Pondicherry and Remembrance Sunday

Well, while Neil was away enjoying himself on his trip to the north east of India, Nana and Grandad came to keep the rest of the family company in Wellington.  We had a lovely fortnight with them visiting Ooty, riding the Toy Train, going to Yoga (just Nana!) and generally showing them the sights of the Nilgiris.  Neil got back a few days before they left and we were all very sad to see them go, but at least we know that it’s only 6 months now until we’ll see them again.

Waiting for the Toy Train to Ooty, with Nana and Grandad

Louise took part in her big dance event at the last Ladies Meet.  It went very well and she didn’t embarrass herself too much.  There is a video of the whole thing, but this is under close guard at the moment!  Neil has also finished another term of his course (3 of 6) so he was allowed a long weekend off and we went to Pondicherry, on the east coast of Tamil Nadu, for a few days.  It was very hot and humid there, but we managed to see quite a lot of the town, which still has a very French influence.  We also visited Mamallapuram on the way there.  Mamallapuram is a UNESCO World Heritage site which has several historic temples and monuments all built between the 7^th and 9^th centuries.  We had a good look round one of the best of the sites, before the heat overcame the girls and their tempers, and we had to retreat to the air-conditioned comfort of the car again.  Pondicherry was lovely.  Quite small, but right on the coast and our hotel was on the beach-front promenade with a nice pool for Daisy.  The French influence also meant good food!  Steak and frites, croissant, baguettes, pain au chocolat, cheese, basil, proper ham and also sausages!  Lots of things that we don’t get very often in Wellington, or if we do, they’re not very authentic, but the bread especially, was amazing in Pondicherry.  Or maybe we’re just easily pleased after 6 months of living in a remote part of India!

Five Rathas site at Mamallapuram

Strolling along the Promenade at Night

For Neil the course has moved into the Joint Exercise phase, with the first combination of forces involving the Navy and the Air Force.  Neil was selected to be the 1 Star Officer in charge of all Maritime Air Operations, which was a challenge and one he enjoyed as he strutted around pretending to be a pilot.  That said, he was soon brought down to earth when he realised he had no staff, and all his inputs would require quite a lot of writing.  The exercise lasted a week, with quite long hours and rather a lot of frustration.  Initially the Navy and Air Force were working as separate entities, so the joint co-operation was very limited.  However, as the exercise progressed, so the integration improved, however, as the overall 2-star debriefing stated, on a scale of 1 to 10, we are at about 3!  And Neil thinks that was being generous.  There was quite a bit of hanging about as well, but Neil managed to amuse himself on one of the Samsung Mobile Phone games, carrying out Maritime Strikes in an F-18 and competing with a Mirage F2000 and Mig-29 Navy pilot on Carrier landings.  He didn’t do too badly in the competition; clearly his hours with the RAF MicroLight Association are paying off.  Next up for Neil is a 3-week exercise with the Indian Army.  He has promised his sponsor student, Kash that he will pay 50 Rupees for every time he swears in frustration at the Army and has set aside 5000 rupees for the occasion!

This weekend we should have been in Delhi for Remembrance Sunday, but for the first time in many years, the College wouldn’t allow the students the time off, so we did our best to mark the occasion here instead.  There are about 60 Commonwealth War Graves in Wellington Cemetery, so we went there on Sunday morning, along with the Australian and Canadian officers and their families, and had our own Remembrance Service, 2-minute silence at 11am and a wreath-laying ceremony.  It was a lovely ceremony, simple, but personal.  Each of the 5 officers on the course laid a wreath on a grave and on all the other graves of British servicemen we laid a small garland of jasmine.  The weather was quite misty and eerie during the service, but we all agreed that it was the warmest weather we’d ever experienced for a Remembrance Service before!  And after the Service, we all went back to the Army house for lunch and drinks and spent most of the afternoon there marking the occasion…

The Five Officers and Wreaths

About to lay our Wreath

Paying our Respects

The Battle of Britain Party

The big event of the last 10 days was our Battle of Britain party.  We invited about 50 adults plus kids, put a large awning up in the back garden, hired chairs, tables, lights and a sound system, and bought enough food and drink to feed, well, about 50 people!  Neil decorated the house with pictures of Battle of Britain aircraft, the infamous Spitfire Beer adverts and model Spitfires and Hurricanes, which hung around the house, frozen in battle!  Everyone loved the food, but I’m afraid, that apart from paying for it, we could take no credit.  Fathima spent 2 days marinating chicken, tiger prawns and steak, making salads, rice, chocolate brownies and mountains of parathas, and then Anandh spent all night working the BBQ.  

