Mary's Boy Child, Jesus Christ

Was born on Christmas Day. He was. Truly. Because if we were unsure about the order of events, the restaurant in the Galaxy Hotel, Gurgaon, was prepared to set us straight. We arrived at 1.15, a full 15 minutes later than our booking (see, we're making small inroads into that Indian timekeeping thing), to discover there was only one other couple at the restaurant, and they weren't ready to eat yet. As we walked in, Boney M were singing Mary's Boy Child. We were shown to our seats, funky white leatherette numbers and asked if we'd like mineral water. Now water is essential during the summer to prevent dehydration, but it's now winter, and it's a whole 21 degrees celcius. 21 degrees shouldn't feel cold, but in Delhi 21 degrees feels as cold as 26 degrees feels a bit warmer than pleasant in London. Strange that. Anyway, it's Christmas, and we decide we should have wine. We've never ordered wine in a restaurant in India before, because we've never seen a bottle on the wine list that cost less than 3,000 rupees. That's more than £40 ($63 USD/$100 AUD). We ask to see the wine list, and are pleasantly surprised to be told red or white imported wine is included in the buffet price. Red, we chorus. The wine guy (sommelier is surely a step too far) proudly shows us the label, and boasts it's French, Piat d'Or. We've never drunk Piat d'Or by choice before, because in Tesco we could buy it for £3.69 a bottle. But we're not shopping in Tesco, we're in Delhi, so Piat d'Or is perfect. Rod and I smile at each other, and to the sounds of Boney M's Mary's Boy Child, go up to the buffet for our cold first course (smoked salmon, salami, mozzarella and tomato slices, crudites). The first course is perfect. So the wine guy refills our wine glasses and while Boney M sings Mary's Boy Child, we go up to fill our plates with Roast Turkey, cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts, baby carrots, asparagus, broccoli and garlic fried potato cubes. We sit down, and Rod remarks the music selection is a little limited. They're playing Mary's Boy Child every second song he says. Are they, I answer, what's the other song? Upon reflection, all four of us cannot name the other song they're playing between Mary's Boy Child. We then come to the conclusion that the only Christmas song they own is Mary's Boy Child. If only I had one of my Christmas compilations in the car, then we could inject a little variety into the mix - Cliff Richard, anyone?

The restaurant manager comes over to ask us how we're enjoying our meal. Thalia turns to him, smiles, flashes her not quite 12 year old blue eyes and asks, do you have any other music to play? He leaves, and once Mary's Boy Child has come to the end, we hear the opening chords to Johnny Mathis' "When A Child is Born". Result! But before Johnny gets to do more than hum, he is replaced by Boney M singing Jingle Bells. Boy they like Boney M at the Galaxy Hotel.

We finish up with a third glass of wine and the dessert selection. Mince Pies, Plum Pudding, Yule Log, Butterscotch Cream Parfait, Bitter Chocolate Slice, Chocolate Pyramids sprinkled with flaked almonds, Sugar Free Strawberry Cream Choux Buns. Because it's important to show a little restraint.

The bill came to 1,400 rupees a person, extremely good value. Our only complaints: well, as nice as they are, garlic fried potato cubes are no substitute for roast potatoes...and I've now heard enough Boney M to last me a lifetime!

If at first you don't succeed...

...or third time's a charm.

Regular readers will know I've spent a fair bit of time searching for a number of things over the last couple of weeks. There was one more thing I needed, and I'm happy to say this time I found it!

One of the things that signifies Christmas for Rod is Mince pies. We're probably lucky that as a family we don't need snow, or chestnuts roasting on an open fire, to make it feel like Christmas. Because judging by how much effort went into finding the mince pies, I'm glad I didn't have to source snow in New Delhi.

Rod loves mince pies. For the benefit of those who are unaware of the constituents of this traditional Christmas fare (I remember Kate's mum, Kathy, said they "weren't big in America"), mince pies don't contain minced meat any more. Instead the filling is a combination of raisins, apple, candied fruits, suet and, in the better mixes, alcohol. I can’t abide mince pies, because of that list, I only like apples... and alcohol. So I tried all the usual expat shops, as they were my best bet. None of the shops had boxes of mince pies on sale. So I decided I'd make some. I thought I'd buy a jar of mincemeat and make my own pastry. The internet has lots of recipes. I need lard for the pastry. Obviously pigfat is really easy to find in India (not!) so I search on lard substitutes. A vegan chat site tells me I should use Crisco. Chances of finding Crisco in New Delhi, only slightly better than that of finding lard, but another website tells me I can substitute the lard with butter, but the pastry won't be as light. Thought that counts, I think, so I'm happy with the pastry plans. So on my next expedition to all the expat shops I try to find a jar of mincemeat. Americans, do not be embarrassed you were unaware of the constituents of mincemeat. The look on the face of the assistant in Le Marche tells me you are not alone. Why was I not convinced he understood that mincemeat has no minced meat in it... So I decide I'll have to make my own mincemeat. Back to the net. I find a mincemeat recipe and I just know while I can probably find a substitute for the Bramley apples, suet is going to be tricky. Because if finding pigfat is hard in India, the dense fat which surrounds beef kidneys is going to be a breeze to track down, right?

So I decided I might have to admit defeat. But yesterday, on a tip off from Alison, Rhiannon's Mum (Rhiannon is Keir's best friend at school), I found some. So Rod got an early Christmas present...and I got the chance to put a tick next to one of the things on my list...finally!

Mince pies. There were six, but not by the time I took this photo!

Banned Aid- Do They Know it's Christmas?

All I was trying to do, Officer, was buy a Christmas present for my husband. I wasn't trying to incite civil unrest, honest. I wasn't trying to purchase illegal goods, either.

Rod's never easy to buy for, hey what man is? So when I worked out there was something he could use, something he often spoke of wanting but hadn't purchased yet, I was really pleased with myself. I'd buy him an Atlas for Christmas. Then every time we had one of those conversations about how far away such and such a country was, we'd have a reference book to look it up in. Last week, for example, it was Mozambique and Belize. Can you see how the atlas came to mind?

So, while I was searching (unsuccessfully) for the perfect diary last week, I was also checking out the Atlases. As it turns out, that was also an unsuccessful quest. I did find a few, but they were all school atlases, and much more juvenile than I wanted. This was a present for my husband, and I like him too much to hand him a kid's book for Christmas. I mean, what subliminal message does that give? Ever so helpful assistants would show me, after I told them I wanted a grown up atlas, a book described on the cover as an atlas. Inside, in a book obviously designed for an 11 year old, were lots of facts of the type used in school projects, and outline maps of countries. The maps didn't show which countries were next to each other, or the size of the countries in relation to each other. I remember handing in a project when I was 11 and I drew a map like that. My teacher, Mrs Anstee, commented that the map looked like a fried egg and was as useful as one. You can't tell where it is in the world, she said, and if you can't tell that, it's not a good map. I don't remember what country my project was on, but I remembered the lesson for 30 years. She was right, of course,so I couldn't buy those atlases. I told them I wanted a traditional atlas that showed maps: Collins; Oxford; Readers Digest. They look on their high, dusty shelves and shake their heads. So off to the next bookshop I trudge.

On Wednesday at Galleria, I asked for an atlas for an adult, one that had more maps in it than other text. The lady says "Maps of India?" "No", I reply, "the world. I want the world!" She laughed, and told me with an attitude like that I'd get what I asked for. She was wrong. She offered to order a Collins atlas for me, I could collect it Monday. Well, today's Monday, and the atlas has not arrived. "The weekend happened", she told me. No Sh*t Sherlock, that catches me out all the time too!

There's another bookshop at Galleria, so rather than wait for an atlas to arrive at a bookshop that seems surprised by the concept of a weekend, I thought I'd try there. They had the usual kid type atlases, but understood completely the kind of atlas I wanted (one with maps, perchance!). The man there offered to get one in for me. He even understood that I wanted it in time for Christmas. This afternoon he phoned me. There's bad news. He can't get me a Collins, Oxford or Readers Digest atlas, because the Indian Government has banned them. The Government doesn't agree on the where some of the borders have been drawn (that'll be Jammu and Kashmir then), so the atlases are illegal. It just might be possible, he says, to find an edition published in 2005. They're not banned. It's only the ones printed 2006 or later that are banned. Having trawled most of the bookshops in Gurgaon already, I know there aren't any Collins, Oxford or Readers Digest atlases out there. I could buy a contraband atlas on Amazon and get it sent here. Or I could go to Pakistan and buy one there. If the Indian Government's complaining about the borders, it's fair to assume the Pakistanis are fairly pleased with them!

'tis the season to be jolly

Because today was the last day of the school term and my alarm clock won't need to be set again until 11th January! Fa la la la la, la la la la! Nothing's going to get me up early for the next three weeks, apart from the milkman ringing the doorbell when he leaves the milk (why does he do this in winter when it's cold in the mornings when he didn't do it in summer, when it wasn't?), the rubbish collector checking we want the rubbish taken away (hello, why did you think we put that big black garbage bag there?), and Malina the cleaner, who is supposed to start at 10am. I say supposed to start, because the Malina Unpredictability Factor has kicked in and she's taken to turning up early more often than not. Sometimes even an hour early. My kids won't get me up early, they know better...

I'm trying to make it a date...

