You know you're settling in when ...

... your phone breaks - and you cope ...

your sunglasses snap - but you manage, despite fearing permanent visual impairment ...

you burn your legs after using factor 50 and reapplying neurotically - but don't lose heart because at least you can't get wrinkles on your legs ...

you awake to find two mosquitoes on the outside of your net, staring at you and foaming at the mouth in anticipation of your eventual and inevitable exit - but survive the rat run to the loo ...

the tuk tuk driver you've been using because he's such a trustworthy family man with a lovely wife and children puts his hand on your thigh and tells you that you're beautiful - but you don't freak (mainly because you're so naive you think it might just be a local greeting in Galle and all perfectly *innocent) ...

your new found determination to drink 3 litres of water a day is going well but resulting in HOURLY punch ups with the mosquitoes who inhabit the office toilet - and yet, your dignity is intact (once you get outside the loo that is) ...

and you get to work to discover a button has popped off your (not at all tight) dress right at a bit that you really ought to keep covered in a conservative country like Sri Lanka - but, still, you remain stoical ...

What I'm trying to say is that you know you're settling in well when the things that would test your patience at home, test it no more over here. Problems are not exaggerated simply because you're thousands of miles away from home - this revelation I am treating with surprise and relief. Right I'm away to find out where I can buy aloe vera and a sewing kit!

* Apparently this is not an innocent greeting. As our country manager out here said to me when I emailed to ask, "not in Sri Lanka, not in any country in the world"! Apparently "some things mean the same the world over"! Some call it naivety, I call it faith in human nature :-)