I’m not going to try to describe everything l did this week. Most of you are following live on WhatsApp anyway so you have a flavour of it.
I spent the week in my mother-in-law’s house in Lushnjë, a medium-sized town, and in a fairly basic holiday apartment in Hamallaj, a village by the sea. In Lushnjë I went to church, caught up with friends and slept a lot.
In Hamallaj and the Bay of Lalzi, I went to the beach, ate at restaurants and again slept a lot. People sleep twice a day here, which I like 🙂
I also took a load of photos of the beautiful beach and surroundings, to make you all sick with jealousy.
We visited a beautiful place called Agroturizm Huqi on the way home.
Then it was back to normal life of making coffee, getting the messages and squiring Dafina around to places she needed to go. We went to a couple of villages, but Albanian villages have changed a lot in the last 20 years and are much more tolerable. They have inside toilets now, with real plumbing!
I’m glad I was here this week because Dafina’s other relatives who were visiting were away in a village, and she doesn’t like to be alone. Quite possibly they would have come back sooner if I hadn’t been here to keep Dafina company, but it worked out well. The only annoying thing was that I had to sleep on the sofa the whole time because the bedrooms were taken by people who weren’t actually here. Dafina keeps the kitchen light on, which makes it too light to sleep, and the cockerel starts crowing in the early hours. Fortunately, as a seasoned traveller, I had a eye mask and earplugs. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to bring bug spray so I have been eaten alive by mosquitos.
The holiday at the beach was also good for Dafina, who lost her eldest son recently, and needed a break. She had been stuck inside the house for 40 days after the death (as is traditional) which didn’t do her legs any good. Her walking improved a lot over the holiday, and we took longer and longer walks each evening. I was so tempted to just keep the kitten we found on one of our walks!
Tonight, after a tearful parting with Dafina, I’m on a ferry to Bari, Italy, where I will spend a couple of days before setting off home. It won’t be such a long way round on this side of the Adriatic, but still a few days of travel!
K C Murdarasi 
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