Yesterday I tried to buy a 2009 diary. It seemed like a good thing to do, what with Christmas being just around the corner (hoteliers - please take note!). But it fell into that category of things that is "Just Harder Than It Should Be". Tragically, this category is just bigger than it should be too. You can’t browse in a shop this country, it’s imperative that someone has to help you. Unfortunately the people trying to help you often know less about the product they are trying to explain to you, than you would, if only you’d been left alone long enough to turn it over and read what’s on the back. So I’m faced with a table of 2009 diaries. They’re all A4 or larger. And leather, or plastic to look like leather. And they have one day to a page, broken up into hourly slots. Now it might surprise you, but my life isn’t anywhere near as busy as all that. I've seen the speed at which most Indians do things, trust me, their lives aren't either. What I want is A5 size or smaller, one week to a page or one week spread over two pages. My 2008 diary, given to me last Christmas by Miss Julie, features the "Violent Veg", a comic placing vegetables in amusing scenarios with witty captions. Now I am being realistic, I’m not expecting to find anything anywhere near as perfect as this down MG Road. I did however, find one A5 diary that claimed to be a Humorous Scientific Diary. One of the small cartoons had this caption: “Why can’t I hear anything on my MP3 player?” “Because you’ve plugged it into the wrong socket” . Have you stopped laughing yet? I know I have…

In the next mall, the bookshop had a sign in the window advertising 2009 diaries and planners. It also had another “helpful” sales assistant. I told him I wanted a small diary, one week to a page. He showed me an A4 diary, one day to a page. I told him I wanted a smaller one, one week to a page, so he showed me a thinner A4 diary, one day to a page. I told him I wanted a smaller one, one week to a page. I even pointed to the page, and told him I wanted the whole week to fit on the page. I'm thinking to myself, are these not small, simple words I'm using? Are small, simple words being formed in my head, but big, complicated ones coming out of my mouth, and I'm completely unaware of it? Bugger! He then showed me a beautiful book, about 7 inches square, half an inch thick, with an orange and pink patchwork cover. He asked if that was what I wanted. Yes, I told him, if it’s a diary. He removed the cellophane. It was completely blank. I told him I didn’t want to write my own dates in the diary, I wanted one with the dates printed on them (Hello! Have I mentioned, one week to a page!). So he showed me an A5 diary with two days to a page. It’s thicker than I wanted, because it has many more pages in it than I need. But when I opened it up, it did at least show Monday to Thursday. I turned the page. Rather than show Friday, Saturday, Sunday and a space for notes so the next week would start over on the next page, it went Friday to Monday. The page after that was Tuesday to Friday, and so on. Never in a million years, or longer, was I going to be able to keep up with where the weekends were. This diary was not for me either. So I came home with nothing.

Planning ahead

Christmas is coming, you'd think it would be a good idea to plan ahead. It would be a good idea, but in India, planning ahead isn't always easy. We want to go to one of the hotels to have Christmas lunch. One because we think it would be lovely. Two because I have no idea where to get a turkey. And three, because even if I knew where to get a turkey, there's no way I'm cooking it in my kitchen. I have an oven and a roasting tin. And I have a three ring hob. The hob's so small (compact and bijou, peut-etre?), I can only use two of the burners at once. Depending upon the size of the pans, it's generally the medium fast burner, which at it's lowest has flames dancing up the sides of the pan, and the fast burner, which surprisingly (not!), is even faster. In the middle of these two is my slow burner. When I put a pan on that one I can't get pans to balance on the other two. So I stick to simple recipes. This suits me just fine, because it means my kitchen's not rostered on for Christmas lunch.

So on the weekend we tried to book somewhere. More than one of the hotels told us we were too early and they hadn't decided what they were doing yet. I'm thinking, come on...it's 11 days to Christmas, what do you mean you haven't decided yet! So I asked my new quilting group. Except for our leader, Anju, they're all expats. Lots of Australians, some Americans, a Canadian, a Venezuelan, a Sri Lankan and a handful of Belgians, Swiss and Germans. The Delhi long-timers said the hotels do Christmas lunch every year, so we needn't worry. Anju thought we shouldn't try to firm anything up before Dec 23rd. I told her if we'd left booking Christmas lunch until December 14 in Britain they'd say "Christmas 2009? No madam, we booked the last table, the one next to the kitchen door, in October". In Australia they'd just laugh at us. Loudly. For quite a long time.

PJ problem

Rod is wondering exactly who these XS pyjamas were made for...

An oxymoron, perhaps?

Note the funky jootis (camel skin shoes) bought on our Rajasthan trip.

Tree's Up!

Okay, so it's a little more compact and bijou than last year's tree, but it's a tree!
There was actually an even more compact and bijou tree on offer, but that was just too compact (about 15 inches high, including the pot). Thalia and I bought the tree for a whole 99 rupees after school on Friday. As that's about £1.20, Archies must be using it as a loss leader. It must have cost more than that to produce, surely. Even with child labour. Speaking of child labour, the kids decorated it that afternoon. I say the kids decorated it, Keir wrapped a little of the sequin string bought from Mr Chawla's Fancy Store that we used instead of tinsel around the tree and then asked if he could play on the Wii. I suppose he felt he'd done enough... I'd bought some fabric decorations at C. Lal & Sons at Jor Bagh market, an embroidered and beaded star and heart, and a peacock, camel and elephant. All the best Christmas trees are wearing camel this year.

On Saturday we went to Chattapur to a small mela (fair) organised by the aunt of one of Thalia's school friends. There more Christmas decorations were purchased, including the velvet stockings you can just see under the tree. That purple one is Keir's. We also fell in love with this:

They actually has some brown and grey elephants, but it's Christmas time, why be restrained!

Serendipity

I received an email recently from Jane, another British School Mum who lives in Gurgaon. She decided that there was probably quite a large number of families who didn't know each other and that we should all meet up to say hi, swap phone numbers and pool information. She suggested meeting in a coffee shop in one of the malls. Great idea I thought, so I went along.

We'd set the meeting time as 11, so when I turned up at 10 past only Jane and one other lady had arrived. She was Indian, so her watch must have been fast. I got my mocha and sat down. We got to chatting about how a yahoo group would be a really useful way for us all to keep in touch. I told Jane I'd owned a 700 member quilting group for the past five years, so if she needed any help she could call me. Quilting, she says, I belong to a quilt group. I'll give your details to the group owner.

A little later, when our numbers had swelled to a dozen, Arup (the dad with the hand cancelling stamp advice), came over to chat. He wanted to know where I'd come from. I told him Surrey. He'd lived in Camberley so he wanted me to be more specific. I said Motspur Park. Because no one has ever heard of Motspur Park as it's really a very small place, I added it's between Wimbledon and Kingston. Jane turned to me and said, My grandparents had a house in Motspur Park. I was obviously supposed to meet this lady!

Boldly going...

Captain's Log: Star date 5 December, 2008

This is the voyage of the star ship HR26 AR 9690. It's mission: to seek out new civilisations; to boldly go where no Raju has gone before...inside a Post Office to post a letter.

Luckily for me, the Post Office at Galleria was closed for lunch. This surprised me somewhat, because it was 1pm, and it wouldn't have opened before 11. Anyway, I had these Christmas cards that had to be posted, and two children that needed to be picked up from school at 2.20, so Raju and I headed into Delhi in search of a Post Office. He knew there was a post office near Sarojini Nagar Market, and a good Post Office it was. It was like stepping back into the 1950's, except it was a 1950's where they only spoke Hindi. We walked past five or so counters with older Indians milling in front of them. They were probably queueing...in the Indian way. I think they were the Post Office bank accounts counters. Around the corner there was another counter, with a man sitting behind it doing nothing. We showed him our Christmas cards. He didn't sell stamps. And he didn't tell us where we could buy them. But another customer did, so we moved to the next counter along. There was a younger man sitting behind the counter. I'd say he was doing nothing, but that wouldn't be quite correct, because he was listening to his Ipod. We showed him our Christmas cards, he weighed them and told us 25 rupees. I had 15 cards, so I got out a 500 rupee note. Raju turned to me and said, no 25 rupees. I told him, "each". The man gave us 15 20 rupee stamps and 15 5 rupee stamps. Raju asked the man which stamps went where, and that is when I realised Raju had never posted a letter before. So I got out my glue stick (because these stamps are neither self adhesive nor gummed) and showed him how to stick the stamps onto the letter. We then left the Post Office proper and went to see the Postmaster in the office next door. He's the man with the big postmark stamp, the one that ensures your stamps have no value to anyone else. He stamps each letter hard, re-inking each time. This is a man who enjoys hand cancelling these stamps, he knows the value of his job. I can see, clearly, that there is a real benefit in using a Post Office near the Diplomatic Enclave, home to most of the embassies. This guy's actually seen Airmail letters before, he knows what foreigners want done with them. I could even hope these Christmas cards will go somewhere, maybe not as far as the addresses on the envelopes, but at least beyond the confines of this office.

Wishing...and hoping...

I have just spent the last couple of days on a possibly futile exercise...but I live in hope :-)

Back to the beginning: two evenings ago Rod brought the mail up from our mailbox. In with the Airtel bill and redirected British catalogues from companies I informed months ago we no longer live in Motspur Park is a Christmas card, our first for the year. It's from my friend Marlene's Mum, Nettie. Marlene and I met in 1972, on the first day of school. We were seated next to each other, because we were the smallest girls in the class. All through primary school Marlene and I were seated together, because while some years I was the taller of the two, and other years she was, there was never anyone else who was nearly as short as we were. Thankfully Marlene and I got on very well, because even in secondary school, when we were no longer arranged by height (even though we were still the smallest), we shared many classes. We spent time in each other's homes, and Marlene was always mortified when her Dad, Ron, called me "Lana who plays the Piana", torturously rhyming piano with Lana every time he saw me. If I turned up at their house tomorrow, it would seem strange if he didn't. When I left Australia for Britain in 1991, Nettie sent me a Christmas card. So every year I send her a card with a short message about the past year, and she sends me one, outlining what she and Ron have done. So it was lovely in a year where so much has changed, to receive a little bit of constancy. It made me feel good. I got to thinking if I enjoyed receiving her card, maybe others would like to receive one from India. I had originally thought I wouldn't bother, because we have had so much trouble with our mail. Very few parcels have made it to me, and I've yet to hear if the postcards Mum sent five weeks ago have ever made it to Perth. But if just one Christmas card got through, and made just one person feel as good as I did, then it would be worth it.

