Indian Parties

This week is the last week of the second tutorial, so Neil is already a third of the way through the course, and time seems to be racing by.  This tutorial’s been a busy one and we seem to have hardly seen him over the last 2 or 3 weeks.  He’s been going back into work in the afternoons, coming home at 9pm and had to work on days off and Saturdays.  Fortunately, the exercise that was keeping him in work for such long hours has now finished, and he’ll be back to more normal hours this week; and he made use of all the empty hours at work by finishing off lots of other big pieces of work and starting his dissertation, so he’s well ahead of the game now.  He’s got another set of exams this week and then we’re off the Mumbai for a long weekend.

This weekend has been a fairly quiet one as Neil hadn’t quite recovered from his illness this week.  He went to see the doctor on Friday who gave him some more pills and told him “no spicy food for 5 days” – his constitution just can’t handle it; he says he’s got the stomach of a 12 year old girl!!  He’s feeling much better already, and Fathima’s been cooking us pasta and chicken casseroles.  He did manage to make it out for dinner (just steak and chips though) and cocktails at the Taj Gateway on Saturday night, however, and we cooked a roast chicken and crumble yesterday, whilst Fathima had her day off.  That was the first roast we’d cooked for 4 months, and apart from some pasta, omelettes and toasties, the first proper meal we’d cooked since leaving the UK in May!  Louise also found a supply of bacon in Coonoor this week, so we had bacon and eggs for breakfast.  From a nearly 100% Indian diet for the last 4 months, we’ve gone almost purely Western now!

The weekend before was a long one here, as the Monday was a Muslim holiday for Eid.  We decided not to go anywhere, as we’d just been to Destiny the week before and are off to Mumbai at the end of the month, and there was lots going on here anyway.  We went to an Indian Independence Day party on Friday night, a party at a friend’s house on Saturday night, had a roast dinner at the RN house on Sunday, and lunch at our Sponsor Student’s house on Monday.  So it was a busy social weekend of eating and drinking. 

Party at Raghu and Pooja's House

We’re getting used to the Indian style of parties now and make sure we eat before we go out.  If you get invited round to someone’s house for dinner or a party, the invitation is usually for 9pm and the whole family is invited.  Most Indian children (and adults) have a long afternoon nap, stay up all night, go to bed when their parents do, and then get up quite late in the morning.  Most of the men drink spirits and mixers (usually rum or whisky and coke) at parties; a lot of women don’t drink alcohol, but some do drink and they usually drink wine, just like in the UK.  Everyone drinks and drinks and drinks whilst lots of home-made snacks are passed round, often nuts, Indian nibbles, BBQd meat, pakoras etc.  At about 11pm, a mat is often rolled out on the floor in the dining room and all the children eat together.  After the children have eaten and everything’s been tidied up, then the adults eat at around 11.30/12pm.  It’s always a huge delicious buffet of home-made curries, dal, vegetables, rice and rotis, and you’re always pressed to have 2^nd, 3^rd and even 4^th helpings.  Everyone here has a maid to help with the cooking and washing up which means that the hostess isn’t tied to the kitchen all night.  And sometimes, people order the whole meal from a local restaurant, so there is very little cooking at all to do.  At some parties we’ve been to, people leave pretty much as soon as they’ve eaten, but at a lot of the parties we’ve been to, they carry on drinking and dancing until the early hours.  A lot of the officers here joined up together and are very old friends who haven’t seen each other for years.  So Staff College is a very social year of catching up with big groups of friends.  They party every single weekend and take it in turns to host their friends.  As internationals here, we cut across all the cliques and groups and get invited to lots of different people’s houses, which is a great way to meet lots of new people. 

Pooja and Raghu's Party

There is ALWAYS dancing at Indian parties and men love dancing as much as women; usually the men all dance together and the women all dance together, but they don’t really dance in couples.  The music is generally a mix of Indian Bollywood and western hits.  Often shots of tequila are passed round after dinner, and that’s generally our cue to leave as we don’t usually take the girls with us, and it’s always at the back of our mind that we’ll have to be up with them at about 7am the next morning.  We have taken Daisy with us once, however, and she had a great time.  All the children go off and play together in one of the bedrooms or a playroom, so you hardly see any of them all night.  Surprisingly, with all the drinking that takes place and the lateness of dinner, not many people seem to get ‘falling-down’ drunk – we think they must all have something to eat before they go out, just like we do.