Preparing for the party - the Combat Air Patrol is airborne!

Apart from all the usual suspects, we had some surprise guests from the US Embassy who were visiting the 2 US officers on the course, and the manager of the local cordite factory also came along with the US attachés.  Neil made a short speech to remember the few, and of course he insisted on playing some war tunes and his usual 80s mix on the iPod, and much to Louise’s surprise and disappointment, everyone seemed to enjoy it!  Our Indian guests were unbelievably generous in the gifts they brought us – wall hangings, brass ornaments, silver ornaments, cushion covers, flowers, alcohol and boxes and boxes of chocolates, which we’ve had to hide from Daisy.  Daisy stayed up till about 11pm, before she was so exhausted that she had to go to bed, and was asleep before Louise had finished reading a bedtime story to her, but the party went on till about 2am, and it was a really great night, although we did miss Elaine, Chelsea and Chris, the RN officer, who was otherwise detained (more of that later…)

The party in full swing

We were also lucky enough to have Cate and Nige Driscoll visiting us over that weekend, who had come to see us for 3 nights midway through their holiday in India.  It was great to have some visitors from home as it seems a long time now since Jayne was here, and they bought us a whole bag full of much-needed rations.  Louise showed them round the market and the town (and shops) of Coonoor, which Nige was very patient with, and Neil gave them a quick tour of the College.  And the day after the party, we took them to Ooty for the afternoon, for a tour of the town, a bit more shopping and some Dominos pizza!  They left early on Sunday morning, and we were very sad to see them go, but looking forward to our next visitors this weekend - Nana and Grandad!

Cate, Louise and Ian enjoying a drink at the party

Nana and Grandad will be here for 2 weeks, over the period that Neil will be away on the Forward Area Tour for 10 days, so it’ll be nice for Louise and the girls to have some company whilst he’s away.  He’s off to Tezpur in the very north-east of the country, on the border with China, Nepal and Bhutan.  He’s really looking forward to this trip as it’s a very difficult place for tourists to get to and most Indians themselves have never been there.  He’s not looking forward to all the bus travel though, which begins with 11 hours in a bus (not a coach) to Bangalore airport, and includes long drives up to 18,000ft and back down again.  Louise isn’t sure how he’s going to cope with the reduced supply of oxygen to his brain at that height!  We’re hoping that he might be able to return some roving reports home for the blog whilst he’s away, but we’ll have to wait and see…

Here's a random picture of the girls in the garden wearing their new t-shirts from Nana and Bampa

The other news of the last week or so is that poor Chris, the RN officer, has had a boil on his bottom that has required 7 days of hospitalisation!  The infection unfortunately spread to his lymph glands and he needed intravenous antibiotics, so has had to stay bed-ridden in hospital whilst the swelling has been slowly reducing.  He has been allowed home for showers and some home-cooking, but only for an hour or two at a time, and he’s desperately hoping to be discharged today.  His poor wife, Nicola, is hoping that this will be their third and final piece of bad luck, after their diabetic daughter was hospitalised earlier on in the year, the sad death of their dog a few weeks ago, and now this!  Chris is in good spirits though and taking all the banter well – “sick note”, “weaker Service” and many bottom jokes etc etc…

No picture provided of Chris' bottom (thankfully!)

Mumbai and a Hike to Ralliah Dam

Neil is a third of the way through the course and we had a long weekend last weekend to mark the end of the 2^nd Tutorial.  We had decided to go to Mumbai with our friends, Elaine and Ian, and left for Coimbatore airport on Thursday afternoon, after Neil finished work at lunchtime.  The girls were great on the flight and we got to the airport later that evening and eventually made it to the hotel after a few transport difficulties (our booked taxi couldn’t find us, nor we him).  We stayed in a hotel just north of the city, and the staff were great as soon as we arrived, although having Daisy and Ava with us is certainly a help!  The receptionist who showed us to our room kept asking Daisy if she liked chocolate, to which, of course, the answer was “Yes”, and 5 minutes later they’d sent up a tray of brownies and ice cream with her name iced on the plate!!  Unfortunately, the brownies were too rich for Daisy, so we had to eat them, but she did enjoy the ice cream!  We finally got 2 hyper girls to bed at about 11pm and ordered 2 ridiculously expensive G&Ts, over £30, from room service.