Then I actually tried to buy Christmas cards. In Britain, Australia and America you'd be hard pressed to find a shop that didn't sell Christmas cards in December. The shop here that's closest to Walmart or Target - no cards. The Department store Stationery counter - no cards. I did find Christmas cards in a card shop, but I had to ask the assistant if they had any, because the five packs were nestled between the "Happy Anniversary Daughter and Son-in-Law" cards and the "Congratulations on Your Surgery" cards (They really do have "Congratulations on Your Surgery" cards. I didn't make that one up.). So I bought two packets and the most festive roll of wrapping paper they had. It's red. It does have hearts on it, but the only other roll said "Happy Birthday". India may celebrate every festival going, but the usual Christmas paraphenalia is going to be a little harder to source.

So I've written my cards, and tomorrow afternoon I will go, glue stick in hand, to the post office to post them. I received some advice from one of Indian dad's at school, to ensure the clerk at the post office manually cancels each of the stamps with his hand stamper while I watch. Once the stamp has been hand cancelled it has no value. Without that stamp it can be peeled off my mail and resold. Maybe that explains where Mum's postcards got to...

Ommmmm

Before I left Britain, every Monday morning (in term time) for the last six years was spent in a yoga class. This was something I enjoyed very much, both the exercise and the social element. I vowed to keep up my yoga habit when I moved to India. It took me four months, but I'm back "saluting the sun" on a regular basis.

My friend Nitti arranged with her friend Parul to get a yoga guy to come and teach us in our homes. So on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at 3.10 we lay out our mats in someone's living room waiting for Ranvijay to put us through torture, sorry, teach us yoga.

The six years previous practice has certainly helped, but Ranvijay's yoga is really a world away from the yoga I did with Brigitte at the Malden Centre. Brigitte also spoke with a heavy accent, but hers was French, and her classes were yoga with a small element of traditional exercise. Ranvijay's accent is obviously Indian, and while we do some yoga (like salute to the sun, quickly, six times without stopping!), most of the class is exercise. This doesn't bother me, because while I really enjoyed the slow stretches we used to do, I'm not getting anywhere near the same amount of exercise I used to, just going about my normal day. Can't walk to school, can't walk anywhere outside the apartment complex we live in. Because it's not safe. Nothing to do with bombs, but all to do with the scant regard Indians seem to place on driving down the correct side of the road combined with a lack of footpaths. That and the cow, pig, donkey and dog poop...

But back to yoga...Ranvijay is determined to make us fitter, flatter and more toned than before. We don't always get to the end of his repetitions, or hold our pose for as long as he likes. On Monday he had us doing sitting forward bends, touching our toes. This is something I can do quite well (thanks Brigitte!). Parul found it challenging. She excused herself, complaining to Ranvijay, "LanaMam has shorter legs than I do". "ParulMam", he counters, "LanaMam has shorter arms than you do".

Indian yoga is also a lot noisier than British yoga. There's a quite a bit of chanting. Whenever Nitti, Parul and Ranvijay chant in Hindi, I stand there and rest. I've told them that until they provide written words, I'm unlikely to get much beyond "Om". We never chanted much at the Malden Centre, what with that British reserve and all. But the "bumblebee" is really rather pleasant. Put your index fingers in your ears, close your eyes and chant "Om". Go on... try it, you just might like it...

Sausages!

Our Indian adventure is now nearly four months old. While we've adapted to many things, something I miss is the variety of meat I used to eat in the UK. Vegetarian food here is infinitely better than that available in the West (thankfully!), chicken is chicken, and tastes like chicken, but that's it. Lamb is available, but most of the time if it says lamb it means mutton. And when it says mutton it's not mutton as I know it (sheep, older than lamb) but a scrawny animal much more like a goat. And spin it anyway you like, I'd rather not eat goat. There are a few specialist butchers where I believe beef and pork are available, but you have to phone and order it in bulk. One, my freezer is really pretty small, and two, reverse engineering a phone conversation between me and someone selling large slabs of animal could lead to just about anything being delivered to my door four days later. Possibly still alive. What I miss is the ability to go into a regular shop and buy a regular amount of meat for a family meal. Especially sausages. You can buy chicken sausages, but they're what my Scottish mother-in-law would call peely-wally and my Australian brother would call p*ss weak*. And occasionally there's bacon sausages, which have the consistancy of mechanically recovered meat. So we don't go there... What I dream of is a good, old fashioned, meaty British pork sausage. This week I found a source! Jor Bagh Steakhouse - still haven't seen steaks there but they have big meaty sausages and they're even reasonably priced! We all enjoyed dinner (sausages, fried onions, cauliflower and broccoli au gratin) supremely!

* or you could use insipid, if you'd rather

Mumbai

Mum is leaving on Sunday, so we had planned to visit some of Delhi's monuments today. When we woke up to news of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, we briefly discussed not going. Having decided that as

1) Mumbai is one and a half thousand kilometres away

and 2) terrorists (probably Islamic) are targetting luxury hotels and areas that westerners frequent

that 3) going to Lal Qila (the Red Fort) in Islamic Old Delhi was, all things considered, a relatively safe place to be.

Raju was not exactly pleased with our plans. He doesn't like Old Delhi. There are Muslims there. Unfortunately for him, that's where the Red Fort is, and that is where we wanted to go. We explained to him we have done plenty of shopping, and with Mum leaving soon, she wanted to see something that was old. Lal Qila was built by Shah Jahan in 1638 to be his residence, so it's certainly old. It's also the largest of Old Delhi's monuments. My other choice was Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque. Knowing Raju's feelings, I didn't even suggest that.

While driving (reluctantly) to Lal Qila, Raju passes the Indira Gandhi Memorial on Safdarjang Road. He points it out, and asks if we'd like to visit it. Mum and I decline his offer.

To make matters worse, while Mum and I were inside Lal Qila, Raju gets a parking challan (ticket). It's not improved his opinion of Old Delhi.

Reverse Engineering

One of the things Rod and I have been getting better at is reverse engineering conversations. When someone says something to us we don't quite grasp, either because the speaker's using Hindi, or heavily accented English, we try to work out the most likely sentence, and then give a good answer to that question. Sure, sometimes we're going to get that sentence wrong, but it's amazing how often the answer to the question we think was asked is good enough. Rod does it all the time when he orders Papa John's pizza. He says he rarely knows what the person on the line is saying, but by stating clearly and slowly, "one Super Papa, one medium Margarita, one garlic breadsticks" and giving his phone number, forty five minutes later we get the pizzas we wanted.

While in Jaipur we discovered we weren't the only ones using this technique. One of the things Jaipur is famous for is patchwork quilts. We had really been looking forward to seeing some quilts until we laid eyes on them. Maybe they had some lovely ones elsewhere, but in the bazaars and emporiums the quality was really rather poor. We saw some hand quilted ones which had stitches to the inch. I say stitches, there was more than one, but not many more. In the emporium at Jaigarh Fort, Rod found a quilt with machine stitched motifs which had some very large stitches. He turned to me and said, "Constant speed. They don't have Intellistitch." The sales guy obviously reverse engineered this statement to be something like, "look honey, quilting", because he replied "hand stitched". Rod then pointed to the flat top thread and the loops of bobbin thread clearly visible on the front of the quilt and said "tight top tension?". The sales guy reverse engineered this to be far more positive than it was, because he replied, "You like?" In unison we replied, "NO!" While sales guy's sales pitch may work most of the time, it's never going to work when he's trying to sell to the husband of a longarm quilter!

Jaipur Jaunt

So the next morning Manohar drives us back to Jaipur. We're staying at the Sheraton Rajputana. It's a beautiful five star hotel. You'll have to take our word for it, because there's only a pic of the outside and a banquet room on the internet. As this our belated wedding anniversary present to ourselves, we've booked a suite. No idea what this would look like either, but it's a suite in a five star hotel - how bad can it be?

When we arrive, an elegant lady in lehanga chunni performs a welcome ceremony, marking our foreheads with sandalwood paste. She then shows us to our room. This is not a highrise hotel, it's only four stories tall, built in a kind of square around an open pool area. We've the only room in our part of the corridor. No one ever walks past our door. It's the quietest hotel room I've ever slept in! We dump our bags and check out all the freebies we're going to take home (come on, everyone does this!). Then we head out to take in the sights.


Obviously just your typical street scene. Every time I go to cross a road I have to wait for a couple of motorcyclists and a painted elephant, don't you? We visit the Walled City (everything's painted pink, allegedly to cover up the poor construction techniques. It works. The pink is pretty gopping.) and the City Palace. The Palace has an Armoury filled with knives, swords and guns, if that's your kind of thing. Manohar also drives us up a windy hillside path (locals probably call it a road) to Jaigarh Fort. Rajasthanis were a fighting nation, and this mediaeval fort is almost intact. They took fighting seriously in Rajasthan, and you've got to suspect they were quite good at it. There are series of walls all over the countryside to hinder your enemies' approach. And Jaigarh Fort is home to the Jai-Ban, the largest cannon on wheels in the world. The front wheel is 9 feet high. Jai-Ban took a 50 kilogram cannon ball, and 100 kilos of explosives. It's range was 22 miles. It's only been fired once. They fired it, measured the range, and then told all their enemies. The press machine was so good that the enemies stayed away. I'm not sure if you call that money well spent or not?

Also at the fort were a number of school groups. A group of three schoolgirls decided to chat to Rod. I say chat, actually they wanted to play 20 questions. What was his name? Was I his wife? Where did we come from? Rod retaliated with a few of his own, and we discovered they were called Vanita, I've forgotten and Pretty. I have forgotten the middle one's name, so her parents don't call her that. The third one really was called Pretty, even though she wasn't, really... The schoolgirls proved to be much better at the conversation thing than the schoolboys. They asked Rod what his name was, and then asked if we'd give them some rupees... bet you can guess the answer to that one.

