Essaouira again

We are still in Essaouira and have decided to stay an extra day because it is so lovely here - last time we were here, during the height of the hot weather in Marrakech, it was very cold indeed - extra blankets on the bed, heaters, wearing every scrap of clothing we had brought at once; this time it is breezy, sunny and warm and John and James have even been swimming (not something which would have held any appeal here last time).

My trips to Ireland and England were very very busy and exhausting - all the more so because our lives in Marrakech are so very quiet and relaxed. We get up in the morning, study, read, write and chat and sometimes venture out into Gueliz for lunch or a trip to the supermarket but that is pretty much it. This, of course, leads to a rather dull blog-reading experience for my readers, with anxious articles about shopping and interiors composed in an attempt to mask our Moroccan inactivity.

Of course, as I have mentioned, we have guests with us for the rest of the month and must at all costs hide from them the fact that we rarely leave the house if we do not absolutely have to, and must therefore bring them to all sorts of exciting places while casually pretending that this is what we always do. Oh if only they did not all actually read this blog. Still, whatever deception we practice on our guests, my family, friends and readers will have the satisfaction of a little variety when they come here to find out what I have been doing, starting with our few days here in Essaouira.

Yesterday the tide was in but John and James cheerfully stripped off and swam the short distance to the ruined fort that lies drunkenly on the beach here before coming back into town to eat grilled fish at the port, sleep it off and then go out for a long, slightly boozy dinner with a couple of bottles of excellent Moroccan vin gris at La Licorne, a fabulous and gorgeously located restaurant right under the sea-facing ramparts of the town. After a short conference with the chef at La Licorne, my husband had his first good tagine ever, which must surely endear Essaouira to him forever - John is vegetarian, an unnatural concept in this country and as a general rule resulting in the most boring food imaginable while I tuck into all sorts of fishy wonders. However, La Licorne had a meaty tagine on offer with all sorts of dry fruit and nut delights and the chef was applied to to adapt this for John and it was delicious, or so I was informed.

Today will involve more swimming, eating and sleeping, I imagine and when we are back in Marrakech and I am reunited with my computer I try to put up some photographs.