Monday 17th December

On Thursday morning I got up a bit after six and wandered somewhat blearily out into Katy and Jeff’s living room.  The children were up, happily sprawled in beanbags, chatting with their parents.  Zoe gave me a big glorious welcome, TA DA!  Always nice, to be greeted so enthusiastically… Even though she sometimes looks at me solicitously and says, “Oh Bardy, you really NEED a cup of tea, don’t you?  Well yes… I had actually had a cup of tea, but I wasn’t feeling totally on top of things, when she made a cheerful request from the beanbag.  Umm, what??? “Bardy, could you please do a magic show?”  Not even at my best moment of the day could I do a magic show, Zoe darling… How lovely to be two and half and so full of optimism!  Jeff was very cross with me.  “Why is it that you disappoint our children at every opportunity?  Surely you have SOME magic trick or another, up your sleeve??” he said, in bitter tones.  I didn’t notice him leaping up from his comfy couch ready to saw a bikini-clad woman in half, mind you….

India #44

We aren’t sure why the electricity works at all in India, any of the time.  The wiring is such a tangly snarl of wires, out there in the open.  When we were staying in Colva, Pete and I kept hearing a load BANG followed by a twitter and a flutter of birds.  We thought it was some sort of birdgun, such as farmers use in orchards in Australia, to frighten off blackbirds coming to steal the cherries.  But no!  One evening we were splashing our way through the pouring rain in search of tonic water and lemons (you may have deduced that we had our own stash of duty free gin with us…).  We walked past a very big transformer box, wide open with wires going in all directions.  Suddenly there was a huge bang and a flash in the wiring – a bird had flown straight into the box and the wet wires had come together.  Instant if temporary power failure.