Ask a Busy Woman: The House in the Green Country (Part 1)

This is the holiday I never thought would happen...

In every direction, the paddy fields wave their verdant pale-green grasses serenely in the breeze that cools the early evening air. The long, elegant buildings that comprise the Boundary House gaze across these gentle green seas to the taller trees and palms where monkeys perform random acrobatics and birdsong fills the air. As dusk falls - fast, in this part of the world - the monkeys make their way playfully back into the garden, the birds dip and drink on the edge of the pool and the squirrels, smaller and somehow more comedic than their British cousins, retreat for the night. This is Sri Lanka.

We arrived yesterday, weary but with a 'lifer's' sense of release. I love my family, my home, my garden, my friends and the life we have made for ourselves, but to appreciate it to the maximum, sometimes - just sometimes - travelling another place is required. We watched, feeling moderate envy, as friends hit the airports last year when we had too many commitments to make a trip. Our time will come became a sort of mantra for us. And when Omicron brought the shadow of lockdown back into all our lives, it felt as though we might have missed the window. It might be... the saddest words in the English language ...too late.

No need to go into all the shenanigans that went on in the last few weeks. Or the truly epic amount of form-filling that now takes the actual mechanics of foreign travel to an all-time low. Or indeed, the stress of cancelling and rebooking all our flights (3 people x 4 flights each) due the extraordinary level of chaos created by the airline Vistara altering our flights at the last moment and the Indian High Commission saying one thing on the phone and quite a different thing in person. The important thing is that we are here as guests of Mr A and the Boss, as she is known here. These are friends of 50, yes 50, years' duration and this, the Boundary House, is their home-from-home near Galle in Sri Lanka.

-//-

As I sit at dusk on day 2 proper, watching the colours fade and the lights around the house and garden pick up shadows, I can hear the night sounds of the tropics. The call of the peacocks who splash blue into the daytime green of the paddy fields with their spectacular tail display, and the larger than life - literally - gruff hooting of the monkeys in the trees. I begin by thinking we are surrounded by gorillas but although their calls punch way above their weight, the monkeys are modest in size - if not in sound.

Yesterday we went to a local beach - some by bike and some by car - along the narrow roads where at any moment a dog, cyclist, walker, tuk-tuk or anything else might be rushing to somewhere important, or not. The breakers were of Cornish proportions, each crashing on to the beach which was narrow and busy. But we were inside a beach cafe when the heavens opened, tropics-style, and the thunder and rain beat a loud patina on the roof. Hard but quickly over.

Back at the Boundary House all the team are a delight. The food is sublime and so gently and politely brought to the table always with a smile. Nothing is too much trouble. We try everything, including the unfamiliar, and everything is delicious. I am humbled by their kindness and the care that they take of us.

-//-

Aquarobics! At a charming boutique hotel, the Why House, which serves a richly deserved and delicious breakfast afterwards, we bounce about in the water whilst our instructor demonstrates on poolside the actions without the resistance of water. Nine ladies of a certain age in sensible swimwear, my skinny-mini superfit youngest child who has joined us for this holiday and four gentleman who compete enthusiastically to be the fastest bunny-hoppers and runners through the water. The last part of the class is holding on to the side of the pool - like a ballet barre lesson - and here the men separate themselves from the ladies and suddenly the hippos in tutus in Fantasia spring to mind and I am barely able to control my giggles. Got to burn those calories somehow!

Today's other treat is a massage. I know I have so many knots in my back that I could name each one after the anxieties of the last two years. The massage starts gently enough but when she reaches my shoulders I suggest that we need to go hard. My knots are excruciatingly eradicated but two days later I can still feel my shoulders' tenderness.

-//-

Mr A, our host and one of our oldest and dearest friends right back to my beloved's schooldays, wants to surf and number 4, our youngest and the only youngster on the trip, wants to learn to surf too. We sit on loungers as the surf rolls in. Number 4 has a 10 minute tutorial on the sand before heading out into the waves with her instructor. Five minutes later she is up and standing on her board expertly amongst the breakers. We can only admire. By the end of the lesson, she is without doubt the most confident surfer on the beach, waving to her parents as she glides majestically in. PMM*.

We are city-bound this morning by car and tuk-tuk to nearby Galle. Here almost everyone wears masks everywhere and we are careful to comply. The narrow streets are a mixture of residential and every kind of brightly-coloured shops. We're heading to the jewellery quarter where the Boss (our hostess quite rightly known as the Boss here) has some business to do. I'm not a jewellery buff but the stones are amazing.

A short walk round the hot streets is enough and we're back to the Boundary House via lunch at a stunning beach hotel. Tuk-tuk for me this time and it's such fun, if hair-raising, racing through the narrow gaps in the traffic. Tuk-tuks seem like the fastest mode of transport around here and they are driven with such gusto, slipping through the tightest gaps between bikes and lorries, cars and buses.

This afternoon we are celebrating the second birthday of the delightful daughter of one of the members of the team here. She arrives in her party dress of pink and yellow tuile and frilly socks and shyly stays close to her mother as we sing happy birthday and eat very pink cake! Her family including her grandparents are there too and it is my honour to serve cake to the grandparents. Grandparents are most definitely to be treasured everywhere.

It's a quick turnaround for drinks at the home of a friend of our hosts across the paddy fields. Everywhere the sharp green colours are surprisingly as soothing as a rhythmical gentle sea rushing across the sand. It has its own serenity and the colour palette of green shades calms and heals.

-//-

More aquarobics at the Why House but with a much smaller cast. Sosanta, the instructor is significantly more interested in the absence of number 4 child than the fact that the entire cast of Fantasia hasn't turned up. I think, in revenge, he ups the anti and makes the class harder. I have inhaled half the pool!

We are off to see elephants today with our guide Vinod at Uderwalawe. It's a two hour drive punctuated by stops to see dams and reservoirs and fruit bats. The latter like black umbrellas hang from the thickly-leaved trees during the day, only occasionally disturbed into making a short flight overhead. At night, it must be party-central. Number 4 is more worried that she'll be pooed on from a great height!

First we go to the Elephant Transit Station where orphaned and injured elephants are cared for until they are 8 years old. We watch them come in groups of four or five into the compound for milk, each trying to barge their way to the front for their share, with their comedy tufted hairstyles. Then it's off to the Nature Reserve proper in our jeep with Vinod expertly spotting animals and birds for us. We had been alerted by our birding friends that Sri Lanka had some amazing birdlife ("You MUST take 'binos' and a bird book!") and they are of course right. Hornbills, hoopoes, jungle fowl, bee eaters, parakeets, kingfishers, eagles of many varieties and much, much more were easy to spot and obligingly some even stayed still for the camera. Elephants, water buffalo, crocodiles and mongeese/mongooses were all out and about and many, many peacocks. Of course we are surrounded by peacocks all day at the Boundary House so we're a bit 'oh yeah' about them by now.