School Sports Day

'Can We Do It?'
(in 32 degrees and very little shade?)





Of course we can...With a little support and encouragement from Daddy



Ellie's Best Race! I Won!


Taking Part!

It was a hot one but all the kids had a great day....and Ellie's favourite moment, apart from winning the sack race, was having half a bottle of water poured over her head to cool off!

India Week

We've had back to back visitors for the last two weeks which has been great fun but it doesn't leave much time for blogging!

Ellie recovered enough from Chickenpox to be allowed back to school to participate in India Week. She enjoyed it immensly and learnt so much and is even telling us stuff that we didn't know. She is intrigued by all the Hindu God stories "They're all Superheros you know Mummy." Ganesh did this, His Mother did that...His Father was some sort of black urn (claypot?!) Krishna did that. I have decided that we need to find a good book so we can explore all of these stories together and maybe it will help to open my mind and help to understand the psyche of the South Indians.

India Week culminated in a special Assembly in which the entire Elementary (lower school) participated and they all dressed up in their Indian clothes, which the children love doing, and of course they do, because they are all so beautiful and colourful!

Slimed Again

Inevitably Luke caught Chicken Pox from Ellie, thankfully though they both had relatively mild cases and apart from the spots were remarkably well throughout.

The staff diligently prepared their Neem leaf concoction and he was ceremoniously slimed. I don't know if it really helped but neither of them itched as I remember itching when I had it.

At a Loss

This is a home.

A family of at least 6 live here. There is also a child of about 4 and a baby of about 8 months who play with dust and rubble. They live next door to Ellie's school.

Everyday a tonne or more of bricks are dumped outside their house. Everyday they all pick up a hammer and smash those bricks into rubble for the foundations of new office buildings that are being built all around this area.

A couple of months ago I stopped and gave the baby a couple of toys. A friend had also stopped and gave them some childrens clothes. We have not seen them playing with or wearing either.

Biryani Blowout

My friend Karen has been visiting this week and we've been very busy, hence no posts.

We have 6 short days together so it's been a whirlwind of shopping, school runs, Slumdog Millionaire viewings, cultural and temple visits...and lots of prawns here and there, and...Biryani...to the point of uncomfortable! (I know, that you know what I'm alluding to here!)

It never ceases to amaze me how much our staff in the house go 'all out' when we have guests but today I discovered how families inside and outside their houses so happily, without probably even realising it become/are the 'ultimate hosts.' I feel very privileged and very humbled by all the Indian hospitality and generosity we have experienced today. More stories and photos will follow.

I love this place, and I love the people.

Mutiny in the Ranks

I swear 'Guards' are worse than children.

We have 3 day and 3 night guards and the shift rotates weekly. There is a 'head guard' on each watch. One, named Hari is excellent does a great job, keeps his head down and gets on with it and the other, Dileep, just stomps around and is, as far as we can see, officious and pretty useless.

There had apparently been some sort of conflict going on within the ranks and the head guards had had to report some of them for sleeping...Dileep has been caught sleeping several times himself and was the one on duty on Christmas Eve (see T'was the Night Before Christmas Post

At 3am one night last week...our doorbell rang. What the...? Imagining a real emergency we leapt out of bed, well Ian did, I'm never good at getting up any time of the morning so I crawled. It rang again...PLEASE DON'T WAKE THE CHILDREN! There stood one of the younger guards and he had woken us up especially to tell us that Dileep was asleep. What? You all sleep! Why wake US up to tell us that? Why not wake him and cover for him like you all do? Ian went through the motions with Dileep again and as we tried to get back to sleep we could hear some sort of row going on.

The next morning I returned from the school run to find chaos, both shifts were still there and Hari is shirtless and in tears. Someone had rubbed his shirt with poisonous leaves, he had put it on and immediately his skin had begun to burn and itch. I sent him inside for a hot shower and an anti-histamine tablet, then had to go out again. Thankfully when I returned he was feeling much better and happier and he tells me that he suspects the young guard who had woken us up. I checked with the gardener and there are none of these leaves in our garden so someone had brought them here intentionally.

By Midday the Inspector had arrived apologising profusely for the trouble and informs me that 'young lad' has been fired, although anyone in India will know that this means he'll actually just be moved onto a new job, probably just around the corner! All the rest were told in no uncertain terms that if anything like this ever happens again they will go, except of course for Hari.

And while I'm on the subject of Hari I ought to tell you how he loves to play with Ellie and Luke and takes such precious care of them that I was moved to ask if he had children of his own. This was his reply...

"Err Madam I have a son, he is 7 months old but I have never seen him". WHAT? Turns out that his wife lives a 2 hour flight away, the last time he was able to see her since their marriage was 18 months ago, he returned to his job here and she fell pregnant. She had the baby and, get this, Hari has not even seen a photograph. He talks to them everyday and hopes and plans that in a few months time they will have enough money for them to move to Chennai and be together.

Dear Di

A little while back you asked me whether I had found any parks to walk in and I hadn't, mainly because living in a City in India I hadn't expected to find any and nowhere seemed obvious.

Duly prompted I decided to set myself a task to find one...and I know you'll be happy and impressed to hear that I have!

After several attempts to visit The Theosophical Society Gardens (closed on Sunday's and holidays - only in India!) we finally enjoyed a beautiful family walk in a quiet and tranquil setting last weekend.

There were no crowds, no dogs, no car horns, no beggars and no-one bothered the children or tried to take our photographs. We tried to see the world's 2nd largest Banyan Tree but its true size of approximately 250ft x 230ft was hard to fathom amongst all the other greenery and protective fencing. The grounds were beautiful and I look forward to exploring them more, thank you for that friendly kick up the proverbial!

Hope you enjoy the photos. I am thinking of you, lots of love xxxx

Make a Smilebox slideshow

You Know You Live In India...

when your 18 month old's first words are 'dog' and 'cow'.

Common Sense Prevails...sort of

The word from school was that no child would be re-admitted after chickenpox without a doctors certificate confirming they were no longer contagious.

To be on the safe side, I admitted defeat and left it until Friday to take Ellie to the doctor (A UK trained Peadiatrician) She ummed and aahhed, poked and prodded, admitted that her eczema hot spot (right inner elbow) was not helping her non-contagious look, but at least she knew/agreed that that was what it was. She said she was absolutely fine, it was just a mild case, sympathised with Ellie and me...BUT -- In India it HAS to be 21 days from the first spot, "I will write a certificate next Friday, send someone to collect it."

On the advice of the same Peadiatrician we returned en famille on Saturday morning so that Luke could get the Varicella vaccination. Her logic and advice was that ...although he may be incubating the virus, having the vaccine will ensure it is far less severe, and, if he's not incubating it he'll be covered in the future.

Luke had his injection and in the meantime the Doctor decided to have another hard look at Ellie. "You know what? On second thoughts she's fine, I can't see any reason for her not to return to school, here's her note, give it to the school nurse on Monday." Oh Thank you!

At 8.15am on Monday we paid a cursory visit to the nurse and presented the certificate. In no time at all, she had Ellie half stripped and twirling around to double check her spots, and, she agreed. All fine, nothing to worry about.

So, a very happy Miss Ellie returned to school to take part in 'India Week'.

Back at the ranch, Master Luke began popping out Chickenpox spots yesterday evening! We can only hope that he's 'spotless' before we fly to the Maldives in a little over two weeks.

A Week Without Phone or Internet...

...is a very long one when you're living here!

But our connection is back and now I have some catching up to do!