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