Daisy and her Brownies and Ice-cream

The area we were staying in was about 30 minutes away from the city centre over the Bandra Worli Sealink bridge, but it was a very cosmopolitan area with lots of shops and restaurants and our hotel was right by the sea.  It also turned out to be the area where most of Bollywood’s stars live.  We even saw one in our hotel – a very glamorous lady in a red dress and with a large entourage – we can’t remember her name now unfortunately, though!

On the first of our 2 days in Mumbai we all did a driving tour of Mumbai, saw all the sights, had a walk around the Gandhi Museum, the Gateway to India and the infamous Taj Mahal hotel where 32 people were killed during the terrorist attacks of 2008.  We also had lunch in Leopold Cafe, where Neil and Ian were able to order a pitcher of beer (something you’d never get in Tamil Nadu) and the staff kindly pointed out the bullet holes in the wall and grenade hole in the floor – somewhat unnerving! 

Cheers!  Neil and Ian with their Pitcher of Beer

The following day was a bit wet in the morning, so we did a bit of shopping whilst Ava slept soundly in the backpack and most of the rest of the weekend was spent swimming with Daisy in the hotel pool.  We also got a baby-sitter for the 2 nights we were there, so that we were able to go out for dinner and drinks with Ian and Elaine – once in the hotel and once in a super cool Chinese restaurant close to the hotel. 

Ava sleeping through all the shopping

During our stay in the hotel the girls were also given toys and Belgian chocolates by the hotel staff and they became celebrities at breakfast, as usual.  We did have some competition from another family with 2 young, cute, blonde kids, but we think we won overall!

Louise is still taking part in the Institutionalised Training for Officers’ Wives course, which is up and down in the quality of its speakers and their subject matter.  However, the poorer speakers are made up for by the opportunity to go for lunch with some of the other wives afterwards.  Last Friday, we went to the Taj Gateway, a hotel in Coonoor, for cocktails and chicken burgers, and all came home a bit tipsy, but still able to make yoga later in the afternoon.

We had an addition to the family this week in the form of a kitten.  Neil heard Anandh and Fatima’s dog, Hannah, barking last Sunday night and went to the front door.  There was Hannah lying prone, looking straight ahead at a little kitten that was sat in the middle of our doorstep, crying for all it was worth; it couldn’t have been more than a week old.  Neil spoke to Anandh and asked what could be done.  Anandh was quite frank and said if the cat was left outside either the dogs or monkeys would eat it!  So what could we do?  We took her in.  She was underfed, cold and had a gammy eye.  So we gave her some milk and a warm bed in our laundry room.  To be fair to Hannah, we think she found the kitten, carried her to our doorstep and barked till Neil went to see what was going on; very Lassie like.  If Hannah had wanted to hurt the kitten, she could have done it at any time.  We’re glad to report that Lily, as she’s now called, is doing well.  Louise wanted to call her Lucky (boring), Neil wanted to call her Doorstep (even worse!).  She is growing fast, is being spoiled by all of us and her eye has cleared up.  We’ve even taken her for a check-up in the local animal hospital.  Long term, Lily will be a great addition to the family and is the ultimate rat repellent!!  However, one footnote.  After her visit to the hospital we found there is one major problem with Lily...it turns out she’s a HE.  So a re-think is needed on the name.  Grateful for any suggestions.

"Lily" the Cat sleeping in Anandh's shoe

This weekend we went on our first College-organised hike to a Toda village – the Toda are an indigenous tribe that still live in the Nilgiris hills.  It was a 12km hike through the jungle, interspersed with tea stops, shopping and a “cultural display” (dancing and a demonstration of marriageable eligibility by picking up huge boulders) at the Toda village.  It was a beautiful walk and very sociable – there must have been about 200 adults and children taking part, all strung along the path.  We didn’t take Daisy and Ava with us as we knew we’d end up carrying them, but there were plenty of small children on the walk.  The hike ended up back at the Officers’ Mess for lunch and beer on the lawns, and Anandh brought Daisy down for ice-cream, which she found very exciting!

In the Jungle

On Saturday night, after a bit of an afternoon snooze after the hike (it’s the Indian way apparently), we went to a new restaurant that we’d heard about in Ooty for dinner.  It’s called Kings Cliff and is very British Colonial in style, lots of dark panelling, open fireplaces and beautiful, old furniture, and serves very good continental as well as Indian food, so we had steaks and brownies to follow – it was lovely!!  And now that our wine delivery has arrived from the US officers (from their Embassy) we were able to take some nice wine with us for dinner too!

