February 25, 2016. Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. The Pool.

The pool is the social center of our condo.  It is the place where you meet and greet friends old and new.  Last year, because I never went to the pool, I did not see anyone but this season I am at the pool several afternoons a week.  Don and Doreen are following the practice of Ian and Rita of going early to reserve a Palapa, one of the thatched roof huts that provide shade.  They then spend the morning at the pool,  come up for lunch, then return for the afternoon, reading in the shade and the sun and getting in the pool to cool down.   I join them around 3:00.

This afternoon, I was sitting with Don and Doreen in the shade.  Don was reading.  Doreen stood up to go to the hot tub while I had just arrived.  A little man came over with his towel and asked if he could join us.  We assured him that he was welcome so he sat down at the bottom of the lounge chair that Doreen had been using.  He told us that he was sitting by himself waiting for his wife.  But she had not come, so he was lonely sitting alone.  He began to chat...and chat...and chat.  Poor Don never did get back to his book.  When his wife arrived, she sat in an adjacent lounge chair right beside Doreen while the little man moved to another chair on the other side of Don.  They were nice folks from Winnipeg and had been here 5 weeks.  We think they were both lonely as they certainly wanted to talk.

Once or twice during the afternoons I get in the water to do my exercises in the deep end.  I follow that by enjoying the hot tub.   Ken usually joins us around 4:00.   I am always surprised how pleasant it is to sit and do nothing and watch people at the pool.  Sometimes I even open my Kindle but most of the time I just look and talk and enjoy myself.  Life is grand here at Playa Royale, down by the pool.