Getting Settled In

 Neil is almost half way through his first Tutorial (what they call terms here) – there are 6 in a year – and we’re all feeling very settled here now.  At the moment it rains most days, but usually only for about an hour and it’s not cold.

We’ve started to fall into a comfortable daily routine, which begins with Anandh and Daisy taking Neil to College at around 8am.  On the way back, Anandh stops to get Daisy some biscuits, and he says that she’s becoming quite well known around Wellington now, especially as she insists on saying hello to everyone.  Apparently the milkman and the bread man look for her every morning!  Fathima starts work at 9am and makes Daisy a snack to take to nursery with her when she leaves at 9.30am.  Now that she is feeling comfortable there, she has started to go on her own with Anandh, and Louise is soon going to start walking to her tennis lessons (about 50 minutes all downhill!) at the Wellington Gymkhana Club (WGC).  Louise has a lesson at 10.30 from Tuesday to Saturday, and goes to the tennis courts with Elaine, who has a lesson before her at 10am.  30 minutes is long enough five times a week and their right arms are really beginning to ache now!

Daisy and Lujaine at Nursery

After they’ve both had their tennis lessons, they have a cup of tea on the verandah of the WGC, overlooking the golf course and local tea plantations.  Anandh picks Louise up on his way back to the Nursery and they collect Daisy at about 12.15pm, to take her home for lunch.  Neil doesn’t get back for lunch until about 1.45pm and Louise usually waits to eat lunch with him, if she can make it till then!  In the afternoon, we might go into Coonoor if we have some shopping to do and have a coffee/milkshake in Coffee Day (Indian Starbucks), and then it’s Power Yoga Tuesday to Friday from 4.30 – 5.30pm, back at the WGC.  Even Neil and Ian have started coming to it and are enjoying it too!  We are all really aching though! 

Fathima feeds both the girls and usually takes them for a walk or to the park every day with her children, Angel and Grace, whilst we’re at yoga, and then by-the-time we get home, it’s time for baths, stories and bed, before we have our dinner and Neil starts his evening work.

Ava and Fathima

This week we’ve had another cocktail party, this time a C Division one – the course is divided into 4 Divisions (A, B, C and D) – and an A and C Division Happy Hour in the WGC on Friday night.  We enjoyed the Cocktail Party and Louise got to meet all of the other students and their wives in Neil’s syndicate, but it was a really long night standing around, and we were glad to get home. 

The Happy hour was a great night – very Indian and a bit surreal, but we all had a really good time.  Happy Hour, we found, is compulsory here, is quite formal and doesn’t start till 7.30pm.  At least the usual tradition of cheap drinks for the first hour still holds true here – “to make us happy,” we were told! There were people everywhere, all dressed in there finery, and it felt more like a Summer Ball than a Happy Hour!  Children were invited too, although we felt that it was too late for Daisy and Ava and left them at home with Fathima, but there were children running round all over the place, and there was also a tombola and a disco.  We discovered that a tombola here is what we know as bingo.  We didn’t play, but most the women seemed to, and all sat in rows of chairs facing the same direction – it looked very organised.  The music was a mixture of western and Indian.  Everyone was dancing, no matter how old or young, and it felt a bit like being in a Bollywood film – we did lots of “unscrewing the lightbulb” hand movements!  The Australian couple here was also celebrating their promotions which made the night even better.

Heads were a bit sore after the Happy Hour, so Neil and Ian embarked on 10 holes of golf at 9 o’clock to clear their heads, after which Louise and Elaine met them at the WGC for what is becoming a Saturday morning ritual of tea and toast on the veranda.  The Inter-Division cricket tournament was taking so we all settled down to watch the game with our tea.  However, the warm-up was brutal, with a member of the directing staff literally slogging cricket balls at the Indian student officers from about 10 feet under the apparent name of fielding practice.  It was like death by cricket ball firing squad!  How there weren’t broken fingers, cracked shins or worse is something we couldn’t work out.  Neil had been thinking about taking up cricket here, but after watching that warm-up he said he’s going to stick to golf and yoga!

Death by Cricket Ball

But never mind all that, the main news of the week is that Ava is now crawling!  In all directions!  She has discovered the kitchen and the playroom, including Daisy’s kitchen and all of her toys, and follows Daisy around, whenever she can keep up.  It’s not long now till her first birthday and we can’t believe where the year has gone!

Ava Crawling

As for Daisy, she came to help Louise and Anandh choose some new plants for the garden this week, and in true Daisy-style, saw some mud and got stuck in!  She pulled up a stool and started helping out with putting soil into containers for cuttings.  The Indian owners thought it was hilarious, as did the other customers, but they didn’t offer us a discount!

Daisy at Work in the Garden Centre

Finally, we’re looking forward to our first visitors.  Jayne arrives on Thursday for a week and the Hancocks are booked in for 2 weeks in October.  JP and Doris and the Jones are also looking at coming out in the months after that, so Hotel Jones is now open for business…