Sunday night was another dinner party at someone’s house, so it seems to have been a non-stop eat-a-thon this weekend!  Unfortunately the tummy troubles Neil has been facing are turning into a tale of woe.  Having been to the Doc’s again, it seems that he has a mild parasitic infection; Neil has named him Percy the parasite.  Hopefully after another set of antibiotics Neil will be rid of Percy once and for all and his stay in the family will be short lived!  The one thing that this has curtailed is Neil’s eating, as hasn’t been eating as much as Louise and is now 7 kgs lighter than when he arrived in India.

So it’s time to start planning the next Tutorial Break and the long Christmas holiday now, but before that Neil’s got another 8 weeks of hard toil and 2 trips away with the Course.  It’s a hard life for some!

And before we go, Neil's been doing a lot of face painting with Daisy recently, so here's one of his artworks...

Daisy the Tiger, with Daddy

Indian Parties

This week is the last week of the second tutorial, so Neil is already a third of the way through the course, and time seems to be racing by.  This tutorial’s been a busy one and we seem to have hardly seen him over the last 2 or 3 weeks.  He’s been going back into work in the afternoons, coming home at 9pm and had to work on days off and Saturdays.  Fortunately, the exercise that was keeping him in work for such long hours has now finished, and he’ll be back to more normal hours this week; and he made use of all the empty hours at work by finishing off lots of other big pieces of work and starting his dissertation, so he’s well ahead of the game now.  He’s got another set of exams this week and then we’re off the Mumbai for a long weekend.

This weekend has been a fairly quiet one as Neil hadn’t quite recovered from his illness this week.  He went to see the doctor on Friday who gave him some more pills and told him “no spicy food for 5 days” – his constitution just can’t handle it; he says he’s got the stomach of a 12 year old girl!!  He’s feeling much better already, and Fathima’s been cooking us pasta and chicken casseroles.  He did manage to make it out for dinner (just steak and chips though) and cocktails at the Taj Gateway on Saturday night, however, and we cooked a roast chicken and crumble yesterday, whilst Fathima had her day off.  That was the first roast we’d cooked for 4 months, and apart from some pasta, omelettes and toasties, the first proper meal we’d cooked since leaving the UK in May!  Louise also found a supply of bacon in Coonoor this week, so we had bacon and eggs for breakfast.  From a nearly 100% Indian diet for the last 4 months, we’ve gone almost purely Western now!

The weekend before was a long one here, as the Monday was a Muslim holiday for Eid.  We decided not to go anywhere, as we’d just been to Destiny the week before and are off to Mumbai at the end of the month, and there was lots going on here anyway.  We went to an Indian Independence Day party on Friday night, a party at a friend’s house on Saturday night, had a roast dinner at the RN house on Sunday, and lunch at our Sponsor Student’s house on Monday.  So it was a busy social weekend of eating and drinking. 

Party at Raghu and Pooja's House

We’re getting used to the Indian style of parties now and make sure we eat before we go out.  If you get invited round to someone’s house for dinner or a party, the invitation is usually for 9pm and the whole family is invited.  Most Indian children (and adults) have a long afternoon nap, stay up all night, go to bed when their parents do, and then get up quite late in the morning.  Most of the men drink spirits and mixers (usually rum or whisky and coke) at parties; a lot of women don’t drink alcohol, but some do drink and they usually drink wine, just like in the UK.  Everyone drinks and drinks and drinks whilst lots of home-made snacks are passed round, often nuts, Indian nibbles, BBQd meat, pakoras etc.  At about 11pm, a mat is often rolled out on the floor in the dining room and all the children eat together.  After the children have eaten and everything’s been tidied up, then the adults eat at around 11.30/12pm.  It’s always a huge delicious buffet of home-made curries, dal, vegetables, rice and rotis, and you’re always pressed to have 2^nd, 3^rd and even 4^th helpings.  Everyone here has a maid to help with the cooking and washing up which means that the hostess isn’t tied to the kitchen all night.  And sometimes, people order the whole meal from a local restaurant, so there is very little cooking at all to do.  At some parties we’ve been to, people leave pretty much as soon as they’ve eaten, but at a lot of the parties we’ve been to, they carry on drinking and dancing until the early hours.  A lot of the officers here joined up together and are very old friends who haven’t seen each other for years.  So Staff College is a very social year of catching up with big groups of friends.  They party every single weekend and take it in turns to host their friends.  As internationals here, we cut across all the cliques and groups and get invited to lots of different people’s houses, which is a great way to meet lots of new people. 

