Well it's been a while since I last had time to put anything on the blog. Yesterday we started serving breakfast to the yoga students which has filled up the past two days completely as we have to prepare, serve, clean up and then shop for the next day. At the moment we're just offering fruit salad but it's a very decent salad with loads of different fruits, roasted cashews, grated coconut, deluxe muesli and honey & curd (set yoghurt). The yoga people are happy with it, and we've also had customers from the bamboo huts - possibly as we put some beautifully designed menu's under their doors. At the moment we haven't even got anywhere for our guests to sit, (we've put a few tables in the yoga compound) so it's quite rewarding that they will eat our food and we don't even have any facilities. That's all changing soon though; 15 truck loads of "mud" arrived which will form the yoga chill-out section and also extend the chill-out at the back. There's enough mud for Prakash to put up a few more huts - which is good for us as there'll be more customers on site! As well as mud, 7 massive poles which will support the tent canopy have gone in, plus 4 or so cross-bars. Quite speedy progress considering that the truck delivering the mud is THE most sophisticated tool being used. Everything else has to be done manually, which includes moving the 15 trucks of mud. I shoveled for a few hours and it is absolutely exhausting! One of the workers seems to be a mole in human form, he can shovel for hours, tough as old boots he is - he got a huge gash on one foot which he merrily stitched up with twine.

So I am off out of Goa tomorrow to a huge bazaar at (can't remember name) where we hope to get table clothes, napkins, lighting, ceiling fans and a whole load of other things for a knock down cost. It's reasonably far so I'm staying over in a hotel tomo night with Lena and Prakash. Lovely: 7 hours in a hot car, over what can only be loosely termed as roads! Matt is staying to run the breakfast shift, paint more furniture, chivvy the carpenter and contact more suppliers.

It's been a very interesting few days, there have been a few trials - ant proofing, getting the fridge to stop freezing things, being ripped off completely on a toaster we bought and communication difficulties with our "team." We've got a good bunch between Prakash, Viju, Lena and Shebange - but there is a tendency fro them to smile and nod away when they really haven't understood a word! We're getting used to saying things very very simply and repeat a lot!!!

Erm, what else? We haven't been anywhere apart from Chaudi market. I haven't even been in the sea in the past 5 days. I finished my book 3 days ago and haven't had time to get a new one, and for recreation we have a game of cards, often with gaps between hands as we've got to go and do something else. I've managed to pick up a head-cold so have been sniffing my way around the place. Indian loo paper has took a few layers of skin off my nose! Oddly enough it's been very cold here at night and early morning, I'm sleeping in trousers and a jumper. It's scorching during the day though, makes it very hard to get anything done. The camera memory was full but as I've just burned some pictures onto disc I can go and take some snaps of progress so far at Café Utopia, and then blog them up for you.

So keep watching this space!!!