BBQ and Jungle Nights

Well, since we posted last, we’ve had a BBQ for some of the international students, and had a lovely weekend away at the Jungle Retreat in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. 

As most of the students were off work from Wednesday last week, we decided it would be a good chance to get a few people round for some drinks before the course starts proper.  So on Thursday evening we had all the Brits, Americans, Australians, the Canadian and the Singaporean for a BBQ and a few beers.  It all seemed to go very well and everyone seemed to have a great time.  It looks like there are a few characters on the course, so we’re expecting a lot of fun and laughter this year.  And there seem to be enough national days, battle commemorations, birthdays etc to have some kind of social every week.  Jubliee party next maybe?

First Social of the Course

The best thing about the BBQ was that we hardly had to lift a finger for it!  We were expecting that Anandh and Fatima would do all the cooking and preparation, but we thought that we would be hosting guests and fetching drinks etc, but Anandh served the drinks all night and made sure no-one ever ran dry.  We had to do a little bit of washing up of the last few glasses, after Anandh and Fatima had left, but that was it!  It’s going to be hard getting used to the UK again when we go back!

On Friday, we packed our bags and headed off to the Jungle Retreat for a couple of nights, with Ian and Elaine Strong, the British Army couple.  It’s about a 2-hr drive away, north-west of Wellington and down on the plains, so quite a bit hotter than here.   The Jungle Retreat is a family run wilderness retreat, where there’s not a lot to do, except to go on safaris, chill by the pool and wait for the next meal.  Unfortunately, the only safaris that were going on at the moment were “Main Road Safaris” which, as the name suggests, entails simply driving along the main road to Mysore, along with hundreds of other horn-blaring Indian cars, looking for wildlife!  Having said that we did see wild elephants, monkeys, peacocks, bison, deer and a sloth bear!  After 6pm it wasn’t safe to walk around the Retreat without a guide, so we had to travel by jeep between the main dining area/bar and our cottage, which was only 400 yards, and during our trip on the first night we almost ran over an 8-foot python which was lying in the road.  The open jeep suddenly felt a bit exposed!  On the second night we didn’t see anything, but the guide heard a tiger and showed us where elephant had been the previous night. 

Langur Monkey

We took Anandh with us and he babysat Daisy and Ava each night which allowed us to go and have dinner and a few drinks with Elaine and Ian.  Daisy loved the swimming pool, but wasn't so happy with the goats who came to drink from the pool every day!  And the journey to and from the retreat was an experience in itself.  We thought the 13 hairpin bends from Coimbatore to Wellington were enough, but that didn’t even compare to the 36 hairpin bends to Mudumalai, with the normal high-speed overtaking and horn-blaring on every corner!

Swimming at the Jungle Retreat

It was good to get home today – we skyped Doris and the Hancock grandparents and had a lovely fish curry that Fatima had made us for dinner.  Tomorrow the course starts proper and all the wives are invited for the first 2 days, so that should be interesting!

As a last note to the whole Pickfords saga, Neil found that they had also broken his golf bag, just as he was about to go out for his first round of golf last week.  He was not best pleased, as you can imagine, but Anandh appeared, took the broken bag away and returned half an hour later with a new bag for about £30 and £5 for the sale of his old bag!  Amazing!  Particularly, as Pickfords refused to offer a penny.

More about the first week of College and Neil’s golfing experiences next time…

Don't Use Pickfords!

We encountered our first real bit of bother at the weekend when our air freighted personal belongings turned up in a terrible state.  Of the 64 items we asked Pickfords to move, 13 of them turned up severely damaged, with 11 of those items destroyed beyond repair.  We lost a number of empty picture frames, that we had planned to use for family photos, 3 storage crates that we’d bought for the girls’ toys were smashed to bits, a beautiful 3 photo frame of Daisy had its glass shattered and frame damaged and the top lid of our ottoman was ripped off at one hinge.  Worst of all they’d managed to snap off one handle of Daisy’s balance bike, which is brand new.  And to top it all, the baby changing table looks like it’s been kicked front and back, with the front fascia and the back panel completely destroyed.  The damage was impressive! It transpires that all the broken items were wrapped in only bubble wrap, rather than being boxed. Neil wrote to Pickfords and Agility (the sub-contractor and contractor) yesterday and said that it was the worst logistics delivery he had witnessed in the 23 years of his career, and that’s saying something when you consider he’s served on UKMAMS twice!! 

Daisy's Bike

So excuse me for a few lines whilst I use this blog to give Pickfords a terrible review on the world-wide web for anyone to see…Pickfords…review…destroy your belongings…useless group of irresponsible, lazy, stupid, unprofessional, negligent idiots…no skill, no experience, no idea what they’re doing…never ever use this company if you can avoid it.  There!  That feels a bit better!

Thankfully, there is one good thing that comes out of this.  If there is one country you want to be in to get a cheap tradesman to return your items to better than new, it’s India.  Anandh, our driver/gardener/general all-round problem-solver, contacted the local carpenter and he can fix everything and make new picture frames for us for £85.  He also asked if we wanted the baby changing unit fixed with the "crappy" MDF it’s made of, or did we want a plywood finish!!  It looks like Pickfords will also pick up the cost of the repairs and replace the broken crates, and then we can put this whole sorry story behind us. 