Pooja and Raghu's Party

There is ALWAYS dancing at Indian parties and men love dancing as much as women; usually the men all dance together and the women all dance together, but they don’t really dance in couples.  The music is generally a mix of Indian Bollywood and western hits.  Often shots of tequila are passed round after dinner, and that’s generally our cue to leave as we don’t usually take the girls with us, and it’s always at the back of our mind that we’ll have to be up with them at about 7am the next morning.  We have taken Daisy with us once, however, and she had a great time.  All the children go off and play together in one of the bedrooms or a playroom, so you hardly see any of them all night.  Surprisingly, with all the drinking that takes place and the lateness of dinner, not many people seem to get ‘falling-down’ drunk – we think they must all have something to eat before they go out, just like we do.

Dancing at the Indian Independence Day Party

Daisy and Ava are both doing well.  Daisy has now mastered the toilet completely and her nursery is very pleased with how quickly she’s done it and how independent she is about it!  Her best friend, Lujain, has now gone back to Saudi Arabia, unfortunately, but Daisy doesn’t understand that she’s gone for good, so isn’t too upset about it!  Ava is now a super-fast crawler and is starting to pull herself up on the furniture, but we think it’ll be a little while yet before she’s walking on her own.  She’s also getting quite mischievous, hates being told ‘No’ and tries to fight with Daisy over certain toys.  And she hates being left out of anything!

Ava at Destiny Farm

Well, that’s all for now.  We’ll tell you all about Mumbai next time…

Daisy and Ava in the Bath

Destiny!

First things first, we’re sure you’re all dying to know how the potty training’s going.  Well, we kept Daisy at home last week, to really focus on it, but she’s back at nursery this week, and dry most of the time (still nappies at night though).  She’s using the toilet, rather than a potty now, and hardly has any ‘wet’ accidents, but unfortunately, poos are still a bit more hit and miss, but she’s getting there.  Too much information?

Toilet training in full swing!

Talking of training, Neil’s been involved in a couple of Air Wing exercises over the last 2 weeks, in both of which he’s been given the position of a 2-star!  As I’m sure you can imagine, he has been loving it, particularly as the last week has seen him play the Chief Engineer!  He almost got to wear the rank slides as well, but the DS took pity on Louise, realising he’d be unbearable, and it didn’t happen.  Much to Neil’s disappointment!

Last week, we also had our first Indian Dining-In Night.  It was called a Training Dining Night and we weren’t to have fun!   Louise wore her Mum’s beautiful lemon chiffon sari embroidered with pink flowers, which is now almost 40 years old, and Neil got to wear his Tropical Mess Dress, so we both looked very smart, and got lots of nice comments, although Neil was on the receiving end of a few ‘waiter’ jokes.  It was a quite dry evening – only 2 small glasses of wine per person were allowed, there were no speeches, and we were home by 9:30pm!  The Australians and ourselves did try to go to the bar after dinner, but it was all shut up, so we got the message and had an early night!

Before the Dinner Night

 It was probably for the best, as Neil had the following day off, so we headed to Destiny Farmstay, near Avalanche, for a night.  It’s in the middle of nowhere, and after getting dropped off at their car park, we were taken, by ageing 4-tonne truck with seats, up the last, very bumpy 3 kms of road to the farm.  Destiny is in a beautiful location, right on the edge of a lake, with no other buildings around it.  It only has 25 rooms, so it’s very small and quiet.  The food is excellent, and we had lunch overlooking the lake, or what there was of it due to the drought, as soon as we arrived, before settling into our room. Unfortunately, the rain also settled in as we arrived, and it didn’t really stop raining all weekend.  This didn’t bother Daisy though, so we put on our raincoats and went and fed the ducks, walked through their HUGE vegetable patch (Len would love it!), watched cows being milked, saw horses and sheep, and even found a kitten that looked suspiciously like a short-haired, much smaller version of Jacko!  Anandh came to babysit whilst we had dinner, and then we settled into our room, lit the fire and watched it burn until we fell asleep. 

The next day it was still raining, but we had another walk around the property before going home.   As usual, all the Indian staff at Destiny loved Daisy and Ava, and Daisy had a great time playing with all the reception staff, which gave us a few minutes of peace and quiet every now and again!  On the way home we stopped in Ooty to buy all the tonic water we could lay our hands on – another drink in short supply here!

Daisy and her friends at Reception



That day was also Singapore’s national day, and the Singaporean officer on the course hosted a party that night.  He had really gone to town decorating his garden with banners, fairy lights, tables and chairs and an awning in case of rain, and had invited all the international students and a fair number of the Indian students as well.  He also had lots of wine and a great buffet, so everyone had a good night.