We also visited the Jal Mahal, a pleasure palace in the middle of a lake. There were lots of Indians sitting on the banks of this lake. As is typical, there was a large group of men sitting together, and a short distance away, a large group of women. As is also typical, they were all staring at us. Sitting with the women was a small girl, probably six or seven years old. Much bolder than her elders, she called out hello. I turned and waved to her, and all the women burst into applause. White woman waves! Clap now! Large hole in ground, open now please!!

We went to the bazaars but didn't buy very much, as the pressure to "come into my shop" was really quite extreme. Nothing keeps our money in our pockets more than the really hard sell. But I did spot these, which I thought could be useful for my husband, who often needs reminding to make sure his hair is tidy before he leaves the house. Shouldn't complain, I suppose, at least he has hair...

Big, Fat, Indian Wedding

Okay, so I've been kinda slack recently on the blog front, but I've got a good excuse this time. Rod and I have been away in Rajasthan. If you've got any complaints send them to me in the regular mail. And when I ignore them, don't take offence. They'll never have got here...

When a really cheap but reliable babysitter (aka Mum) became available, Rod and I decided to go away for a belated anniversary weekend. And when we were invited to Lata the HR's lady's wedding, it seemed our destination had been chosen for us - Rajasthan.

The Thursday evening wedding was in Ajmer, around 400 kms from Delhi. We could have driven it, but having some knowledge of Indian roads, we knew it was likely to take a good deal longer than travelling 400 kms in just about any other place on earth, even around London! So we flew into the closest large city, Jaipur, and were collected by Manohar, our driver for the next four days, who drove the last 130 kms. Flying was wise, as that drive alone took two hours.

We arrived at the hotel in Ajmer in the afternoon, and as we ate lunch in the restaurant, we watched a small army of men assemble the Mandap, the canopy under which the wedding ceremony is held, and decorate the gardens. Lata and Anil have chosen to get married in a lovely spot. Even though the garden is attached to a hotel, it seems really quite secluded and private.

At 8.30 in the evening we are ready to go downstairs and find out what a big, fat Indian wedding entails. I have on my newly acquired ethnic fancy outfit. Nitti sent me to a shop that sells tastefully sequinned occasion wear, because while I'm not exactly a sequin person, it's de rigeur to wear sequins at weddings. Indian ladies can get away with lots of sparkle on their outfits, but I'm not Indian, and it didn't seem right. So I've bought something I felt comfortable in - a turquoise short sleeved kurta (shift dress with big splits up the sides) with a beaded chocolate bodice embroidered in metallic peacock blue, copper and aubergine, chocolate churridar (tight extra long trousers that gather up the lower leg like bracelets) and a copper edged chocolate dupatta (silk scarf worn across the neck in front and left flowing down the back, very good for flouncing, which does double duty as a shawl as the temperature drops). Rod wears a rather fetching western suit, its lack of ethnicity makes me glad I've not gone all out in a sequinned sari or a Rajasthani lehanga chunni...

The Hindu wedding ceremony is one I wasn't familiar with, but I was pleased to see one similarity with other weddings I've attended - I was handed rose and chrysanthemum petals to throw at the bride and groom to ward off the evil eye and bless them on their marriage.
After the marriage ceremony the bride and groom retired to a pair of thrones on a stage. Guests were able to go up and congratulate them, hand over wedding gifts and pose for photos. Here's my Big Fat Indian Wedding photo.

No one is big, but Anil is really rather tall. He doesn't need that turban to look imposing. No one's fat, but they're both Indians! Here's to a long and happy marriage, Anil and Lata!

Christmas is coming...

Call me stupid, but I've only just realised that Christmas is six weeks away. Maybe that's because the shops are still decorated like they were for Diwali, or thankfully, the musak in the shopping centres isn't non-stop Christmas Carols. There was one day in Spencers supermarket, back in early October, after the Navrati festival, nine days (and nights!) of loud Hindi music and dance and before the Diwali celebrations hotted up, that I was subjected to a horrific shopping experience. What might you think is worse than being subjected to Shakin' Stevens "Merry Christmas, Everyone" in December? Well, it wasn't December, and it wasn't even being sung by someone as talented as Shakin' Stevens. And there wasn't snow falling, all around us. It was still 35 degrees celcius. Haven't heard it since, hopefully it was just a one day thing... So as I don't have the perpetual drip of western advertising telling me it's the season to be jolly every time I step near a spending opportunity, I hadn't really realised Christmas was that close. And for once, I knew what I would like for Christmas, and as it would have to be hand made, I knew I'd better pull my finger out...

When I first told my friend Lynn that I would be living in India, she told me of all the lovely fabrics I could buy at Shanker Market, and of the tailors there that could turn these fabrics into beautiful garments at really reasonable prices. I began to dream of a silk dressing gown. Not a pretend silk polyester one, a real silk dressing gown. I mentioned this to Rod, and he told me I should get two made. I have no idea why I did not rush straight out and arrange the dressing gowns at that point, but I did not. Well last week, realising time was short, I did. Mum and I went to the tailor Lynn recommended (near Mr Chawla's Fancy Store, with the stripy shirt fabrics), but no good, he only did shirts and trousers. The next shop was called "Lady Vogue" and their business card proclaimed they did "Exclusive Punjabi Suits and Ladies Tailoring", so we thought this would be a good place to try. We went in and asked if they could make dressing gowns. Indians like to tell you what they think you'd like to hear, so they said yes. However, after a short discussion, it became apparent that the man, no doubt extremely experienced in the making of Punjabi Suits, western jackets, skirts and trousers, had never made a dressing gown. He might not even know what a dressing gown was. Apparently it would have been so much better if we had taken an example dressing gown with us.

What fastenings did I want down the front? None, just a tie belt.

What lining fabric did I want? None.

The main fabric is sheer, almost see-through? That's okay.

It was only when we told him the garments were to be ankle length that he began to look at us in a less dubious manner. He will make three dressing gowns, one in a pink and green shantung silk for Mum, and two for me. One will be peacock blue and copper shantung, and the other in a 1960's psychadelic print that wouldn't be out of place in an Austin Powers movie. His charge (for the three) is £20. The fabric, bought at a different shop in the market, also cost £20 for all three.

When we left Mum got all giggly, and told me, until we asked for the garments to be so long, the tailor probably thought we were a young hooker and an old hooker. I pointed out, as I'm now 41, the tailor probably didn't think I was a young hooker at all. Maybe an old hooker and a really old hooker...

trying it on...

When Rod first arrived in Delhi, one of the things he found most difficult to source was fresh milk. He bought UHT milk to put in his coffee, but UHT is disgusting on cereal. Now that's a problem for someone who cooks as little as Rod does, because it removes a whole raft of easy dinners (i.e. breakfast cereal) from his repertoire. So Rod stocked up on bread and marmite instead. He mentioned his milk dilemma to Nitti one day and she contacted the milk guy for him. In some respects the milk guy is brilliant, because he leaves two 500ml bags of milk on our doorstep every day. In other repects, the milk guy is less than brilliant, because he tries to rip us off at every opportunity.

Two months back the doorbell rings at about 8 o'clock in the evening. It's the milk guy. He's Omid Djalili but larger, and probably a good deal less entertaining. It's hard to tell, he speaks very little English. And he's sweating profusely. He tells Rod we owe him 1860 rupees for a months worth of milk. Now the milk has a price printed on each bag, and it's 9 rupees a bag. I'd expect something added on for delivery, but it doesn't take me long to work out someone's trying to take us for a ride. Bizarrely Rod has jumped to the same conclusion. We ring Farah's doorbell, the lady in the apartment across from us. She's an enormous help to us, being fluent in Hindi, Bengali and English. We explain to her the milk guy wants 1860 rupees for a month's worth of milk. She knows there's only four of us here, and wants to know how much milk we get. When I tell her, one litre, just like she does, her face tells it all. Her bill is 620 rupees a month. She has a conversation with the milk guy and while we have no idea what she actually said, we have a fair idea what the meaning of it was! Rod, standing behind the milk guy, smiling at Farah, puts on a menacing voice and asks her, "I think he's ripping me off, shall I call the police?" Police, like bus and tractor, is one of those words that are the same in Hindi and English, and milk guy sweats even more. He knows he's been rumbled. Farah tells him to go away and bring back a properly itemised bill, charging us for one litre of milk a day.

One month later, milk guy is back, with his itemised bill. Well, he's got a piece of paper with A151 on it, and the sum 31 x 40 = 1240. I tell him again that his sum is wrong. He tells me that this is the right amount, for two litres a day. I tell him, again, that he delivers one litre of milk to us. He amends the 40 to 20, and I pay him 620 rupees.

Yesterday the milk guy returns. This itemised bill has A151 and a date on it. It also bears the sum 61 x 20 =1220. I tell him again the bill is wrong, because he only delivers one litre a day. He's got the price per litre right, it's the days he has wrong. He amends the 61 to 31 (when did October ever have 61 days in it?) and I pay him 620 rupees.

So I'm waiting to see what happens next month. There isn't enough written on these bills to fudge anything else, but I'm fairly confident the next bill won't be for 620 rupees!

It's not the NHS...

There's good news and bad news. The good news - today I found a lovely, clean, modern doctors surgery that's close to me and where they speak good english. The bad news was that I needed to find a doctor at all...

My eczema has been playing up a bit and one of my hands has some cracked skin. It was looking a bit dodgy, so last night I opened the strongest cortisone cream I brought with me, the one with the antibiotic in it and applied it liberally. This morning I woke up and discovered I could apply for work in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'd been putting off finding a doctor who dealt with adults (there's a paediatrician in one of the other blocks of the complex who works out of home so the kids were sorted), but decided as Buffy is no longer in production, today I'd better find a doctor who dealt with grown ups. Called my friend Nitti who recommended a polyclinic down at Galleria Market. Nitti is well worth knowing, because this doctors surgery is better than the one I'd been using back in Britain. I called at 11, they offered me an appointment at midday with a choice of doctors. The one I chose (actually, the receptionist chose for me, I just said "my hand is infected, I want a doctor who will give me drugs today") called me into her consultation room at 12 on the dot - yes, she was Indian, and I was surprised. The combination of doctor and Indian didn't bode well for timekeeping. I was out with a prescription four minutes later. And the cost, 300 rupees or just over £4 for the apointment, and 460 rupees, just under £6 for three medicines! She wants to see me again on Friday, and I was allowed to pick the time!

