Gabba - The Arrival (Negombo)

Well, we arrived safely yesterday after a slight delay in taking off, Curtis slept in his bassinet for most of the way, I can't tell you how relieved we were not to be 'one of those people with the annoying crying baby' that we've all encountered and wondered 'why they had to be on our flight, and sat in the seat in front of us, and not in the hold'....he literally slept like a baby for most of the flight.

Curtis, being Curtis, refused to empty his pockets at security at Heathrow, something about 'an infringement of his Civil Liberties', so had to be sent thru the scanner himself, or he wouldn't be allowed to fly.

"See I told you man, you've got nothing on me..."

The flight was fine, food ok, the in-flight films looked like they were being fed from a bank of video recorders in the cockpit, all fuzz and rolling distortion, so we didn't bother. One funny thing that did happen, when we hit turbulence the one of the Cabin crew said to hold the baby in the bassinet, we couldn't work out why he was so insistent, until he told us "when plane goes down, baby goes up!" Needless to say we held him in it every time we hit a bump after that.

"Well, I was only saying to the lady at baby yoga the other day,

you just can;t get the leg room in these things anymore...

We got a taxi to Negombo, which is ok, it's where everyone heads for one night rather than staying in Colombo, as it's on the beach and a bit nicer. Because of that, they are used to people only being here a short time and there is a bit of hassle of the "come into my shop", "use my tuk tuk", "buy my grandmother" variety, but it's all pretty amiable banter.Curtis has made lots of friends in the 24 hours we've been here, they love children here, especially the women. Both times we've eaten the female staff at the restaurants have taken him off to pass round the family while we eat, god knows where he's disappeared to, he's probably been cloned and has his own bank account and property portfolio by now. Anyway, they've seem to love him, and are genuinely curious.

We've met a nice Saudi couple with a 5 year old girl, and were all sharing a minivan to Kandy tomorrow, so will report more when we get there.Till then I'm going out to eat one of many rice and vegetable dishes that I will be having over the  next 3 months.....