Monday 24^th December

Christmas tomorrow and all is well…

I have once again eaten my own body weight in small delicious nibbles at a Christmas drinks party last night… It started at 4pm and I had to drag a very reluctant Pete away at…11pm…

We are at work today but, with a bit of luck and a fair wind, not having to do too much hard yakka.

If you have access to the mercury, James Headlam features on Page Nine, looking very cute in a Santa hat.

I hope to write a few bloggish things over the break and am also hoping to become more familiar with my new little pride and joy Mac.

India #50

On our first day in India we instituted a kitty system.  We each put in 500 rupees per day and took turns being Kitty Wallah.  This was quite a big deal – Kitty Wallah had The Power!  Particularly the power over giving tips.  We all had a different approach to who should get tips, and how much these should be.  I acquired the reputation of very worst kittywallah of all time.  This was grossly unfair; my days sometimes coincided with our most expensive outings – for example it cost 750 rupees to get into the Taj Mahal, so OFCOURSE we were out of pocket on my days!  Kitty was a very good thing.  Usually our 2000 rupees covered all of our accommodation, food and entertainment for the day.  We were forever buying big bottles of water and small hands of bananas, and this all came out of kitty.  (These little bananas were just delicious, and very cheap.  Sometimes 5 rupees for ten bananas, sometimes 5 rupees each depending on how much the seller thought they could get away with.  We never haggled very much about these minuscule amounts of money… There was no point in ever trying to buy extra; they only lasted one day.  By the next morning they would be nasty and smelly and totally inedible.  We would throw them out onto the railway track where goats and pigs were very happy to find them.)