Superlatives abound

While Raju was driving me back and forth to the Container Freight Depot last month I discovered there is a new satellite town springing up on the outskirts of New Delhi. It's called Ghaziabad. Allegedly it's an oasis of tranquility on National Highway 24, just 25 kilometres from Connaught Place, the heart of the capital city. Well, that's what the advertising hoardings would have you believe. I could only hope the view from the NH24 got better a bit further out...

"Unveiling new doors of bliss", the first hoarding told me. The second said, "Saviour offers you a lifestyle you'll savour". Then things started getting really silly. "A confluence of class and affordbility, the epitome of lifestyle". "Ghaziabad goes global - Florida, London, Dubai and now Ghaziabad". But for what? Personally I'm struggling to work out what Florida, London and Dubai have in common, let alone what Ghaziabad adds to the mix. My personal favourite - "Imagine a golf course and a lake for neighbours". I imagine that would be quite nice, except when you want to borrow that cup of sugar...

Grand Prix Finale

Lewis Hamilton - World Champion! A good thing I'm not a nail biter...because that was damn close!

Now I can go to bed...

Getting there...someway or another

Finding your way around the suburbs of New Delhi can be a little tricky. There are addresses, but they're not addresses like the ones I've had in Australia or England. Those addresses were tangible. They had numbers and street names, and those street names were marked on signs at the start of the street. Well, not all Indian streets have names, and those that do rarely have signs to tell you what their names are. In India, directions are done by landmarks. Our home address lists the apartment number, the name of the condominium complex and the developer's subdivision. If we want to give someone directions to our place we tell them these, and mention we're off Golf Course Road, near the Genpact Red Lights. The Genpact Red Lights are the traffic signals next to the Genpact building on the corner. You could say turn at the intersection of Golf Course Road and St Thomas Marg, as that is really the name of the street we live on, as I discovered by reading the Eicher map, a comprehensive map of the Delhi area. But this wouldn't help an Indian because they don't use maps, they prefer to get as close to the right area using all the landmarks given in the address, and then stop and ask. Yes, even the men! So the Eicher map puts all the landmarks on the map, so between the foreigner in the back and the Indian driver up front, you've got a hope of getting there.

The kids have been off school the last week for Diwali and Thalia went to visit one of her friends. The friend gave a typical Indian address -a temple, the road linking two villages, the name of a farm. There were many farms marked on the Eicher map, but not this one. After driving past the temple on the correct road, looking for the farm but failing to find it, Raju turned the car around and drove back to the temple, parking opposite it. He got out and asked directions. Next to the temple were some big black gates with a guard posted at them. There was no mention of the farm next to the gate, but it turned out that was where we were meant to go. It must be true, a man on the side of the road said so. The guard let us past, noting our registration number. We drove down this well maintained (so rather un-Indian) road and arrived at another set of gates with another guard. This was our destination. So while Thalia's friend's directions were accurate, it might have made our job easier if she had mentioned she lived in the Residence of the Ambassador to Rwanda in them!

First sewing steps

I've actually done some sewing! Unfortunately it wasn't anything terribly exciting, just shortening and lining the curtains in Thalia's and the master bedroom. While it might not have been exciting it was really useful, as it kept Rod and my bedroom darker this morning so we were able to sleep in! I'd bought the lining fabric at Shankar Market back in September, in anticipation of my DSM arriving later that month. As we all know, that didn't happen. Lining the curtains took a little longer than it should have. I haven't managed to unpack my sewing stuff yet because we're using that room as Mum's bedroom while she's visiting. So all the boxes are stored under my quilting frame. I set my DSM up on the dining room table, and had to go and search the boxes for the footpedal. Then I had to go and search for a multi region power board so I could pin my British plug into a power board that I could plug into the wall. Then I had to find my pins and dressmaking scissors, then I had to search two boxes for my spools of thread. Of course all these things were in separate boxes, and never the box on the top of the stack!

Lighting up!

The biggest Hindu festival of the year is almost upon us. Diwali is the festival of light, and many of the balconies around us have been adorned with tinsel and twinkly lights. It's really beautiful.

Keir's class had a Diwali assembly on Friday. Mum and I attended, so we now know exactly why everyone lights candles and decorates their homes with sparkly lights. Many years ago there was a good old king who had a number of sons by a couple of wives. The king chose his son Ram to take over from him, which upset wife no.2, who wanted her son Bharat to inherit the crown. Wife no. 2 had something over the king, and forced him to send Ram and his wife Sita into exile in the forest for 14 years. But Bharat wasn't as conniving as his mother and went into the forest to ask Ram to return to take the crown. Ram wouldn't disobey his father and opted to stay in the forest for the 14 years, so Bharat (played by Keir) asked for Ram's sandals to take back to the palace which he put on the throne. Then Sita was kidnapped by a bad man (we knew he was a baddie, he was wearing black), Ram befriended a monkey king and Ram and the monkey king went to rescue Sita. So not much different to the Days of our Lives or the Young and the Restless really. When Ram and Sita needed to go back to reclaim the throne they could not find their way, so the people lit candles along the path to show them the way. Hindus commemorate this by lighting up their homes, eating barfi (condensed milk cooked with sugar and coated with edible silver. It's lovely, but you can make yourself sick if you eat too much), having big parties and playing lots of loud Bollywood songs. Diwali day is on Tuesday, which is also Rod and my 13th wedding anniversary. I'm led to believe there will be fireworks too that day. So kind of the Indians to put so much effort into our anniversary, don't you think?

Sofa, so good

Well, we've certainly had a busy couple of days here. Almost everything's unpacked, just about every piece of furniture we had in the living/dining area has moved (at least once) to accomodate our sofa, which was a large part of the shipment. Why would we ship a sofa halfway around the world when India actually makes really quite nice sofas? Well, we love this sofa, it's incredibly comfortable and it reminds us of home. Rod's parents gave us this sofa when we moved into Marina Avenue in 1997. But it was not new, they were downsizing in Edinburgh, and it was fortuitous that we were able to make use of it at a time when we were expanding up from a one bed apartment to a three bed house. The sofa was not new in Edinburgh, Rod remembers it from his childhood home. By his reckoning, the sofa is nearly 40 years old. I asked David, his Dad, how old the sofa was on his last visit down to us before we left, and I found out Rod is wrong. Yes the sofa was in his childhood home, but it wasn't new when his parents got it. It had actually been bought by Rod's grandparents, so it is even older still! It certainly was too old to stay in Marina Avenue when the house was rented out, because it seems the authorities were less concerned about fire regulations in the post war years, and it wouldn't pass fire safety tests. We don't care about that, it now has pride of place in our living room, in front of our big flat screen TV. We are happy bunnies. Happier still once we buy a bookcase to hold the books, CDs and DVDs that haven't yet been unpacked.

Another reason we were so desperate to get everything sorted quickly was my Mum, Marcia, arrived yesterday to stay for six weeks. We had chosen late October so she could be here for Diwali, and to allow us time to unpack all our stuff and get sorted. We had been planning on having at least a couple of weeks to do this, not a couple of days. But she's seen a cardboard box or two before, and that's not what she's focussing on anyway. So we're off to do some shopping!

It's here!

Just thought you'd all like to know. Can't talk - I'm unpacking!

Suited, or what?

The past week and a bit have been quite hard here. Rod and I have both spent a great deal of time trying to get our belongings, and while we seem a little closer to getting our stuff at the end of each day, it doesn't seem enough of a step forward considering the time and effort we've put in. So on Tuesday, while I was at one of Delhi's 5 star hotels, I walked past a cake counter and spotted a blackcurrant topped cheesecake. Rod loves cheesecake (who am I kidding, so do I!), so I decided to buy a couple of slices as a treat for him, to show that I appreciated all the efforts he'd been putting in.

Rod came home around 10 that evening, what with spending the day with shipping companies etc, he's having to do his proper work later. He was carrying a fancy paper bag with the logo of one of Gurgaon's top end hotels on it. There's a french stick poking out of the top, and in his other hand, there's an enormous box with the same logo on it. I looked at the unopened box and said to him, "you bought me a cake."
"Yes", he replied, "how do you know?"
"Because I bought you a cake. Because you've worked hard trying to get our stuff, and it's all been a bit hard, so I thought you deserved a treat."
Rod told me he had been walking past the bakery in this hotel and thought exactly the same thing. What's really funny is that neither of us spend very much time in 5 star hotels, nor have we ever bought cake from one before!

Rather than buy a couple of slices, he bought the whole thing. So like Marie Antoinette and the hippo on top of our caravan roof*, we're eating cake. We both decided that my cake looked stunning but was actually rather disappointing. The crumb crust was lovely, as was the blackcurrant topping. But the cheesecake itself wasn't cheesecake, it was a light fluffy mousse. Rod's cake was much tastier - a good thing, because we've got a lot of it. It's thin layers of sponge spread with a cream-like (but not cream, and not buttercream icing, not sure what it is) filling and topped with chunks of grape, melon and kiwi fruit. I'm enjoying it, quite a lot!

