annex is certainly very interesting and it’s a kids’ paradise.

No wonder that the place was heaving during the daytime.

It’s actually quite a long walk aroud the perimeter of the hotel, but I like the idea of being out in the dark so it’s not a problem.

Usually, things look so much better in the dark and the lighting can have quite a dramatic effect, highlighting all kinds of objects that you wouldn’t even notice during the day.

The area around by the main pool certainly looks quite different.

I also went for a walk down to the beach and there at the water’s edge I fell in with one of the security guards.

He spent a good 15 minutes telling me all of his woes. How the tourist industry has been badly hit by (unsubstantiated) fears following the events that occurred around about the time of the Revolution and that the tourist industry is only now starting to come back to life.

His working hours have been cut, his salary decresed and yet the cost of living in the country has soared over the last few years.

It was one tale of woe after another.

I gave him plenty of reassurance that things would soon improve, but I’m absolutely convinced that it wasn’t reassurance that he was seeking and I had to admire his storyline.

I never realised that I was so popular. But I certainly know that I’m that cynical.

So in the best tradition of a “News of the Screws” reporter, I “made my excuses and left.

My route back into the hotel took me through the outdoor dining area. I haven’t actually dined outside but it’s a very popular venue for many of the diners. And as I said earlier, it looks so much different in the dark with the artificial lighting.

So I’m going to have an early night, and a good sleep if my sunburnt legs will let me. I’ve had a shower and a clothes wash already and the wet clothes are drying outside.

No alarm tomorrow morning. I need to build up my strength for the return journey.