Wednesday 12^th December

An auspicious day – 12/12/12.  We won’t see another one of those…well we won’t see another 11/12/12 for that matter either… But any cause for celebration is always welcome!

An old friend of mine didn’t live to see 12/12/12.  Peter Wilks, born in 1929, and very recently full of life, was diagnosed with some ghastly hideous disease last week and was dead within two days… Not dead and buried!  He had it all organised; his body, as we speak, is at the university for grateful medical students to examine, and he had a firm request for NO FUNERAL.  I am very sad not to be able to farewell Peter with a ceremony but…those were his wishes…

We had a long and happy association with Peter and Beth, his gentle, patient wife, for many years at Salamanca market.  Peter was SO enthusiastic, with his wooden bead-maze toys.  He talked to everyone and made up a sign saying, Let us know where you’re from and come and say G’day.  And…people did, with gusto!  He had spent his pre-retirement life in a suit, working as a bank manager, and he was very happy to relinquish the suit and tie for a very different life on his beloved Kingston Beach.

India #41

We were all very amused to find this item on the menus in Goa.  Pork SourSharma??  We already knew that pork was forbidden food for us, but why were Sharmas sour?  You couldn’t get less sour people than Vish and Mary!  Vish was particularly taken with it and kept chuckling away quietly to himself about it.  But...he never ordered it!  (Well you would NEVER eat pork in India…we know what the pigs eat….)