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!