I had a solo early start to go whale-watching with Ian & Jake. Despite the tiny boat that seemed to struggle out in the Mozambique channel eleven up in a heavy swell, we saw plenty baleine. My videoing skills were put to the test and found severely wanting – too much sky and sea, just like a connoisseur’s jigsaw. Of about thirty minutes' footage, only 5-8 minutes are useable, but we saw several pods, lots of breaching and fluking and a mother and calf. Half joking, I said we’d like a medium-sized school of dolphins as a dessert to the main course, when lo and behold, one arrived! Attended by flying fish as a digestif. A group of us hunched together whilst viewing very pathetic whale video and the divers – eventually – went off. Time is flexible - “Mora mora” – the whale boat should have returned by 11am: by 12, the hotel manager and Philippe were out on boats looking for us. The marin got a right earful – he won’t be late again, but we got good value.

I took the opportunity to read ‘Tulip Fever’. Oddly, I brought two books based on, and set in 17th century Amsterdam. One, by Tracy Chevalier is a first novel after graduating from the Canterbury creative writing course. Maybe I could make my fortune yet? Late afternoon, I took the Ealing ménage-à- trois into the village and over to the Spiny Forest. Here, every plant has malevolently sharp defences. One looks like chicken wire, there are poisonous euphorbia, cacti, succulents of a sharply vindictive tendency, and undergrowth with triffid instincts to grab, snatch, clutch and rend. By contrast, the bottle-shaped baobabs were benign, jocular and stolid. Jake explained the names and characteristics (eg. white sap in a succulent means poisonous to humans) and he described his gardens with enthusiasm and graphic vigour. We hunted round several baobabs for a fruit, but concluded that they must be tasty – to humans or lemurs. Then a boy of about seven offered one for sale. He had managed to find the one person in Ifaty willing to buy and illegally import a baobab fruit. His sister felt 500Fr was too cheap and got quite stroppy. The skin is like flock, as big as an apple, and firm. He collects and displays seed pods – this one is destined to be a favourite. (He even grows bananas, outside, in central London – 0171 only, of course – where it’s hot). At night, we were woken several times by micro-lemurs charging all over the roof in big boots, but we couldn’t spot them. A pleasant hotel, if overstaffed! A real retreat.