Visitors, Cats and Carnivals

Louise and the girls had a fairly quiet 2 weeks whilst Neil was away, but managed to have a few socials and dinners with the other wives.  At the end of the 2 weeks, Louise took the girls to stay in a hotel in Coimbatore for 2 nights for some shopping and swimming, with the Navy and Australian families, before picking Neil up from the airport and bringing him home.  This caused a few issues with the College though, who weren’t too happy about students making their own arrangements to go home, even if everyone had been informed.  In fact, at the last minute, they changed their minds, but we’d already left the airport by then, and weren’t turning back to put Neil on a slow bus up the hill.  The Naval officer got in even more trouble and had to go and see his senior officer on their first day back in work!

But the main event, so far, of the new year has been JP and Doris’ visit.  They had booked a 2-week holiday in India, and spent the first week visiting the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, something we’ve yet to do, and then flew down to Coimbatore for the 2^nd week of their holiday.  It was lovely to see them and we wished they could have stayed longer.  The girls, in particular, had a great time playing with them, but it’s only another 3 months now until we’ll be home again to see everyone.  We can’t quite believe how quickly the year is going!

JP and Doris

Hairdresser at Work

Time for those long locks to have a trim

Apart from cutting everyone's hair whilst she was here, we also showed JP and Doris around Coonoor, the market, Ooty and some local look-out points, which were unfortunately very cloudy the day that we went!  We also took a ride on the ‘Toy Train’ (not really a ‘toy’, but a steam train!) in the second class section (!) and visited a tea lounge for some tea-tasting.  We were also invited to a couple of parties whilst they were here, including a great one at the Australian house for Australia Day, and we also had a BBQ ourselves, for some of our friends, in their honour.  All in all, we had a great week with them and we are now fully up-to-date on all the RAF and Logistics Branch gossip!  Thanks JP!

Daisy's fans on the Toy Train

Ooty Train Station

Tea Tasting

Tranquilitea Tea Lounge

We’ve only got one planned set of visitors left now, before we go home, who are Carole and Len, or Nana and Bampa, and they arrive this Sunday for 2 weeks.  We’re all really looking forward to their arrival and the girls even have a countdown chart on the wall!  Fathima is planning meals already that will keep everyone happy, although cooking for JP last week gave her a good practice run, and as long as she makes lots of cake, I’m sure everyone will be happy!

BBQ



Gangnam Style!

 Since Christmas, Louise has also taken up golf lessons.  It was always a game that never really interested her – hitting a small, white ball, walking after it and then hitting it again etc etc, always seemed like a bit of a silly waste of time to her, but the lessons are so cheap here, and as Neil plays already, it seemed like a good opportunity to try it out for herself, and she’s already had about 6 lessons and is a bit hooked, although she probably wouldn’t admit it!!  She’s even played a few holes with Neil and not embarrassed herself too much.  And she certainly hasn’t hit any cows arses yet, unlike some other people…!

We’ve had a bit of a ‘small world’ moment since Christmas too and met some new friends.  Whilst Neil was away on the IDT, Louise had a call from an Indian couple, Ram and Sunita Shahaney, who first met her parents almost 40 years ago when they lived in Chennai, or Madras as it was then.  They’ve stayed in touch ever since, and it turns out that they have a house in Wellington, which we can see from our road – it’s on the next hill and is about a 15-minute walk from our house!!  It is a beautiful home with lovely gardens and an amazing view, which they’ve built themselves over the last 22 years.  Louise and Ava went to meet them for coffee soon after they called, and Neil and Louise went round for dinner when he came back from the IDT.  Sunita is the Chilean Consul for India (although she’s only been to Chile once, after she was asked to take on the role!), so they provided a Chilean meal of empanadas and a fantastic Chilean soup, that reminded Neil of his Mum’s home-made soup, accompanied by Chilean wine.  And smoked salmon and foie gras for hors d’oeuvres too – we don’t know where they got all the food from, but we hadn’t seen anything like it for months!!  There were an eclectic mix of guests at the dinner party – friends, writers and photographers from Goa, Hampstead, Chile and New York, a Tetley Tea plantation manager and even a Pulitzer Prize finalist!!  Not quite sure what we were doing there, but it was definitely a pleasure to meet some different people from different walks of life, rather than the mostly military families that we usually spend our time with.  We also found out that Louise’s Dad is still on the invoice for Ram and Sunita’s gas deliveries in Chennai; although not as Ron Hancock but as Rohan Cock…..an interesting take on the name!

Since arriving back from the December break, Louise, Elaine, Nicola and Chelsea (the 3 British wives and the Australian wife) have produced a calendar of the “Wonderful Women of Wellington” for charity.  Each page features a picture of some the wives here doing one of the many different activities that are available to us (fully clothed of course, just in case you were thinking otherwise!) – golf, tennis, amateur dramatics, horse-riding, sailing etc etc.  They booked a stall at the recent Winter Carnival (in very un-wintery temperatures of mid-20s) and started selling them.  They sold well, but there’s still a way to go before they’ll actually be giving any money to charity!

The Calendar Girls

DSSC "Winter" Carnival

And our final piece of news is that Fathima and Anandh have just got 2 new kittens to try and help them get over the sad deaths of Hannah and Wellington.  Once again, we got the sexes wrong, but after taking them to the vet, we now know that we have one boy and one girl, Billy and Lily.  They are still very nervous, but are getting stronger and happier by the day and will soon be chasing all the rats off and making the garden their territory.  Unfortunately, they have arrived whilst there is a fair amount of construction work going on, so keeping them safe and contented has been a constant worry.  We have finally had our laundry room moved into our garage, giving Fathima and Anandh some much needed extra space in their house, but this has involved knocking down 3 walls and building a new one at the same time as we are having our patio extended and tiled – apparently the previous RAF students have been asking for this work for the last 4 years.  Anyone would think we were approaching the end of the financial year or something!!

Lily

Not much to see at Lamb's Rock

Our extended family this year