Yesterday Rod and I spent the entire day trying to get our shipment out of the container freight depot. At 10, when the banks open, we went to get a bank draft (bank cheque) for the shipping agency. The bank wanted to know where the draft would be cashed. As if we're expected to know where the shipping agency does it's banking! Then we drove to the agency in Hauz Khas (12.15) to give them the cheque and pick up the delivery order showing we'd paid the shipping charges. Sweety had called ahead and asked them to have this ready for us, so it only took 35 minutes for them to provide this single sheet of paper. Then we drove to the container freight depot (2pm) and waited in a warehouse while they unloaded our two pallets from the container. Sweety had arranged a man to expedite us through the process. Either he wasn't very good at working fast, or, if that was him working quickly, I feel extremely sorry for anyone who is depending on his usual pace. My fingernails grow faster. At 3.20pm, they locate the container with our goods. I can't tell you how excited we were to see two pallets of heavy duty black shrink wrap plastic with decent ties and packing seals with "Fairweather" on them. I'd been seriously unimpressed with everything to do with the shipping of all our goods - I mean, we were told there would be a transit time of 33 days for this stuff. They left our house in London on July 30th. I'm not sure what calendar they're using, but mine says that was 77 days ago. The way they have been packed is the only positive comment I'd care to pass on the subject.

So it's now 3.20. The truck Sweety's guy had promised hadn't materialised, so Rod sent me with Raju to collect the kids from school. We picked them up and drove straight back to the container depot and waited outside. Rod appears at 6.30. We've gone as far as we can today, and guess where he has to go tomorrow?

* from one of Keir and my favourite bedtime books

One down...one to go

My mobile rang last night just after 11. I assume it was the delivery guys telling me they'd arrived. I assume this because a man rattled off some quickfire Hindi of which I could not pick one identifying word out as a clue (Pizza, furniture and plumber are the same in both languages. So is tractor, but bizarrely, I've never been expecting delivery of one of those). Then he hung up. Then Rod's mobile rang. I could tell the person on the other end of that was at least using some English. Rod told them the guards would let them in at 8am and we both went to bed.

7.41 the internal phone rings. It's the front gate. Lots of Hindi, but this time with the clue word, delivery. We give the usual reply "Send them up to A151". They have to open the crate to carry the contents upstairs. This has an added bonus - as the wooden crate never comes off the back of the truck we don't have to work out how to get rid of it. Supervisor lady calls at 8am to make sure everything is going to plan and I'm pleased to be able to tell her it is. It is such a shame we were only passed onto her at the last moment. Of course, if we hadn't been passed to her when we did, it might not have been the last moment!

The quilting frame is now in bits in my quilting room. Can't put it up yet because the tool box is in the other shipment, which has just arrived at the container freight depot. But I don't need it up yet, because Samantha, my quilting machine, is with my tool box :-)

still not...addendum

Okay, just because the supervisor lady promised the table would be here by 6.30pm you didn't really think it would be, did you? She called just after 5pm to say the table was loaded on the truck and ready to go. Unfortunately, the truck wasn't going anywhere for a couple of hours. There's a law which prohibits heavy goods trucks travelling through Delhi during the evening rush hour, so the truck was unable to leave the depot until 9pm. Actually I think this law is a good thing, so I can't complain. However I think the customs inspectors really ought to start work earlier in the day to accomodate this. She tells me the truck will leave at 9pm, and should get to my house around 11pm tonight. She then says it will park alongside Westend Heights for the night, and deliver my goods as soon as the guards will allow in the morning. I've checked the Condominium rulebook, and that's 8am. So I will be able to go to bed tonight knowing my table is here. I might even sneak out to gaze at the truck!

Still here...surrounded by not much...

At the risk of sounding like a broken (gramophone) record our stuff still isn't here. I am beginning to suspect a few of you are quite enjoying hearing about the non-arrival of our stuff, safe in your own homes surrounded by your own stuff. Stop sniggering, it's not funny. However this afternoon I am sitting in my own home, waiting for the internal phone to ring, for the front gate to announce there's a truck outside with my quilting frame on it.

On Friday I had to take the gate pass to the main offices of the shipping agent (handily the tower block next to Rod's tower block). Rod had already taken the pass in on Wednesday afternoon and been told they didn't need it. So when the shipping agent called Rod and said we'd have to take the gate pass back to the customs freight depot, one and a half hours away, Rod used no uncertain words, rather loudly, to explain what a door to door service was; how much of my time had been taken doing what they had been paid to do; and that he now expected the only thing required of me was open the apartment door and point to the room I wanted the contents of the crates placed in. The girl dealing with our shipment was at least clever enough to realise this might be a good time to pass Rod's call onto her supervisor.

The supervisor was a lot more clued on than the girl who had been dealing with us (guess that's why she's the supervisor). I was asked to take the gate pass in, and had to sign a couple of forms authorising the company to collect my crates and bring them to me. Supervisor lady apologised that she would be unlikely to be able to get my crates to me today as it was now 2pm, because the original documents had to be produced at the freight depot (an hour and a half away) before the goods could be released, loaded on a truck and driven to me (an hour and a half back again) before 6.30, the time the security guards want all workmen out of the complex. I agreed with her. So she promised they would be here today, in the afternoon because the customs inspectors don't turn up to work early. So here I am...

Also on Friday I managed to speak to someone arranging the shipping of our household effects. He said the container is come to Delhi today. "Is come" is one of the Indian English phrases which frustrates me the most. "Has come" is a good thing, because it has happened already, so you can believe it when they say today. "Is coming" is not so reliable, because it hasn't happened yet, so it might not happen today. But which one of these two possibilities is "is come"? Arghhhh!

How not to please a girlfriend...

If you are one of those people who think an airline’s two hour check-in policy doesn’t apply to you, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you know exactly when your plane is due to leave. Because only leaving yourself an hour and a quarter to go from check-in to international departure isn’t the greatest idea when you’ve actually not read your ticket properly and the plane leaves 30 minutes sooner than you thought. This lesson might have been learnt by one of Rod’s friends early Saturday morning. Maybe.

Owen thought his plane took off at one thirty am, so it was decided Rod would take him out for a few drinks and drop him off at the airport at eleven thirty. Or that’s how the plan was explained to me over the family dinner. But the best laid plans of mice, men and Owen were apt to go astray. Because the boys enjoyed their drinks, and their chat, and it wasn’t eleven thirty when Rod dropped Owen at the airport. He dropped him at a quarter past twelve. Owen checked his ticket, found that his flight was at one am, not one thirty, and the flight was, naturally, closed. The man behind the counter seemed unwilling to reopen the flight. Which was a bit of a bugger, really, because
1) Owen’s girlfriend had flown to Bangkok to spend the weekend with him.
2) There was only one flight to Bangkok a day with the airline he had been booked with.
3) The next flight would get him to Bangkok a couple of hours before his girlfriend’s flight out.
Owen phoned Rod. Raju turned the car around to go back to collect Owen. Rod phoned me to warn me we would have a visitor. I made up a bed on the sofa. Now while it is not the best husbandly behaviour to turn up with your mates worse for wear in the early hours of the morning, in his defence, Rod was at least in the right house, in the right country, on the right day. Methinks Owen will have a great deal of groveling to do…

Clearing Customs part two

So Wednesday morning I dress in another of my "dutiful housewife showing respect for Indian sensibilities" outfits. I hope I don't have to make too many more visits to the customs freight depot, because I really haven't got that large a supply of tents. This is something of which Rod is extremely grateful.


I phone the customs agent and he comes to collect me at the gate. I hand over my passport to get my gate pass again, and customs agent guy tries to save time and vouch for me. But gate security guy has his job to do, and I need a gate pass. I showed them yesterday's gate pass. Tuesday's passes were pink, Wednesday's are yellow. He wrote an 8 on my pass over yesterday's 7 and sent me through. So much for stringent security.


I give customs agent guy my passport and baggage declaration form. I was supposed to fill the form in last night, and have only managed to put my name, nationality, occupation and current address on it. There isn't actually a category for your sewing machine table. However there are sections for you to state you have brought in a typewriter, gramophone and gramophone records and a harmonium. It may surprise you to know that not even in our main shipment have we brought in a gramophone... Customs guy fills in the form for me, declaring the table to have a customs charge of 10,000 rupees.

Customs agent guys asks if I have seen my shipment. Personally I really only want to see my stuff once it's in my house. I don't think looking at a couple of wooden crates in a bonded warehouse is going to make my day. But he seems to want to show me, and I want this process over, so we troop out to one of the warehouses for me to look at my crates. It takes a little time to find the crates, and I'm asked if I recognise them. Well these crates didn't arrive in the UK until I'd left for India, so I've actually never set eyes on them before. But I know what the Nolting crates usually look like, and when they point out some that could be right, I check the shipping label, find my name and British address on them and say they're mine. Customs guy wonders what part of a table the long thin crate contains. I tell him they're the rollers that I attach the fabric onto so I can move the sewing machine over the fabric. He doesn't look like he understands what I'm saying, but he buys the answer anyway. They jemmy the side of the large crate open and he pulls out a sheet of the pink packing Nolting use. He stares inside, it obviously looks like a pile of metal parts - not the kind of table he was imagining - and queries, "It's a dismantled table?" Yes, I reply confidently. So he decides it probably is a table and we can go back into the admin block. This is good news for me, because it's 36 degrees outside, and probably 35 and a half in this warehouse.


Everywhere you look inside the admin block there are men holding sheaves of paper. It seems we need to visit various offices to get a stamp on our papers, and every office has an "Indian queue" (a collection of people standing in front of a desk, your proximity to the centre of the desk having no relationship to the amount of time you'd been standing there). Customs guy moves to the head of the "Indian queue" by announcing "Ma’am", and pointing to me. This makes the "Indian queue" part like the Red Sea. This works in the first couple of offices, and then he takes me to what he called the “safest place” in the admin block. This was three metal chairs in an air conditioned corridor between some accounts offices. Maybe it was the safest place because it was the only room I’d seen in two days where there were women (3 of them). This may have meant the women would protect me from the men, or that the men who worked in that area had seen a woman before and had actually learnt to control their urges. I am asked for my customs charge, I hand over the 10,000 cash in an envelope and am left to wait here for almost an hour. When customs guy returns he apologises for the delay. He had to wait for a different customs inspector to become available, because the first one was "confused, and may have wanted to ask some questions". He hands me the gate pass which releases my crates from the customs freight depot. It claims the goods are personal effects (which they weren't yesterday), worth 10,000 rupees and there is no duty payable. Patently this is all very dodgy, but I have the pass in my hand which will give me my quilting frame, so I say thank you very much and leave. Quickly.

