Thursday 27th
December
Post-Boxing
Day celebrations – this time with my northern family, arriving very soon from
Launceston. More fun, more food…
Yesterday ditto – fun, food, family (Pete’s offspring and cohorts.)
On
Christmas Day #1, a celebration #2, Leo received a large Lego set – a Star Wars
extravaganza which would make any young StarWars/Lego fan’s heart sing. At the end of the day, Katy put out an
all-stations alert – the two large glossy (A4) instruction manuals had
disappeared! We all scampered about,
looking looking looking. One of us even
tipped out a rubbish bag or two, to scan forlornly through the wrappings and
slightly smelly crapola. (Yes of course
that was me…) Michael didn’t get sucked
in to the general panic. He looked at
Katy cynically, and said, “Now where would KATY have put Leo’s instruction
manuals?” She was very indignant. “Me???
What did I have to do with this??”
Then a look of understanding crossed her face and she walked swiftly
towards the bookshelf, where she had, indeed, neatly stacked the lost manuals…
India #53
There are over 100 ghats along the banks of the Ganges in
Varanasi, all used for bathing, cleansing, swimming, worshiping. Some are
used for burning corpses. The Dasaswamedh is, they told me in Lonely Planet,
the main one. We wandered down the steep stairs to the river, very
impressed with the atmosphere and the Ganges, smelly and brown though it
is. A dear little girl came up and persuaded me to buy a flower, for 10
rupees (locals probably pay 1 rupee but I was happy with my deal, and she was a
dear little thing.) She told me to put it out gently on the water and
make a wish, which I did, very happily and lovingly. Then her father came
up and performed a small religious ceremony for me, all for my “deceased”
family. I tried to say none of my immediate family was deceased, except
for my father-in-law, but this greedy bugger was on a roll; anyone as old as
me, apparently, should have many deceased family members. The ceremony was
all quite swift and not unpleasant, but oh what a shock – he then demanded TWO
HUNDRED rupees from me! I was not impressed; I hadn’t asked for any of
this, only for the flower, which was a transaction I had with his little girl,
not with him. I gave him one rupee and said, “I thought this was about
the spirit not the money!” His little girl looked very embarrassed so I
slipped her another 10 when he wasn’t looking…. Actually Varanasi, the Sacred
City, was very much about money, more so than any other place we went…
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