Dancing at the Indian Independence Day Party

Daisy and Ava are both doing well.  Daisy has now mastered the toilet completely and her nursery is very pleased with how quickly she’s done it and how independent she is about it!  Her best friend, Lujain, has now gone back to Saudi Arabia, unfortunately, but Daisy doesn’t understand that she’s gone for good, so isn’t too upset about it!  Ava is now a super-fast crawler and is starting to pull herself up on the furniture, but we think it’ll be a little while yet before she’s walking on her own.  She’s also getting quite mischievous, hates being told ‘No’ and tries to fight with Daisy over certain toys.  And she hates being left out of anything!

Ava at Destiny Farm

Well, that’s all for now.  We’ll tell you all about Mumbai next time…

Daisy and Ava in the Bath

Destiny!

First things first, we’re sure you’re all dying to know how the potty training’s going.  Well, we kept Daisy at home last week, to really focus on it, but she’s back at nursery this week, and dry most of the time (still nappies at night though).  She’s using the toilet, rather than a potty now, and hardly has any ‘wet’ accidents, but unfortunately, poos are still a bit more hit and miss, but she’s getting there.  Too much information?

Toilet training in full swing!

Talking of training, Neil’s been involved in a couple of Air Wing exercises over the last 2 weeks, in both of which he’s been given the position of a 2-star!  As I’m sure you can imagine, he has been loving it, particularly as the last week has seen him play the Chief Engineer!  He almost got to wear the rank slides as well, but the DS took pity on Louise, realising he’d be unbearable, and it didn’t happen.  Much to Neil’s disappointment!

Last week, we also had our first Indian Dining-In Night.  It was called a Training Dining Night and we weren’t to have fun!   Louise wore her Mum’s beautiful lemon chiffon sari embroidered with pink flowers, which is now almost 40 years old, and Neil got to wear his Tropical Mess Dress, so we both looked very smart, and got lots of nice comments, although Neil was on the receiving end of a few ‘waiter’ jokes.  It was a quite dry evening – only 2 small glasses of wine per person were allowed, there were no speeches, and we were home by 9:30pm!  The Australians and ourselves did try to go to the bar after dinner, but it was all shut up, so we got the message and had an early night!

Before the Dinner Night

 It was probably for the best, as Neil had the following day off, so we headed to Destiny Farmstay, near Avalanche, for a night.  It’s in the middle of nowhere, and after getting dropped off at their car park, we were taken, by ageing 4-tonne truck with seats, up the last, very bumpy 3 kms of road to the farm.  Destiny is in a beautiful location, right on the edge of a lake, with no other buildings around it.  It only has 25 rooms, so it’s very small and quiet.  The food is excellent, and we had lunch overlooking the lake, or what there was of it due to the drought, as soon as we arrived, before settling into our room. Unfortunately, the rain also settled in as we arrived, and it didn’t really stop raining all weekend.  This didn’t bother Daisy though, so we put on our raincoats and went and fed the ducks, walked through their HUGE vegetable patch (Len would love it!), watched cows being milked, saw horses and sheep, and even found a kitten that looked suspiciously like a short-haired, much smaller version of Jacko!  Anandh came to babysit whilst we had dinner, and then we settled into our room, lit the fire and watched it burn until we fell asleep. 

The next day it was still raining, but we had another walk around the property before going home.   As usual, all the Indian staff at Destiny loved Daisy and Ava, and Daisy had a great time playing with all the reception staff, which gave us a few minutes of peace and quiet every now and again!  On the way home we stopped in Ooty to buy all the tonic water we could lay our hands on – another drink in short supply here!

Daisy and her friends at Reception



That day was also Singapore’s national day, and the Singaporean officer on the course hosted a party that night.  He had really gone to town decorating his garden with banners, fairy lights, tables and chairs and an awning in case of rain, and had invited all the international students and a fair number of the Indian students as well.  He also had lots of wine and a great buffet, so everyone had a good night.

