A terrible thing has happened! When Paul switched on the television, it made a terrible popping and fizzing noise then went bang and now………..nothing. It’s not a huge loss as there are only about 6 channels we can watch anyway, and they mainly comprise of adverts. Still it helps while a away a few hours on the monsoon days. The engineer came round and declared that it had broken due to lightning coming down the cable TV feed. He deduced this by sniffing the end of the cable. Um, OK. After a big discussion with the engineer and the place we [View Full Entry]

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We discover September to be the main practice month for the Indian Air Force fighter pilots. The bombing range located a mile from our village is now visited by pairs of Harrier fighter bombers at least four times a day. The screaming of the jet engines coming in low precedes the resounding WHOMP of the dummy bombs striking the target area. We assume these dummy bombs are quite sizeable as some of them make the ground shake. This is nowhere near as frightening as it sounds as we are a very safe distance from it all. Or so we thought. We [View Full Entry]

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This week marked the 4th anniversary of the Corcoran’s being married - cool eh? Paul took me on a little holiday to the north of Goa - Candolim. I thought that he was very thoughtful until I found out that one of the reasons that we were in the north of Goa was that there was an English pork butcher who made bacon and sausages - coincidence? I think not. Did I care? Not if bacon and sausages were involved! So after an hour and a half on the scooter, made longer by Paul missing a turning, we arrive at Calangute [View Full Entry]

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It seems that as soon as we have one victory , to restore the balance, something else goes wrong. We have “cable TV”. This means that there is one cable going into the bck of the TV. Like the electricity supply, the signal can be temperamental and invariably goes off 10 minutes before the end of the only good film that has been on all week. On this occasion however, the cable going off was our fault as we thought we would re-arrange the living room. Unfortunately in doing so we unplugged the cable connection - not only unplugged, the end [View Full Entry]

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After last week’s instalment I bet you were hoping we would give up so you didn’t have to read these blogs - no such luck, I’m afraid - we’re back and more determined than ever to make the most of this opportunity. Being the selfless people we are, we have taken it upon ourselves to undertake a quest to try the many bars and restaurants in Goa so if any of you lovely people come and visit, we will be able to take you to quality establishments - we have eaten some questionable bits of meat, crossed our fingers that we [View Full Entry]

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I’m afraid to report, dear readers, that things aren’t going well for the Corcorans. Before we mentioned that we were struggling with the country life, we are also trying to understand why other English people we meet seem to thrive on telling us we are spending too much on our rent, we shouldn’t have gone this shop or that shop, we are paying too much for our scooter , why did you go to that restaurant, it’s not very nice, how much did pay for that? Whilst in this despondent mood, we stop at a random bar and with heads [View Full Entry]

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So, we have a pretty house and a lovely garden. However, we are still a little jumpy at some of the nightime meanderings of insects, lizards and amphibians, not least of all because Indian house building techniques in conjunction with an old house with no straight lines means that the false ceiling in our bedroom and living room has a gap around the edge ranging from 0.5mm to 3 inches. This does not lend itself to a restful nights sleep for these two city dwellers. We live opposite a field containing a large pond inhabited by all forms of wildlife from [View Full Entry]

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All estate agents are the same…..fact. The first estate agent who aided us with our quest to find new accommodation could see us but didn’t seem to be able to hear us as we told him our requirements and we ended up trailing around some beautiful apartments with 3 bedrooms which were 3 times the price of our budget when we wanted a 1 or 2 bedroom house within our budget. We persevered (and changed estate agents) and the first property we were shown met pretty much all our requirements - hurray! We gave our notice to our landlord, who didn’t [View Full Entry]

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We awake to find that our new home is clean, well maintained and ideal for our needs, if not a bit green! The exploration of Benaulim starts with a 10 minute walk to the beach and breakfast at the only open beach bar, Pedro’s. We enjoy the beach for a while, savouring the moment. Walking back we stop to pick up groceries from both the supermarket and the greengrocer. It being the monsoon, all the tourist related places are closed up and we are living in a normal working Goan seaside town. After collecting the basics, of hiring a scooter, establishing [View Full Entry]

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Mumbai We make it to Mumbai…we leave the airport after booking a pre-paid taxi and avoided the old man soldier in a tin hat with a rifle (scary). A “helpful” man comes up to us and takes our taxi slip of paper and goes off to find our taxi, presumably. I keep a careful weather eye on the man and the all important slip of paper, he goes back and forth along the line of taxis and about 15 minutes later he comes back where he is confronted by what we know now as a road traffic officer (RTO), a dapper [View Full Entry]

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