A dancing elephant and fun on the runway

I begin today’s blog with a heartening story.  My sister and brother-in-law, Jane and Michael, are here on holiday. Last Monday, Michael lost his credit card.  He was 99% sure that it wasn’t pinched, but that he had inadvertently dropped it in a taxi.  So, the credit card was duly stopped, replacement cards ordered, and off they went on their travels to Madhya Pradesh.

Cut to this morning, when they went to C Block Market, to get a taxi to Khan Market.  A man walks up to them, and hands Michael his credit card.

Now, isn’t that a nice story ?

Last night, friends who are planning to climb Kilimanjaro this summer came round for drinks and to glean whatever advice I can give them.  I can hardly believe that it is 7 years since I first climbed Kili, and almost 5 years since Hari and I summited together in March 2005.  Sunil’s offer to join them in August was tempting, but I think I shall resist.  Their practice hike in May, however, is very much on my radar screen, knees permitting.

I am blogging early today, since we are off to the polo this afternoon.  Abhimanyu is playing in the semis, so fingers crossed.

Today’s news is inevitably dominated by analysis of yesterday’s budget, but I have sifted through the pages to bring you only the choicest morsels.

Firstly, there will be a direct impact on the CWG spending plans :

Struggling to find funds, huh ?  That sounds worrying.  Fascinating to see how this plays out.

The Times of India’s in-depth budget analysis was full of rather fun elephant analogies today, and they had lots of great photos of elephants (the kind I would have loved to have taken).  Why elephants ?  Read on :

Great stuff.  I just love the image of the elephant dancing.

My word of the day  – well, phrase of the day, more exactly – is also from a financial report, believe it or not :

Yellow sizzle = gold, of course.

But all of this pales into absolute insignificance, compared to my fabulous headline.

This may one day be in contention for my headline of 2010.

Once again, the mind truly boggles.

Now, after that, what on earth can I put as my photo of the day ?  No sizzling gold, no nude men…. then it had better be an elephant, albeit not a dancing one.  This beauty was in Namibia, just outside our camp in Etosha.