We really didn’t do a lot yesterday but that is sometimes what makes a great holiday. Admittedly Helen might argue with that as she went for a 15km run in the morning down to the Marina and back again. By the time she got back the kids were just waking up. Chloe and Helen went shopping to there favourite mall – Algarve Mall – also happens to be the only one nearby. They managed to spend the rest of the morning there and some of the afternoon while the boys and I watched Super rugby (Bulls v Sunwolves).

The joys of owning the house are that we figure out all the issues when we are here and then have to get them fixed.  We do have a relatively good agent managing the house but they unfortunately never tested to see whether the air conditioners were all working on heating and some of them (mainly the ones downstairs in the living area) aren’t. It is about 10-12 degrees C overnight and the downstairs is tiled, it gets pretty chilly in the living room. They spent some of the morning and a large chunk of the afternoon trying to fix it and eventually in broken English told us they couldn’t do it yesterday and so they brought us two heaters instead. The most irritating thing was last night when I wanted to have a bath to warm up (and maybe get clean), I discovered the hot water has stopped working. Not sure if it was something the guys fiddling with the air-conditioners did or whether that is just coincidence. Either way it is pretty annoying not having hot water when you want it (yes I know that we’re all privileged and many people don’t even have running water in world).

Stephen never left the house at all yesterday but I’m sure he’ll claim a productive day doing some work on his laptop, watching rugby, cricket, Suits and Monuments Men (good movie for those of you who haven’t seen it – true story of how a group of men saved the artworks as World War II was drawing to a close – they saved over 5 million pieces!) and playing table tennis. Michael and I at least went to the golf course to book a round (because they hadn’t replied to my email and when I got there they asked why we hadn’t arrived for the round yesterday afternoon .. gggrrrr – maybe because I never got a reply from them?!).

Last night the clocks changed in Europe/UK. This is the first time some of the family have experienced this event and it has thoroughly confused Helen. I said she should just look at her iPhone (which adjusts automatically) and believe that time. The clocks moved forward an hour so we are now only 1 hour behind SA. All I know is that it is 9:20am on Easter Sunday and very quiet downstairs while I type this post.

Happy Easter Sunday everyone!