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…
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