Saturday 8th December

 

I found this quote, somewhere or another, and it amused me no end:

As Mae West said, I like restraint, if it doesn't go too far

We had our Christmas drinks party last week, just a small event for 75 people… Pete came and looked astounded. “You only have four people in your office! How can you have 75 at your Christmas party?”

I took a few photos of my former colleagues, all looking remarkably chipper now they are ladies of leisure… I forwarded some of them to my mother, who peered intently and wrote, “Doesn’t Roseanne drink wine?” The rest of us, obviously were clutching glasses in our fists… In fact I think there is rarely a photo of me without a wineglass fiercely clutched… Obviously I live by Mae West’s rule-of-thumb…

India #39

When we got off the train from Hampi in Margao, we were ready to go to a different Goan beach. We chose Baga Beach, and set off in a taxi, in the pouring belting pelting rain. It is about an hour from Margao to the beaches, and we weren’t sure where to tell the driver to go – ummm, somewhere dry where we can stay for the night… He dropped us off at Seaview Cottages, which was, coincidentally, a place where Pete had had dinner a few times when he was there four years ago.

 

By the time we had raced from the taxi to the entrance of Seaview we were drenched, umbrellas notwithstanding. I had my trusty little purple fold-up umbrella from Chickenfeed, Hobart, and Vish and Mary had bought a lovely black and silver umbrella/parasol at Colva, Goa – none of them were much use against the heaving monsoonal rain but they made us feel we were that least trying to keep dry. There was a gaggle of young men in the foyer, all very excited to see us. They started shouting, “You are Australian! There’s another Australian man here! Sitting in the corner! He comes from P-E-R-T-H!!!”

 

We sat in the restaurant and dripped all over the floor while they brought us much-needed Kingfisher beer and menus. I went to talk to the man from P-E-R-T-H. Andrew was an ageing (ie at least our age) surferboy from WA. He had been trying to do business in Kashmir but had been repelled at various borders so had given up and come to kick up his heels, most literally, in Goa. “Discos every night till 4am!” he shouted. “Just great!” We both looked doubtfully across at my lovely group of friends. Vish, Mary and Pete were sitting wetly at the table, sipping on Kingfisher and looking very lovely, but did they look like disco till 4am material? Did I? Not bloody likely! I invited him to join us for a drink, which he did with alacrity – not actually sure why… He very much was not our sort of bloke. I could tell that Vish and Pete had taken an instant dislike to him and that Mary was going lalala in her head, so it fell to me to discuss business in Kashmir, discos in Goa, life in Perth – he lives near the zoo, can see the orang-utans. I told him about the lovely visit Elsa and I had in 2002 to the Perth Zoo, where we were mightily impressed by both by the orang-utans and by the display of small beige nocturnal animals. He had never been actually inside the zoo…. Never mind… The most disconcerting thing for me about talking to Andrew was that I never managed to engage his attention fully, even though I was talking about the most interesting thing in the world ie HIM. He kept looking right past me to the gaggle of boys, who were by now perched along the fence separating the restaurant from the reception area. Kiss kiss, he would go, or POW, pretending to fire off a pistol shot with his fingers at one of other of them. They were all simpering away hopefully. It was his last night in Goa and I think they were competing for the last few rupees to be made from Mr Andrew P-E-R-T-H. I found it all singularly disconcerting and was very glad to say goodnight and goodbye to him.

 

(Towards the end of our trip, when Pete and were in Udaipor, we came across a few Australian people. He would say, “You are only the third lot of Australians we have met in all of our time in India!” I would say, “What about Andrew, in Baga? You have forgotten to count him” but he would look mutinous; he was NOT counting Andrew as an Australian at all!)

 

Seaview Cottages weren’t cottages, just another small motel-type resort a bit like Colmar, only much more expensive, and MUCH more uncomfortable. I found the mattress miserably hard and had to take TWO valium to get any sleep at all – such a pathetic little Princess and the Pea… (One of my friends at work thinks that my accounts of India are ALL about my badback; I do whinge a lot don’t I?) Another black mark against Seaview – one of the waiters stole Vish and Mary’s new umbrella! We saw him taking it, and when we were leaving, I picked up a very similar black and silver umbrella and said, “This belongs to our friends.” The waiter said, “No it doesn’t it has a different handle,” which was indeed true, but he wouldn’t cough up the correct one. We thought this was very mean spirited, such blatant theft. We didn’t really mind people trying to get our money by fair means or foul – wheedling, conniving, begging, bargaining were all legitimate - but this did not impress us at all.