Champagne and fairy lights

The last Sunday of Advent started at dawn at the club, where it was cold and misty. How cold, do I hear you ask ?  2 fleece-cold, that’s how chilly it was.  Since it is Christina’s birthday today, we had an early party for her after riding/walking.  Veuve Cliquot and Lizzie’s cake at 8 a.m.  All very civilised.

As you all know, I’ve been moaning for the last week or so about the chaos at home, after the termite attack.  Imagine my surprise when the priest in his sermon this morning – a bit of an odd sermon, if I am allowed to say so -  talked about how we all had to prepare our hearts and minds and bodies for Christmas, just as we all need to tidy our homes.

Any thoughts of quietly nodding off during the sermon were scotched there and then.  He used the analogy of how we all make the public area and the guest room tidy for guests, but if they were to open the other doors in our house, they would find chaos and mess…I could have sworn he was looking me right in the eye as he preached.  And there was I, trying to work out how I can best hide the termite-d chaos over the holidays…the Lord certainly does work in mysterious ways.

Romit, a London based friend and fellow-trekker came round for morning coffee and a catch-up, which was lovely.

Otherwise the day went by in a blur of tidying (see above) and trying to chivvy the carpenter and metal-wala into finishing up before Christmas Day.  I also, of course, perused the Sundays on your behalf.  There was a lot about the rising cost of living, with food prices going up all the time.  Bahadur’s mantra these days is “x is expensive. y is too expensive.”  But I learned something this morning – rare snakes are expensive.  Read on :

Rs 1 crore for a snake ? Another of those “the mind boggles” stories.

The ice-cream saga drew to its inevitable close…

There is an interesting story from Gujarat state, where they have just made voting compulsory.  Read the story and spot the irony.

I have my doubts…

Oh, by the way. HUGE disappointment on the tacky pink fairy light front. Anjulie went to Khan Market, but they had sold out (no doubt to you lot).  Nevertheless, the house is ablaze with differently vulgar lights.  Now all I need to do is to figure out how to download Christmas Carols onto my iPod.

For my word of the day, I am going to go international, and quote from a letter I received from the UK, offering me “contactless payment functionality”. What ?  I think they mean a credit card. When Romit was round this morning, we were talking about UK government-ese, and this seems a perfect example.

Since I am in a negative pink lights situation, I have to compensate and so I am sharing with you 2 fabulous pink outfits.

One from Pushkar, and the other was taken right outside the house, as a noisy “baraat” went by last week.

Don’t miss the shoes.