More Monastery

It is day 3 in the sanctuary today. We aren’t doing very much except sitting in the room and working. N is working on real work (nice for him that he can ean a salary while he travels…) and I am editing photographs, doing our expenses and sending emails. I am also getting stuck into a litre of wine. I picked it up on the shelf of the super market assuming it would be re-sealable like all the others I have bought. Only it wasn’t. So now I have to finish it before we leave here. Oh the hardship!

Flowers on the magnolia tree that we see while sitting in our room:

Yesterday I commented that no one in the sanctuary has tried to convert me. Well, I think the building might be trying. I have mentioned before how I often have songs in my head. They pop in unbidden and then go round and round and round. Right now there is a duel to see who gets more airtime between the sung version of the Lord’s Prayer and Onward Christian Soldiers. Quite honestly, I wish they’d both just get lost already – I’ve had enough.

It’s a good thing that we are leaving here tomorrow. We have just about run out of food and there is no town within miles with a supermarket. We have a packet of snacky things (sunflower seeds and peanuts) and a packet of fried and salted corn (like bar snacks) and peanut butter and one tin of tuna. We have eaten so much corn in the last few days that I don’t want to see it ever again. Last night I ate a tin of sardines and a spoonful of peanut butter for supper. I nearly cried when we got to the restaurant and it was closed and we had to come back to the room for that nasty meal. I will eat at the restaurant tonight come hell or high water. In the meanwhile I am wrestling with my conscience about the tin of tuna. N is asleep. The great debate is about whether I should gobble it up before he awakes. I think that if I hadn’t already filled up on a disgusting amount of corn, there would be no debate…
Poor me – I shall clearly have to stave off the hunger pangs with another glass of wine.

Mangers at the monastery from the days when you could only reach here by foot or by horse:

 So tonight is our last night in civilization. Tomorrow we leave the sanctuary for the cold, hard world again. No more flushing toilets. No more hot water on tap. No more comfy beds. Back to mosquitoes and heat. Bother. I think I need more wine. And perhaps a little stroll in the botanical gardens.