Got out of bed around 8:30 — I guess I’m still not quite acclimatized to the new timezone yet. Last night I didn’t fall asleep until after 2:00. Oh well, not much on the daytimer today anyway.

After coffee and toast we decided to go for a hike across the hill to the east of us, to the town of Lagos. I wanted to buy a phone card for my phone — so at the very least, next time Dave and I are out golfing and it takes a little longer than we expected, we can call Marylou, so she doesn’t sit in the kitchen waiting for us while dinner is getting cold. 

We walked along the promenade, then up into town, before striking out along a trail leading up to the top of the cliffs that cradle our beach. Along the way we stopped from time to time for a quick photo or to stop and chat with other tourists who were hiking the same trail — and I must confess that I didn’t stop talking for most of the trip!

Not many locals here — this is a tourist area, and it’s not quite “in season” yet. There are many shops and restaurants all around us, but most are not open yet. But we’re told the warm weather is coming soon, and it will bring with it (mostly Irish and British) visitors, many of whom have summer homes here. But it’s not quite ‘summer’ here yet!

After reaching the top of the cliffs we soon stopped for a celebratory drink. And talked some more. Marylou gave us an update on how many steps we’d made so far, including the horizontal and the vertical kind. Yikes! if we keep that up we will surely cancel out the calories we’ll consume at each of our ‘rest’ stops!

When we got into the town of Lagos we made our way into the town centre. We chose a small outdoor table at a restaurant where the Driedgers had already tested the offerings on a previous visit. We ordered a couple of pizzas and fortified ourselves. Then it was just a short walk to a ‘Vodafone’ shop where it only took a couple of minutes to get a SIM card installed on my phone. So now I have data and a L-O-N-G phone number that no one will call me on. 

We opted for a bus ride back to our apartment. When we stepped into our apartment we were expecting to find a couple of additional space heaters which our apartment manager promised us. And sure enough, there they were: two brand new fancy heaters. But they were not on! What’s up? It didn’t take long to realize that turning on the new heaters caused the breaker to fail. And after quite a bit of trial and error we determined that no matter what combination of outlets we used, have all SIX space heaters going in our apartment would not be an option, no matter how much we spread them out. Hmmm…

And so it was that we found ourselves once again huddled around the kitchen table where the small room and ONE of our new fancy heaters seemed to keep the temperature up enough for us (well, MOST of us) warm without wearing our jackets. 

We thought we’d watch a movie on Netflix but were sorry to realize that the movie we WANTED to see was no longer available on that service. I had brought along a couple of thumb drives with some video selections — so there we sat, watching videos on Marylou’s Macbook which we parked in the middle of the dining table. We paused it a couple of times for snacks and supper breaks, and before we knew it, it was 10 o’clock — bedtime.

Well, not for ALL of us. Dave relocated to the couch in the living room and wrapped himself up in some extra blankets and watched TV while I sat in the corner and updated this journal. And shortly after eleven, although I wasn’t at all sleepy, I too made my way to bed, hoping that one of those new heaters would keep me warm at night.