Anyway, enough of the bad news.  On the good side, Neil has had his first  2 mornings of school and all went well.  He was shown around the College and met some of the Directing Staff, who appear all very friendly.  However, rumour has it that this will all change when the course starts proper on 4 June, when all the Indian students arrive.  We invited the Canadian Officer, a Cavalry officer and the 2 x USA students (who are all here on their own) around for afternoon tea.  They were all very nice, really friendly and keen to chat about our shared ‘Westerner’ experiences in India.  Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves so far.  The 2 USA Officers, one from the Army and one from the Air Force, are both female, which seems to be an interesting challenge for the Indian Directing Staff, as the major topic of discussion is what they should wear around the college when not in uniform.  Shirts and ties were suggested along with saris…they’re having a meeting about it tomorrow and we all await the outcome with baited breath.

The weather has been gorgeous so far, but apparently, the rains are not far away, and we had our first taste of them last night.  We had a HUGE thunder and lightning storm and torrential rain, which kept us awake for a couple of hours and resulted in a long power cut.  Luckily, we are one of the few apartments with our own generator, so we still had electricity throughout most of it.

Neil has got the rest of the week off now, so we’re opening bank accounts, getting our ‘Liquor Card’, befriending the Americans as are only way of getting hold of drinkable wine, and getting suits and saris made.  On Friday we’re off to the ‘Jungle Retreat’ with Elaine and Ian, the British Army couple.  Hopefully, we’ll have some good wildlife pictures for next time…

Our white-picket-fenced piece of Britain

Daisy and Ava's Admirers

Daisy and Ava the filmstars - you can't even see Ava for all the well-wishers!

Arriving in Wellington

We were all excited this morning to get on our way to Wellington, see our new home and meet our staff.  The first hour of the journey was through regional towns and villages – very different to Delhi – and the second hour was up into the hills of Nilgiris, on a single-track road around numerous hairpin bends.  Neil aptly described the journey as like the Monaco Grand Prix with trucks, buses, mopeds and 4x4s.  We literally saw buses over-taking buses on blind bends...we kid you not...at least 10 times. Not sure we’re ready to drive out here yet!

Wacky Races!

We arrived with the other UK military families and were the first students to arrive for the course.  After a quick cup of local tea in the Officers’ Mess with some of the Directing Staff, we were finally taken to our new home, where our 3 staff and 2 of their children were waiting with flowers, on the steps of the apartment, to meet us.  The apartment is much as we expected after seeing lots of photos and reminds us a bit of a self-catering holiday apartment in the Mediterranean!  The garden is lovely, and we’ve got swings for Daisy and a little white bench and even a white picket fence in the front garden! Daisy has been in her element all afternoon running around the garden with Angel (9) and Grace (7), who are the daughters of 2 of the staff.  She has also loved the cake, chicken soup and steak and chips that Fatima, our new cook, has made us all today.  She even made Ava some rice and carrots, which she really enjoyed after a week of eating packet baby-food.  Shepherd’s pie tomorrow night, and then we’re moving on to curry the night after – not too hot for Daisy though!

Hotel View

The view from our hotel window in Delhi.

Delhi

17 May 12

Well nearly 5 days into our India adventure and we are on the verge of heading up to Wellington in the morning to start our year long stint at the Defence Services Staff College of India.  We arrived on Sunday morning after a pretty good flight and were taken straight to the Assistant Defence Attaché’s house at the High Commission for lunch.  Not exactly what we wanted to do after an all-night flight with 2 toddlers, but everyone was very friendly and it was our first taste of the colonial life at the High Commission - buffet lunch, Pimms, wine, cooks, waiters and someone to look after Daisy!

We checked into a Five-Star hotel, with true Five-Star service; a hotel for any RAF Officer to be proud to stay in.  Daisy has loved our time in the hotel – I think she thought she was the Queen.  All the staff looked after her, brought her toys, hot chocolate, doughnut, and she just smiled and waved at everyone! 

The first week has involved a series of briefings for Neil, and an opportunity for the girls to start acclimatising to India.  Medical checks for everyone and customs freight clearance followed with the latter causing problems.  The freight forwarding company in the UK forgot to ship our freight consignment to arrive in India on Tue 15 May 12, and after a lot of testing phone calls finally agreed to emergency ship the freight on 17 May 12.  Unfortunately, Indian customs requires the freight to be cleared in person, and we were scheduled to be flying to Coimbatore at the time that the freight arrived.  Thankfully the British High Commission wrote some hasty letters, and Neil met with the New Delhi Cargo Customs Commissioner and they agreed to honour a signed copy of Neil’s passport to clear the freight in his absence. Fingers crossed this will get the job done; however, as we’ve now arrived in Coimbatore, we’ve had no news yet! 

The view of Delhi from our room - so many trees!

The journey to Coimbatore has been an interesting one.  Throughout our trip through the Domestic terminal and on a 3-hr flight, Daisy and Ava have been treated like filmstars!  Indians crowding round them to touch them, squeeze their cheeks, stroke them, have their pictures taken with them.  Even the aircraft captain wanted a picture with them – it was really funny!  We’ll upload some pictures of it next time.  They were exhausted by the time we got to the hotel.  Well that’s all for now.  Tomorrow, we’re travelling to our new home and the year at the Defence Services Staff College begins......

A 2-year old's idea of heaven - room service pizza and Toy Story 3!