Louise, Elaine and Nicola

Ian, Neil, Harvey and Chris

Unfortunately Neil has suffered the family’s first real bout of Delhi Belly this week, which has been accompanied by fever, high temperatures and general malaise.  I know some of you may not see too much difference in this to Neil’s normal approach to work, but he has been a little poorly.  However, the reporting sick procedure here is quite rigid.  With Neil feeling quite ill, he had to dress in full uniform and report to the Medical Centre.  Once seen by the doctor, a wide range of drugs were dispensed and he then had to report to his DS Co-ord to inform him that he had been signed off Sick-in-Quarters for 24 hrs; only at this stage was Neil excused lectures.  Quite a painful process, particularly when you consider that the college is a considerable drive from home when you’re not feeling too well.  At times, being at the College is like being at Primary School.   That said, the medical staff here are brilliant, and Neil was seen straight away and is now well on the road to recovery.

It seems as though the monsoon may finally have arrived, 10 weeks late.  All the locals were getting very worried about how dry it’s been, although we weren’t complaining, but since last weekend when we went to Destiny, we’ve had a few days or afternoons of very heavy, prolonged periods of rain.  It’s still not proper monsoon weather of raining for 3 or 4 days non-stop though, but who knows what it will be like when our next guests arrive in September and October.

Whilst she’s been kept indoors by the weather, Louise has been busy planning our next holidays.  We’re flying to Mumbai for a long weekend at the end of this month, and are also planning our Christmas break in Kerala and Goa at the moment.  Neil’s got 3 weeks off for Christmas so we’re really looking forward to doing a bit of sightseeing, seeing some beaches and spending a night on a houseboat on the Keralan backwaters.

Daddy's first attempt at face painting - a tigerrrrrrrr!

Birthdays and Potty Training

The Course continues apace for Neil, and last week he was required to submit a 9,000 word essay.  Not too much of a hardship there you’d think, apart from the fact that it had to be handwritten!  Having worked out what to write, Neil sat down and 11 ½ hours later, 61 pages of manuscript were produced and duly submitted.  Neil was happy to have achieved the aim, but his sore writing arm has started to affect his golf swing which may be disastrous for his golf game.

We all travelled to Coimbatore for Louise’s birthday and had a wonderful stay in the Meridien Hotel.  Daisy and Ava loved playing in the pool, even if it was a little chilly, whilst we had a great time with Ian and Elaine, drinking cocktails and having a lovely meal.  Fathima and Anandh decorated the apartment with jasmine and lilies, including some from our garden, before we left, and Fathima made a delicious chocolate-covered carrot birthday cake.  It had a music-playing candle shaped like a lotus flower, which closely resembled the Olympic Torch.  Daisy loved it, until it flamed like a Typhoon on reheat; but after retreating to a safe distance we all sang ‘Happy Birthday’, and Louise had a lovely weekend.  She and Ava both received lots of cards and presents and were really grateful for everyone taking the trouble to send post out here for their birthdays.



Daddy and Ava by the Pool



On Friday night we attended the first performance by SCADS, or the Staff College Amateur Dramatics Society.  The one thing we’ve learned about the Indians is they like to put on a show and they love, and we mean LOVE, their amateur dramatics.  Even the most serious presentation on the most mundane topic has to have a ‘comedy’ skit to emphasise the point.  Friday night was a mix of music, dance and comedy plays.  Unfortunately, the majority of the 2 ½ hour show was in Hindi!  But the production, costumes and visual spectacle was amazing.  After the show, we threw a party for all the British and Australian Sponsor Students who helped with the ISPs the previous week.   After a few Kingfishers, Neil started talking about volunteering for the next SCADS production and dusting off his acting ability.  You never know, maybe Catherine Zeta Jones would come and watch him again!  Anyway, only time will tell if it was just the beer talking, but all the other Indian students did seem quite keen on seeing a “White Boys” band taking to the stage next time...

SCADS Dancers

Over the weekend, we embarked on potty training with Daisy.  Following Gina Ford’s advice in “Potty Training in One Week”, we confined ourselves to the apartment for the weekend and concentrated on wees and poos.  Daisy was brilliant, and after a messy Saturday, Sunday was a real success, and she’s progressing well and is now out of nappies in the day, with a lot more going in the potty than on the floor.  We’ve never been so excited about a poo before!

Potty Training and Ready for Anything!