First Cocktail Party

We were invited to our first Indian Cocktail Party in the Officers’ Mess last Friday night.  It was hosted by the 3-star Commandant of the College and attended by all the international students and their wives, and various members of the College DS.  All the western wives wore their saris for the first time and all had so many compliments from the Indian ladies who seemed to really appreciate it.  The men were all offered beer or whisky to drink and Neil wisely decided to stick to the beer!  We weren’t sure if ladies were allowed to drink, but when Louise saw a Brigadier’s wife having a glass of red wine, she followed her lead!  We were introduced to the Commandant who seemed very nice, and we all really enjoyed ourselves and were ready for making a bit of a night of it, but as soon as the Commandant left, so did everyone else, including all the bar staff!  Probably best really, as Neil has school on Saturday mornings as well.

Ready to go to our first Cocktail Party

Whilst Neil was at College the following morning, Louise and Daisy went with Chelsea (the Australian wife) and Elaine (the British Army wife) into Coonoor for a bit of retail therapy and coffee.  There is only 1 western-type shop in Coonoor, which is a small town, called ‘Fab India’.  It sells Indian-made clothes, jewellery, bedding, linen, furniture, toiletries etc, and is very nice.  Everybody bought something and Daisy was very well-behaved, so she had a strawberry milkshake upstairs in India’s Starbucks equivalent, ‘Coffee Day’.

Louise had a second visit to Coffee Day later the same day (it’s a shame they don’t have a loyalty card, but as there’s no other competition in Coonoor, you can understand why!) when we went back into Coonoor, after Neil had finished work for the day, to pick up his new tailor-made suit.  The suit looks great, as you can see in the picture, and only cost £62 plus the cost of the material.  Neil’s now planning what else he can have made before he goes home!

Neil's new suit

We were also very pleasantly surprised when we received our broken furniture back from the carpenter.  The damaged changing unit, blanket box and Daisy’s bike are all as good as new again, and in fact have been repaired with better materials than they were made with, in the first place.  We’re now just waiting to get the frames back and then we can forget about the whole Pickfords debacle.



The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet – dinner with the Navy family at La Belle Vie on Saturday night and afternoon tea with our new upstairs neighbours, who seem very nice and have a daughter whose around the same age as Daisy, so they had a great time running around the garden together.  We were also able to swap rat and spider stories with them, after Daisy had found a huge Huntsman spider outside the backdoor that morning, and Neil had come face-to-face with Roland Rat in our garden earlier in the afternoon!  Our neighbours trumped our stories though, after finding a rat and a Huntsman spider in their apartment over the weekend!  They heard some rattling in their cutlery draw and found Roland’s brother in there!  And they’re not sure where he is now!  Daisy was very funny when she found the spider too – she came to find Louise and said “Mummy, there’s a spider outside and it’s NOT a baby spider!”  The joys of living in the Indian countryside/jungle!  We’re buying some more rat-traps tomorrow – sorry, Doris!

Today was the first day of DSSC 68.  Up until now, it’s just been an introduction course for all the international students, but today was Neil’s first day with the full course of 450 students.  The wives were all invited for the Commandant’s opening address as well.  The address was only 10 minutes, but it was an impressive arrival in a classic car escorted by horses – it was a bit like the Queen arriving!  And then it was tea and biscuits on the lawn and an opportunity to meet a few of the Indian students and their wives, before we were home for lunch.   

Tea at the Opening Ceremony

Saris again tomorrow night for another cocktail party – this time an Air Wing one.  And Daisy starts at her new nursery on Wednesday.