Tuesday 30 August 2011

Postcard from Cebu

The Blue Orchid Resort, Moalboal , Cebu island; can you imagine the palm fringed white sand beach, the turquoise of the waters over the coral reef ? And Bubb on the sun lounger by the pool with the latest superb Alan Hollinghurst !

The excellent David Fielding, head hunter to the sector , is also a top Akido champion ( just gained his 6th Dan no less ! )and his Akido partner Michael Mccavish owns this resort which he kindly asked me to visit before heading back to the UK.

And what better place to spend an English Bank Holiday than in the sun with the latest Alan Hollinhurst novel; even though at 90 degrees it's hot in the sun. But I have also been energetic and done some snorkelling. I have only a few wounds to show for my generally pathetic efforts ( coral can be quite sharp you know! ). This is one of the top diving resorts in the world and there are threats to get me into a wetsuit to try it out. Um?






But there are few things more treasured than spending a few days with no diary schedule or emails , by a pool , eating fish caught from the sea and drinking mango juice. And a light walk along the beach at low tide reflecting on , well whatever!

The resort...






But all good thing must come to an end and I'm now homeward bound!

1 comment:

Dan Filson said...

The thought of you in a wetsuit is a little frightening, almost as awful as the mental image of me in one.

I'm sure Alan Hollinghurst will forgive you spelling him Alan Hollinhurst given you have so subtly plugged his book The Stranger's Child. However what all your readers want to know is did you make headway or is it like Tolstoy's War and Peace, Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Sholokhov's Quiet Flows the Don*, a book you take on holidays with the noble intention of actually reading but which never quite gets beyond the first chapter or so?

*Reputedly so tedious that it took the 31 years between 1934 and 1965 for the Nobel Prize lierature committee to get through enough of it to decide to award its author a prize in what must have been a lean year.