Wednesday 23rd January

Wednesday 23^rd January

More MONAFOMA…

• After the lullaby-soporificfest Pete and I went to Liverpool Street and stood in a cheerful queue for quite a long time.  Why, I hear you cry?  Why – to get into FAUX MO.  We had no idea what this was or what it would be like but…if you build it they will come, and there we were.  The queue didn’t move at all so we gave up.  (Pete’s house was rented for the duration of MONAFOMA by some of the organisers and participants in the events – specifically the FAUX MO workers, so we did have a slight extra interest in having a look at what was happening in and under Bidencopes Lane.)

• Our next performance was in the beautiful Town Hall upstairs venue, with its gloriously painted ceiling, full of chandeliers, wrought iron lacing, intricate blue and cream and pink paintwork.  Another very soporific hour…Elizabeth Anderson, playing the harpsichord, which is a very tinkly, sleep-inducing instrument.  It was all very pleasant, although it was hot and lots of people seemed to feel the need to have their eyes closed and their heads nodding…

• After this we raced, in Pete’s trusty WRX, to pick up James and Bron and to sit on the lawns at Moorilla to listen to a wonderful US guitarist, Richard Giliewitz, who told charming, soothing stories, and played three different guitars in turn, like a virtuoso guitar-playing angel.  This was all very pleasant.  Pete had, at some stage, as he rushed about during the week buying parts for the 2XS toilet pump, bought two little folding chairs, low to the ground.  They have Australian flags on them so we looked extremely patriotic… So nice to sit on the lawns in comfort!

Speaking of Pete and the toilet… On Monday morning, first thing, he went to the pump shop, where he was greeted, with a smile, by the ever-patient owner of the business.  Pete said, “I bet when you woke up this morning you did not think to yourself, Oh goody, I hope my week begins with Pete Headlam walking in, again, with a toilet pump problem!”  Well no; it possibly was not his dearest wish, but he was, as always, kind, patient and helpful and maybe at some stage the toilet problem on 2XS will be fixed permanently.  We can only hope, and dream…

India #74

Pete and I moved from Shapura House to a slightly less expensive but equally lovely place in Jaipur, where the bed was SO comfortable I couldn’t whinge at all – how much of a relief for you this is!!  No backache!  The Madhuban was remarkable for a few reasons.  One was that it had quite a large population of indolent dogs lying around panting gently in the heat.  There were at least two Dachshunds (one ancient, one young) a German Shepherd and a Spitz.  They were totally useless, these dogs.  In the middle of the night Pete and I had a water emergency.  No water at all, not from any tap, not in the toilet.  This was NOT good.  We really needed to flush.  I won’t go into details but you can imagine… This was India…. Pete went out, full of grim resolve to get some water.  He prowled around the Madhuban, tripping over sleepydogs every few steps.  He also passed many staff members who were also snoring gently on every available horizontal surface.  Did any of them wake and give the alarm, or come to his aid?  Not bloody likely!  That brings me to the second remarkable thing about this particular hotel – the staff were grumpy and unhelpful.  Very unusual.  They hung around us, when they were awake, whingeing gently about each other and about the management and touting for tips.  We told Driver Raj and he was not impressed, said that they are renowned there for not working co-operatively.  His advice was don’t give them any tips individually, put it in the box in the manager’s office where it will be distributed fairly.

         

There was a beautiful pool at the Madhuban.  We had a lovely swim, but were a bit puzzled by the line of birds sitting along the wall watching us intently, and, we felt, rather crossly.  What was so fascinating about us??  When we got out, they all dived for the water, splashing about and drinking and squawking – we had obviously interrupted their afternoon ablutions!