Final Blog – Incredible India!
Sadly, this will be our last blog about our time in India. We can’t believe where the year has gone; we can still remember writing the very first one from the Oberoi Hotel in New Delhi last May. We started writing this during our time in Goa after spending 2 days back at the Oberoi in Delhi whilst Neil completed his debriefs at the British High Commission – we seem to have come full circle!
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| Ava enjoying a drink by the pool in Goa |
Since the last Blog we celebrated the Indian Festival of Holi. Holi is a spring festival celebrated as a festival of colours. It is a Hindu religious festival which has also become popular with people of other communities. It meant we travelled around Gorkha Hill getting covered in various coloured dye. Thankfully there was a water shortage in Wellington otherwise we would have got drenched as well. Ava and Daisy were a little unsure at first, but soon got into the swing of things and we as covered in colour as both Louise and Neil
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| Loving the Colour |
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| Bandari and Neil taking a break |
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| A pink Daisy |
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| Louise gets in on the act |
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| A more sedate level of involvement from Ava |
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| Asleigh (US) and James (Singapore) |
The last week in Wellington was very sad, saying goodbye to all our new friends and especially to Fathima, Anandh, Vassa, Angel and Grace. Prior to that we had a great Break-Up party at the College and 2 weeks of dinners, lunches and parties at people’s houses, plus packing up the house and our luggage, so we were exhausted by the time we left; Most evenings we did the Indian thing of visiting numerous parties in one night! The Break-Up party was the best party we had been to all year! It was held in the grounds of the Officers’ Mess and was sponsored by Bacardi, so the drinks were free all night – as long as you liked Bacardi! That is a measure of how much the Armed Forces are revered in India, that a drinks company would want to sponsor a party for over 1,000 military personnel and their wives. The food was catered by a local hotel chain and the music was provided by a DJ who’d come down from Mumbai – it was a fantastic night!
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| Our extended family for the year - with Fathima, Anandh, Grace and Angel |
The number of parties being held in Wellington has been amazing! Everyone seemed to be hosting one last party for all their friends before they had to start packing up their houses, and we had at least 1 invitation a night for the 2 weeks running up to the end of the course. We had a big party ourselves to celebrate the 95th birthday of the RAF and then a smaller BBQ for our closest friends in Wellington.
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| Spitfire House ready for the celebrations |
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| Anandh fixes a roaring fire |
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| With over 100 guests - The Party in full swing! |
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| Top Chef - Anandh at the BBQ |
One interesting turn of events for our Blog was a call that Neil took from the College, informing him that they had been reading the Blog and had requested all the military photographs be removed! Neil explained that all the photographs were of his own taking were unclassified in nature and available via open source on the internet. However, the Indian Military is very sensitive about such photos, so Neil complied with our hosts request and removed the photos and Blog entries, which is why there are now 10 entries less on our Blog! It was pleasing to see that the College had finally realised that we were writing a Blog, although it was little disappointing that the request came in with only 3 weeks of the course to go and most of the posts had been online for 8-10 months!
It was also a successful month of awards for both of us. Louise won a crystal vase after coming third in a putting competition, and a trophy for being the runner-up in the DSSC Tennis Open Ladies’ Singles competition (she played in the Ladies’ Doubles and Mixed Doubles too, but unfortunately went out in the first round of both). Neil captained the International Students football team against the Indian Officers, which the Internationals won 3-2 whilst Louise was awarded a Brooch in the Sports and Past-times awards.
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| Louise plays another impressive ground stroke |
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| A chance goes begging in the football |
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| Neil - A midfield General !?!?!? |
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| The victorious International Officers Football Squad |
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| Louise collects her Tennis Award |
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| Tennis Champion |
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| A very proud Husband |
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| The 2 Ladies Tennis Singles Finalists |
But the icing on the cake was Neil winning a prize for academic excellence on the course and being told that he was the runner-up for the Southern Star medal which is presented to the best international student on the course. Finally, the last week came around all too quickly and we had more invitations to people’s houses for lunches, cocktails and dinners, an invitation to the Ooty Club, awards rehearsals, the graduation ceremony, the closing ceremony and packing day – it was a busy week!
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| Li (Vietnam), Aarti (US) and Ashleigh (US) on Graduation Day |
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| Neil receives his Graduation Certificate and MSc Dgree |
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| It's all over |
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| Our final day at college |
But before we knew it, the house was all packed up, our luggage was ready, all the ceremonies were over and it was time to bid a very tearful goodbye to Fathima, Vassa, Angel and Grace. They were all really upset to see us go, but especially to say goodbye to Daisy and Ava – Ava was the youngest child they’d ever looked after and they had all become really close to her and Daisy over the past few months. Anandh drove us down the hill to Coimbatore where we stayed in a hotel overnight, along with half of the course it seemed! So we had dinner with more friends and said more goodbyes, and the next day it was time to fly out of Coimbatore one last time, after another sad goodbye with Anandh. As we write, Mark, Cathie and their boys are now living in Spitfire House on Gorkha Hill and Fathima and Anandh are busy looking after a new family.
Staying in Delhi and Goa before our return to the UK gave us the chance to ‘decompress’ and to reflect on our amazing year in India, and to have a few more last suppers with some of the good friends that we’ve met over the last 11 months. It really has been a fantastic year which has exceeded our expectations in so many ways. We were a bit worried about bringing a 9-month old baby here, but the girls have thrived and have loved having the extended family of Fathima, Anandh, Vassa, Angel and Grace around. The opportunities to travel, learn new things and, most importantly, to spend time together as a family have been superb. Now we’ve just got to work on Neil getting promoted and getting the Air Attaché job in Delhi so that we can come back again!
Neil finally got his next posting and is off to work on the Project Team responsible for introducing the Voyager tanker into the RAF, based at Abbeywood in Bristol. We will be living in Emerson’s Green for the foreseeable future (ie the next 6-12 months!) and Louise will be off to the UAE for 6 months in July, leaving Neil to look after the girls on his own – they’d better learn to like pizza and football! And we’ve already got a few visits to look forward to from our new Indian friends in 2013 and 2014!
So now we’re at home in the UK and enjoying catching up with all our family and friends and sorting out our new house – hopefully the weather will keep improving too! We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our blog as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it. We also included a link to the Gangnam Style Video that Neil made; we hope you like it!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch_cvAA_9MI
This has been an iconic tour for the both of us and we’ve got some unforgettable memories of our year in India and of the new friends from all over the world that we’ve made here – we’ll definitely be back!
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| The sun sets on our Indian Adventure |
