Busy first day in our new home

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Phew, well I am well and truly pooped as I have just been for a foot massage. It is a very common thing here and everybody seems to go for them. Our landlady took me and dropped me off in this place where no one spoke a word of English and we just communicated by sign language, mainly my yelps of pain! It started with a long foot soak in really hot water - I thought I would have third degree burns at one point! Then while my feet were soaking, I had a neck and shoulder massage which was great. This went on for about 15mins and was proper hard massage! After that, they worked on one foot at a time for about 30mins each, and it was almost as if he was trying to put my gammy feet bones back into place! It really hurt but they feel great now! It was nice to have a bit of time to myself, and I managed to get a taxi back all by myself in the rain!

So, this morning we dashed off to Carrefour, the huge supermarket here and spent another small fortune. We did actually buy some food, but by the time we finished the non-food floor, we were all starving as we had had no breakfast due to the lack of food in the apartment! We made it back and didn’t really venture out again today. We are all a bit jaded after so much exploring and eating out, even the kids didn’t ask if we could go out for tea! Early afternoon our boxes arrived and it was like Christmas! The kids were so excited and their rooms were covered in toys for a while. Ian was a bit worried at first where it would all go, but the rooms are so big we have easily found space. And now our wardrobe has been fixed we can start putting our clothes away properly too. William has his ‘Sportacus’ outfit on within minutes and was dashing about the place like a mad thing!

Daddy popped out for a venture to the local supermarket late afternoon as we seem to have bought loads of stuff at the supermarket but nothing substantial for tea. It is very difficult trying to decide what to buy to cook for meals as we are unsure of what most things are. And there are no fishfingers or chicken dippers with smiley faces!! I made an impromptu pasta with tomato sauce type thing which went down well with my clientele, but we were interrupted by the workman from the compound first, then our landlady so it was a bit of a mad tea! All the light “bubbles” have been fixed now, and new mossie screens fixed for us. Lisa our landlady brought her son, ‘Peepee’, with her, and he proved true to his name when I found a big puddle in William’s room where he had had a wee! Kids don’t wear nappies in the summer here, for sensible reasons I guess, but it means that accidents happen. We saw one child weeing into a food bag on the metro the other day! The pants have a slit at the back, but we are not sure what happens if that kind of accident happens, we hope not to find out! We now have a TV in our bedroom, but still no phone or internet as our landlady’s husband is not home from his trip yet. Hopefully tomorrow!

I am being collected at 9am tomorrow by our landlady, Lisa, to go to the ‘Free Market’ to go and buy some fresh produce. I am a little nervous about this but she is being so kind and helpful, and I really want to experience the market that I agreed. I am not sure what I will buy but sure I will find something....we definitely need some food!

Looking forward to another day of new adventures tomorrow!

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