Clearing Customs part one

We still don't have any of our stuff, but I now have proper positive proof that at least some of it is actually in India, and not gallivanting around somewhere in the world having a fine holiday without us. I saw the crates containing my quilting frame at the container freight depot in Delhi on Wednesday. We had arranged (and paid for) a door to door service for the quilting frame, but the shipping company informed us that in order to get customs clearance, the consignee would have to appear in person at the aforementioned container freight depot. They couldn't understand why I need sewing machine parts (especially ones that weigh 272 kilos and come in two large wooden crates) if I'm not going to run a manufacturing business in India. Rod had lots of meetings this week, and as my name was listed as the consignee on the documents, it was really me they wanted to see. I decided I couldn't wait another week for Rod to come with me, I would just be brave and go alone. Well, not really alone. I'd have Raju.

So Tuesday morning I put on one of my flowing Indian dresses, long sleeved, ankle length. I think it says "housewife showing respect for Indian sensibilities". Rod thinks it says "tent". Raju drives me to the depot, a good hour and a half from home. I explained to him, or so I thought, that he would accompany me inside the building. We call the number we were given for the shipping company's agent and he says he will come down to the gate to escort me. He arrives, I have to show my passport to get an entry pass and I turn to motion Raju to follow me. But it seems Raju didn't exactly understand that he would accompany me, and I'm now going in alone.

Inside the depot are stacks of metal shipping containers, lots of them. There's an assortment of large cranes and super sized forklifts. There are warehouse buildings. There are men walking purposefully around. There's an administration block made of what looks like asbestos sheeting. And there's me. The shipping agent guy leads me up metal stairs (no hand rail, no health and safety) and takes me to a room with perhaps 10 men inside holding sheaves of paper. He motions me to sit in a chair next to a vacant desk. And then he leaves. I look around. The men holding the papers look at me. In a country where some men think making eye contact is tantamount to a come-on, I decide it's prudent to place my hands in my lap and look at them.

Another man walks into the room and sits at the desk. I don't know who he is, but it seems shipping agent guy has sent him. He wants to know what is in the crates. Rod told me to keep it simple, so I tell him it's a table for my sewing machine, because sewing is my hobby. He wants to know what I am doing in India. I tell him my husband has a job here and I am here with him. He wants to know why I need such a large table for my sewing machine. I tell him I used to have a 14 ft table for my sewing machine, but that wouldn't fit in my apartment, so I now have a 10 ft one. He finds this at bit extraordinary. I decide as I'm playing the role of dutiful housewife who follows her husband around the world and sews for a hobby I probably shouldn't mention I know lots of people with very large tables for their very large sewing machines.

He asks if I have an invoice for the table. I produce it. He declares an invoice is proof that I am doing this commercially. I declare an invoice is proof that I have bought something. He tells me I will not be allowed to bring the table in as personal effects and that I will have to pay duty. He then tells me to put the invoice away because it would “confuse people and make them reach an amount larger than I needed to pay”. He decides we need to agree on a “fair price” for the customs charge. The conversation went:
Him: What would be a fair price for the goods?
Me: I don’t know. What do you think? (I mean, as a former Nolting Quilting Machine Dealer this certainly isn't the first time I've ever imported quilting machines into a country, but it's the first time a customs agent has ever asked my opinion on how much I think I should pay.)
Him: 10,000 rupees (£120). Cash.
Me: Okay. I don’t have the money on me, I will bring it tomorrow.
It appears in some countries, the words customs charge and bribe seem to be interchangeable.

He then wanted me to leave the building because it wasn’t, in his words, a very nice or safe place. He obviously then hasn’t spent much time in the Mini Secretariat in Haryana. The place, while not nice by any real standards known to man, was a good deal better than there.

Moving On

One of the things you have to do when you move house is inform every one that you're moving. It's easy to get out your Christmas card list, and tell those people. It's also easy to send an email to all the people you know letting them know what your new address is. But if you think the job is done then, wrong, you've actually only just started. You have to contact all the mailing lists you've managed to get yourself on in the past 10 years and get yourself removed. This is where it would have been so helpful not to have enjoyed catalogue shopping! Our mail is being redirected at the moment, so whenever we receive post from a British company we can no longer deal with (between most of them not posting to India, and the Indian postal service's ability to redistribute the stuff sent to me amongst themselves), we are trying to be "green" and let them know. Most companies run websites these days, and a quick click on the "contact us" button does the trick. Generally...

I tried to tell Ocado I had moved to India. Their website insisted I gave them my new postcode, and then told me I had entered an invalid postcode. It wasn't an invalid postcode, it just wasn't a British postcode. The website wouldn't let me update my address, because it wasn't a British address, nor would it let me unregister my account. So I had to write an email to customer services.

This is part of their reply:

Dear Mrs Dragicevich , Thank you for your recent e-mail. I can confirm that your market settings have been updated. This means that you will not receive any further communications from us, but can still choose to log on to the site in future, should you wish to recommence shopping with us. However, if you wish for the account to be removed, you can call us, and we will de-activate the account on our database, meaning that you will no longer be able to log on to that account. I do hope that this is of some assistance. If we can be of any further help, or you have any further comments or suggestions, then please contact us by e-mailing mailto:xxxxx@xxxxo.com, or by calling us on 0845 3991122 or 0845 6561234 (8am-11pm Mon to Sat, 12-8pm Sun), seven days a week. Yours sincerely, John XXXXX

They asked for further comments, so I gave them some.

Dear John,

As I was trying to tell you, I now live in India. I could be wrong, but I assume India isn't one of your home delivery areas. Therefore my need to recommence shopping with you will be limited. If I really have to call you to deactivate my account, please give me a phone number that will be free of charge to me, as I'm not inclined to pay international phone charges when I feel I've already done enough to inform you of the change. Since relocating two months ago I have removed myself from many databases, but none have made the job as difficult for me as yours has. It's really not very impressive.

Lana Dragicevich

October is Festival Month

The kids have gone back to school today after a four day long weekend. I would have been more aware we were going to have this long weekend if I had turned the page on the school calendar over earlier*. Last Thursday was a National Holiday because it was Gandhi’s birthday. Wednesday was Eid, the end of Ramadan, so Muslims had that to celebrate. Next Thursday they’re also off school because it’s the Hindu festival, Dussehra. And the big festival Diwali is later this month. Raju tells me October is festival month. It can’t be, no one seems to pay over the odds to go to a muddy field to listen to music and take drugs. Or maybe they do, and I’m just out of the loop. It’s not going to be the sort of music they play on Virgin (now Absolute) anyway, which I still keep up with over the internet. One advantage of living in India is you don't have to get up early to listen to the Breakfast show.

So we had some children to entertain. On Thursday we went to Fun 'n' Food Village, a waterpark with splash pools, a wave machine and some mighty steep slides. One had a section that launched you airborne, before returning you to the slide with a bump halfway down. Didn’t know about the bump until it was too late. There was also a dance pool with a rain machine, so the Indians could pretend they were in a Bollywood movie. I've never seen a Bollywood movie, but all the Indians have, because they all knew exactly what to do.

On Friday, in anticipation of our stuff arriving and needing somewhere to put everything ** we went to Great India Place in search of a bookshelf and failed dismally. We didn't see any bookshelves at all. This was not the disaster it could have been, because the furniture we did see was
one) ugly
and two) expensive.
What we would have given for Ikea and a Billy bookshelf! So Saturday we went up to a little village between Gurgaon and Delhi called Ghitorni where they have real wood furniture. We purchased a shelf unit and a desk to take our computer printer for less than we'd seen anything at Great India Place. And on Sunday we went to Hauz Khas. Hauz Khas means Royal Tank, which Sultan Alauddin Khilji excavated in 1300 to provide water for his new city of Siri. There's ruins of Firoz Shah Tughlaq's tomb on the side of the hill above the reservoir, but no safety rails, not even ruined ones***, so we stood a good six feet back from the edge, held on to Keir**** and looked from there. We were planning on eating at one of the "stylish cafes and restaurants" our guide book tempted us with, but they had all closed down. All was not lost, as we passed a furniture shop and bought a CD and DVD rack taller than Thalia and a 20cm square box both made out of Sheesham wood (Indian Rosewood) for 4,000 rupees (less than £50)!

*note to self, it's worth checking!
**no, it's still not here, and we're not happy!
***health and safety hasn't exactly made inroads in India
**** Thalia has a sense of her own mortality, Keir certainly doesn't. We take no chances with Keir.

Cauliflower Cheese!

On Monday Raju was driving me to Needs Supermarket and we were passing Hamilton Court. As we whizzed past (actually an exaggeration, because this road is so potholey if you tried to go fast you'd be airborne) I spied what appeared to be a display of WHITE cauliflowers. So obviously my thoughts turned to cauliflower cheese...

I knew I had milk and butter at home, but I'd need some flour to make the white sauce. Luckily we'd visited friends Rahul and Ahtushi on the weekend, so I knew fine ground, all purpose flour was called Maida. Put that in my basket. A Mum at school called Tania had told me Needs sold an Indian cheddar that, while you wouldn't put it on your cheeseboard, was good for grating on pasta. They were out of that, but I had some Scottish Cheddar at home. It was really too expensive to put in a cheese sauce, but this was the first time I'd seen a cauliflower I'd buy, so there was no way we'd not have cauliflower cheese!

