Tuesday 16^th August

Happy birthday Fleur! 

I won’t ring her today because… I already rang yesterday, and sang, most melodiously.  As my brother Pete would say, “So kind, so good at remembering, so early…”  It is a beautiful day for a birthday, bright and sunny so – have a good day, Fleur!

I know Dad (88 this year) has some sort of treat organised for Fleur (not quite as old as Dad in spite of having another birthday today…)  They go out a lot, and are forever off to the theatre, the symphony concerts, the cinema.  They put Pete and me to shame…

But last weekend we did indeed go to the movies, to the State Cinema to see the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  I had read the book and I was very pleased with the film adaptation.  In fact, it was much jollier than the book.  The ghastly characters were toned down and were in fact all quite loveable and eccentric, and the ending was much neater and tidier and more cheery.   And so nice to see all those ancient British actors out doing their stuff!  Maggie Smith, Judy Dench, Bill Nighy… Wait!  Bill Nighy!  One of the ancient eccentric characters???   I just happen to know Bill Nighy was born the same year as I was…in December…so he is three months YOUNGER than me….oh deary me…

The movie is set in Rajasthan, in Jaipur (the Pink City), mostly, with a few scenes in Udaipor.  It was just beautiful, on screen.  Just as beautiful in real life, when Pete and I were there in 2006, with Vin and Anne Patel, and their daughter Hana.  However, the real Jaipur is much more raucous, dusty, smelly, confronting, than it appeared in the movie.  One of the characters described it, before going there, as being like the Costa Brava, only with elephants.  Not so much…

There were elephants, however!  We went to one of the forts on one of our hot crowded dusty days.  Anne and I were very keen to rise to the top on an elephant; it looked like a dignified and beautiful way to rise off the dusty plain to the fortress above.  Vin and Pete were happy to scrabble up the cobbled paths below us.  There was a bit of an unseemly tussle in the queue.  A party of Germans decided, not sure why, that they were ahead of Anne and me.  One of them pushed past to clamber aboard what we had thought was our elephant, and very soon he was showing the whites of his eyes because there was our Pete, backing him up against the gate and threatening to hurl him down off the stony battlemetns.  The German was vanquished – never try to push past a Headlam – and very soon Anne and I were making our majestic way up the path while the would-be usurper trembled at the back of the queue.

We didn’t enjoy our elephant ride as much as we had expected.  The elephant herself was gorgeous, a docile and cheery soul, who spent most of her life in a lush paddock with a gentle stream trickling past (I checked all of this out before decided to have an elephant ride.)  What made the ride less than delightful was- hawkers.  Of course.  Never miss an opportunity!  On every inch of the walls there were people madly waving t-shirts, skirts, scarves, postcards in our faces and shouting, BUY THIS!  NOW NOW NOW!  They even held out dresses to us, and we felt like saying, Oh yes please, let me try this on, while I am RIDING ON AN ELEPHANT!  That will be so graceful and easy! 

They didn’t show this sort of thing, in the movie…