And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim… Isaiah 25:11

Saturday. I slept in again — only woke up at 9 o’clock. I putzkied around until 10:30. Then I went outside and started walking to the kids’ resort hotel. It’s a 3km walk from my place. It wasn’t as hot today as it was yesterday — quite pleasant for the walk.

When I got to the hotel I changed into swimming trunks and joined Tim and Max at the pool. Max has ‘inherited’ a big pink donut-with-sprinkles floatation ‘tube’. We played in the pool for quite a while, and even tried playing in the waves at the beach for a while.

Soon it was lunchtime — a delicious cheeseburger for me, bacon-wrapped hotdogs for the others. After lunch we were chased into the room by a terrific downpour that lasted about 10 minutes. But only 10 minutes. And then the disco thumping boom-boxes started up again and the pool party continued.

Max and I went for a small ice cream cone and I had another double espresso at the little cafe near the pool. Then back to more swimming. Max has really developed as a swimmer these past couple of weeks — much more confident and stronger.

I said goodbye to the kids. It’s been so great to spend time with them for the last few days. They had a great time here — but they are ready to go home tomorrow and get back into the routine of work and school and their life at home. I will miss them very much. But I too am looking forward to tomorrow; I will say goodbye to Puerto Morelos and get my first look at my place in Merida where I will spend the next couple of months.

I walked back to my apartment. I wasn’t at all hungry after my big lunch and decided to skip supper. I opened a cold beer and turned on the TV. I watched a couple of Netflix shows tonight. Then I found the NFL playoff game on a streaming site on my laptop and watched the last half of the Seattle-Dallas game. I’ll miss tomorrow’s games because I’ll be on the bus all afternoon.

So that’s the end of the first chapter of this “holiday”. A bit of a shaky start, but things improved mightily from there. The kids will have one last morning to enjoy the pool and the buffet breakfast at the Now Jade resort. I hope their trip home goes “swimmingly”.