Back at the veg stall, the cauliflowers thankfully did not disappoint. In fact all the veg here today looked better. The cucumbers were mid green instead of their usual rather sickly yellow green. The tomatoes were bright red. Some of them were round, and some were unblemished. I plumped for red and unblemished ones. If two out of three is good enough for Meat Loaf...
I finished my shopping with a couple of carrots and two handfuls of beans. Everything bar the cauliflower was weighed together, veg guy grabbed some coriander stems and few extra green things to balance the scales and asked for 70 rupees. 80 rupees is about a pound, and remember I'm being overcharged here because I'm a white western woman.

I get home to soak my veg in filtered water and Milton, which makes the kitchen smell like someone's been sterilizing baby bottles. Whilst I'm not partial to this smell, I'm grateful it's only vegetables I'm sterilizing... I discover the extra green things the veg guy used to balance out my basket weren't beans but chillis. About a dozen of them, which is probably 12 more than I would have chosen, particularly this early in our Indian adventure. I relegate them to the bin.

I set to the white sauce. Make a roux with butter and the Maida, good. Add in the milk, stirring to incorporate, good. Check no lumps, good. Check sauce thickening, not good. Frankly sauce looks like a saucepan of milk with a little melted butter in it. I simmer some more, and the texture changes not at all. After 15 minutes of simmering, the sauce is no thicker, there's just less of it because the milk is evaporating. Maida might be all purpose flour, but it's not fit for this purpose. Thankfully in the cupboard there's a jar of Alfredo sauce Rod had bought before we got here and not used.

I go to get my casserole dish, and remember it's in the crates, which are still somewhere in India that's not A151 Westend Heights. I do have a cheap cake tin I bought to make flapjacks. Now I'm glad I didn't buy the expensive one with the lovely non-stick coating. Into the cake tin I pour the steamed cauliflower florets and the jar of alfredo sauce. I sprinkle over "Real Bacon Bits" from a jar imported from America (while you can get bacon here it's not really bacon as we know it. Neither's "Real Bacon Bits", but actually they're closer). I don't have any breadcrumbs, so I crush cornflakes and scatter them on top.

After dinner I survey the plates. All four have been wiped clean. The cake tin is on the dinner table and all the extra saucy bits have been scraped out. Whilst it might have read like a "trailer trash" recipe it certainly went down well!

What's in a Name?

Rod's got a personal assistant at work now. He calls her Sweety. I would take umbrage at this, but her parents call her Sweety too, for that is the name on her birth certificate.

Rod, being a skydiver, is no stranger to friends with unusual names. There's Stumpy and Nutty, for example. Stumpy is his formal name, when you want to address him informally you call him Stumps. I don't think you'd call Nutty Nuts though. Despite the fact that these names fit them to a "T", I imagine their parents used the names Ian and Liz (or Elizabeth) when referring to them.

Then there's Rotti and Rhino. I have no idea what their parents called them.

Back to Sweety and her parents. I hope she was an exceptionally well behaved young girl. Imagine trying to tell her off as a child - "Sweety, go to your room!" It doesn't exactly have the gravitas you're aiming for...

The Craters are Coming...but not quickly

There's good news and bad news. The good news - our crates are in India. The bad news - they’re not with us, and we're not exactly sure where they are. At least they’re in the right country. The main shipment (aka The One with our Household Stuff) is somewhere between Mumbai (where the ship arrived) and Delhi, either on a lorry or a train. Rod had a conversation with the import agency and he wasn't exactly more informed after it. Our paperwork said the estimated date of arrival was 20th September - I know, it's the 25th now. Remember time in India is a flexible concept. Considering this, the maid has always been punctual. She's never been five days late.

The second shipment (aka the One with my Quilting Frame - this is starting to sound like episiodes of Friends, is it not?) is even closer, we think. Because I was not willing (and surprisingly neither was Rod) to give up the master bedroom of our apartment for my quilting machine, I needed a new, smaller frame. Nolting made me one and sent it to me in England so it could come with the main shipment. I'd arranged many shipments in the past, and if you allowed three weeks for the machine to get from door to door you were safe. However we hadn’t factored in the economic downturn reducing the number of ships needed to cross the Atlantic. The table got to the US dock in plenty of time, and there it sat. Eventually our ship was full and it set sail. It made it to England at the end of July, before we left, but after our house was crated up. So I arranged for the table to be re-routed to India. The boat it was on berthed on September 4th. It was put on a train on September 12th. It's now in New Delhi, but we're in the process of collecting the 153 pieces of paper we didn't know we needed to get it out of customs. Nothing happens quickly here (that flexible time concept again), and they sure love paperwork. Carbon paper is readily available. I'm really hopeful one of the crates gets here soon. It would be helpful if it was the main shipment, because that contains the tool box we'll need to put the table together!

Food part two

So what have we been eating in these early weeks? Pasta, obviously. Thalia has overcome her misgivings about eggs so we have fried eggs on toast once a week. Maybe the status of eggs was elevated once she worked out what some of the other offerings could be. I'm overcoming my misgivings about deep fat frying (the health ones AND the burning down the house ones) and presenting the family with a selection of chicken nuggets, vegetable fingers and fries. There's a wide selection of frozen chicken and veg products available, some of them even quite spice free, much to the kids' delight. Not many Indian kitchens have ovens so they're all designed to be deep fried. You can't oven bake them. I tried. And there's Papa John's pizza for our traditional Saturday Night Pizza Night. Unfortunately the television doesn't live up to our usual Saturday Night Pizza Night, unless you count Indian Idol, but that's in Hindi, so we don't.

After a couple of weeks of this I was pining for a meal that contained vegetables. When I mentioned this at the dinner table Thalia she said she wasn't. I was very excited to find a jar of Kikkoman sauce in Spencers because I knew that wasn’t going to be hot. So we had sweet and sour chicken and veg stir fry with the veg from the roadside stall. I've also modified the recipe on the side of a jar of pasta sauce (when have I ever followed a recipe exactly!). After bitching to Julie about the lack of houmous to serve with the nice looking pita bread you get here, because the tomatoes don't deserve this pita bread and lettuce is non-existant, she sent me a link to Delia's recipe. Well I found all the ingredients and made it. As I had absolutely no way to measure any of the ingredients other than a teacup that tapers at the bottom, a soup spoon and a teaspoon it didn't turn out too bad. It looks like houmous. It tastes like not particularly good houmous. Once my scales and measuring cup arrives I feel I will be able to do a much better job! And then I'll buy some more pita bread :-)

I need a cookbook...and some scales...

...and some measuring spoons...a grater...and a casserole dish...

Realistically what I really need is for our crates to arrive. Most of that stuff I packed in them and it would be silly to go and buy them again. Some of the stuff (like the measuring spoons and grater) I know I didn't pack, so I've been keeping an eye out for them. So far my eye has wandered, but not very successfully...

I've been cooking fairly simple meals since we arrived because:

1. I’m having a hard time remembering what stuff I need to buy for meals when every one of the ingredients isn’t obvious on the supermarket shelves.

2. Meals I do remember often contain ingredients I haven't been able to find yet, or implements I haven't got (like the casserole dish Julie gave me for Christmas that's in the crates)

3. The vegetables in the supermarket aren't exactly inspiring. There's lots of gourd (whatever that is!), but the vegetables I recognise don't look like I'd pay money for them. I know Tesco and the other supermarkets have indoctrinated us into only accepting perfect, round, unblemished fruit and vegetables, and that farmers say slightly odd shaped produce with small imperfections in their skin are just as good for us. Well, maybe so, but the fruit and veg in Spencers look mank! All the apples have bruises. The carrots are floppy, and are starting to go soft and squidgy at the top. I haven’t seen a lettuce, or a round, red or unblemished tomato. To think I actually would like a tomato that conforms to all three. Okay, it wouldn’t have to be round if it was a plum tomato, but I'm not aiming that high, you know…

The cauliflowers are particularly disappointing, especially as it's the family's favourite vegetable. I can serve cauliflower and NO ONE complains (well, only if I stint on the cheese sauce)... If you think of a not particularly good head of broccoli, florets not tightly packed, not the freshest so it's a bit floppy. I'd say that's what the cauliflower looks like except it's white, but it's not really that white either. It's the colour of the last bit of cauliflower you didn't use because the head was so large, and put in the crisper drawer to use later, but forgot, and now it's got this black speckledy thing going on. It looks like that, except it's still in the shop awaiting to be sold. In the beauty contest of life it's not going to win any prizes...

There are also roadside stalls which sell fruit and veg. They charge more than the supermarkets, but the produce is fresher. Raju and I stopped at the one next to Hamilton Court, the swishest housing estate in Gurgaon, working on the theory that the best housing estate would have the best quality vegetables. There's no prices on the veg here, the theory being that the more you look like you can pay, the more they charge. That's where Raju comes in handy. I was given a plastic basket and allowed to browse. The cauliflowers looked better, but still not good enough. I took four carrots, a green pepper, a head of garlic and two handfuls of beans. The whole lot was poured into a plastic bag and weighed. The guy added a few more beans to balance the scales and I was charged 40 rupees. The next stall did fruit, so I put two oranges and three apples in my basket. The fruit guy decided I looked like I needed more fruit (or I was a rich, western sucker!) and suggested some grapes. I'd bought Indian grapes once before at the supermarket and they were sour, not even Keir would eat them. These grapes were imported from the US, and were gobstopper big. I asked if they were seedless, and he offered me one to taste. Now no way was I going to taste the grape straight from a roadside stall. I was going to take all my produce home and soak it in a solution of Reverse Osmosis filtered water and Milton for at least half an hour! Having been imported from the States I knew at least the water the grapes had been cultivated with was clean (something you can't take for granted with local produce), but I still wasn't going to assume he'd kept the dust off them with Reverse Osmosis filtered water. I'd seen the bucket he was using. So I decided to take some anyway (see, he was right, I was a sucker). My bill here was 260 rupees, I wonder what it would have been for just the apples and oranges. At least the grapes (after the soaking) aren't sour at all, but they're not seedless either.