Louise, Elaine and Nicola

Ian, Neil, Harvey and Chris

Unfortunately Neil has suffered the family’s first real bout of Delhi Belly this week, which has been accompanied by fever, high temperatures and general malaise.  I know some of you may not see too much difference in this to Neil’s normal approach to work, but he has been a little poorly.  However, the reporting sick procedure here is quite rigid.  With Neil feeling quite ill, he had to dress in full uniform and report to the Medical Centre.  Once seen by the doctor, a wide range of drugs were dispensed and he then had to report to his DS Co-ord to inform him that he had been signed off Sick-in-Quarters for 24 hrs; only at this stage was Neil excused lectures.  Quite a painful process, particularly when you consider that the college is a considerable drive from home when you’re not feeling too well.  At times, being at the College is like being at Primary School.   That said, the medical staff here are brilliant, and Neil was seen straight away and is now well on the road to recovery.

It seems as though the monsoon may finally have arrived, 10 weeks late.  All the locals were getting very worried about how dry it’s been, although we weren’t complaining, but since last weekend when we went to Destiny, we’ve had a few days or afternoons of very heavy, prolonged periods of rain.  It’s still not proper monsoon weather of raining for 3 or 4 days non-stop though, but who knows what it will be like when our next guests arrive in September and October.

Whilst she’s been kept indoors by the weather, Louise has been busy planning our next holidays.  We’re flying to Mumbai for a long weekend at the end of this month, and are also planning our Christmas break in Kerala and Goa at the moment.  Neil’s got 3 weeks off for Christmas so we’re really looking forward to doing a bit of sightseeing, seeing some beaches and spending a night on a houseboat on the Keralan backwaters.

Daddy's first attempt at face painting - a tigerrrrrrrr!

Birthdays and Potty Training

The Course continues apace for Neil, and last week he was required to submit a 9,000 word essay.  Not too much of a hardship there you’d think, apart from the fact that it had to be handwritten!  Having worked out what to write, Neil sat down and 11 ½ hours later, 61 pages of manuscript were produced and duly submitted.  Neil was happy to have achieved the aim, but his sore writing arm has started to affect his golf swing which may be disastrous for his golf game.

We all travelled to Coimbatore for Louise’s birthday and had a wonderful stay in the Meridien Hotel.  Daisy and Ava loved playing in the pool, even if it was a little chilly, whilst we had a great time with Ian and Elaine, drinking cocktails and having a lovely meal.  Fathima and Anandh decorated the apartment with jasmine and lilies, including some from our garden, before we left, and Fathima made a delicious chocolate-covered carrot birthday cake.  It had a music-playing candle shaped like a lotus flower, which closely resembled the Olympic Torch.  Daisy loved it, until it flamed like a Typhoon on reheat; but after retreating to a safe distance we all sang ‘Happy Birthday’, and Louise had a lovely weekend.  She and Ava both received lots of cards and presents and were really grateful for everyone taking the trouble to send post out here for their birthdays.



Daddy and Ava by the Pool



On Friday night we attended the first performance by SCADS, or the Staff College Amateur Dramatics Society.  The one thing we’ve learned about the Indians is they like to put on a show and they love, and we mean LOVE, their amateur dramatics.  Even the most serious presentation on the most mundane topic has to have a ‘comedy’ skit to emphasise the point.  Friday night was a mix of music, dance and comedy plays.  Unfortunately, the majority of the 2 ½ hour show was in Hindi!  But the production, costumes and visual spectacle was amazing.  After the show, we threw a party for all the British and Australian Sponsor Students who helped with the ISPs the previous week.   After a few Kingfishers, Neil started talking about volunteering for the next SCADS production and dusting off his acting ability.  You never know, maybe Catherine Zeta Jones would come and watch him again!  Anyway, only time will tell if it was just the beer talking, but all the other Indian students did seem quite keen on seeing a “White Boys” band taking to the stage next time...

SCADS Dancers

Over the weekend, we embarked on potty training with Daisy.  Following Gina Ford’s advice in “Potty Training in One Week”, we confined ourselves to the apartment for the weekend and concentrated on wees and poos.  Daisy was brilliant, and after a messy Saturday, Sunday was a real success, and she’s progressing well and is now out of nappies in the day, with a lot more going in the potty than on the floor.  We’ve never been so excited about a poo before!

Potty Training and Ready for Anything!