I had a cold for the first few days but luckily it just disappeared! Met up with friends that we see every year and had some laughs. Saw AnnMon on her last night which was a shame as we haven't seen eachother for 2 years....great to see them though.
Spent all our time down on CoCo beach with a gang of friends....it ended up 13 of us in all, including a friend from our town who was out there for his first time and he fell in love with Goa and wants to return. Lovely Jubbly shack still as good as ever with Alex and the boys on hand.
Weather for the first few days was rather cold for Goa and the next week the wind was really cold, had to switch off the AC and fans!!!! never had to do that before. Although it changed after that - thank god and returned to normal for the time of year. However, it rained on valentines night!!! that was a first. News reports stated that it was the coldest for 60years. Still better than the UK in Feb though.
Had some good meals and tried to get around a few more restaurants this year but we had such good food at the ones we visited we didn't get much further than the ones listed.....
Foxys steak house.....Very good as always
Tiger Trail Excellent (especially if you like spare ribs) as Graham will confirm
Tonys Place Very good
Green Jacket Good
Cecilias Very Good
Rising Waves Excellent...especially for fish....we kept returning!
Fishermans Cove Very good
Herra Classic Very good
Jungle Village Very good
Had plenty of budweiser and G&Ts......especially without the UK prices.
We were renting a different apartment this year and we were in the Alor Grande. The apartment was lovely but we were renting it from an English couple that we know. The hotel could be a bit noisy at times with the Indians (mumbai and deli) not knowing what toning the talking (shouting) and music down means. That problem was sorted quite quickly with a bang on their door and using the right tone of voice that they understand!!! No further problems there...
We decided not to do anything other than laze around this year so no other trip reports I'm afraid.
Went to Mapusa market one night and got all the bits and pieces that we wanted....Graham was on form with his bartering skills - even did better than our taxi drivers wife! Got myself the usual handbags etc.
Was on the look out for blue wristbands but didn't see one!
The Russians are still appearing and seem to be as arrogant as ever. We witnessed a couple on the beach one morning who had decided to drink 2 bottles of wine, a bucket full of kingfisher and had taken drugs....they managed this in half an hour and were in such a state the male was face down in the sea. There shack boys went to drag him out and he responded with taking a swing at them!!! The female was just as bad and was rolling around topless in the sea and her bottoms not leaving alot to the imagination. This went on for some time until they eventually fell asleep in the hot sun!!!!
Anyway we didn't see them again....probably had a lovely hangover and sunstroke. 
All in all it was a good holiday.......left on the 24th Feb and got delayed 4 and half hours in Mumbai...we had been up at 4am so we were rather tired when we got back.
We didn't think we would return next year....but hey.....guess what??? Yes we are booked to go again!
Dawn
