F.a.o. All My Close Croanies!

here to save me the bother of emailing you all AGAIN heres the email...Hello Everyone!

I've updated my online photo album thingy...photos 16 onwards are new.

http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/bc/helen...order=&.view=t&.done=http://photos.yahoo.com/

Weather is getting reeeeeeally hot over here now, summer has apparently come early! Still not as sticky and humid as miami, (and definately much warmer than alaska!) Still a few months till the monsoon starts when it will be even hotter!

It's been a pretty weird week. We had international womans day which i mistook for a "how many indian women can you possible have sitting on the floor of one medium sized classroom" competition.
One wise lady decided to pass her handbag back from the front to make more room for people to sit...this resulted in about 500 more handbags coming my way to be put under my chair?! The weird thing is i have never seen any indian women carrying a handbag before...EVER...and havn't seen one since!
If that wasn't bad enough half way through the actual programme of events a few of the ladies decided they wanted their handbags back! All very well but it literally was the closest ive ever felt to being a sardine so i couldnt even move to get to the flaming handbags.....ANYWAY...i then spent the next 3 hours roasting like a pig on a spit listening to alot of speeches in the local language mahrati...without a translator...with a forced smile on my face as i felt i was expected to be really enjoying it. I was handed a bunch of flowers at the end, i'm not sure why. Reward for show of extreme human endurance. Being a woman. Being the handbag lady? who knows!

This week is also a week for some other Indian festival, we have been given a timetable of times we are strongly advised not to leave the house as it gets a bit dangerous, paint throwing and other crazy traditions, apparently the police turn a blind eye and we would be targeted by these crazy people for being a bit different.

The little mad lady who lived under our stairs has started english lessons, given by us. Not that it makes much sense to her. I asked our bi-lingual mechanic what she was saying to me the other day and she was calling me "a white dog from the jungle man" (bhandera chutera jah leher if anyone would like to use it as an insult!)

I'm all excited for my birthday trip to Goa! Indian life is just everyday life now so Goa seems like going on holiday all over again. It takes 12 hours to get there on the bus but we get our own bed and bedroom on the coach, air conditioned and everything for 3 pounds return! That of course wasn't a hint for everyone to remember my birthday because of course I know it was right at the front of everyone's minds, but if anyone would like to take it as a hint well my address is Deep Griha Cultural Centre, a8 k tatya tope housing society, wanowarie, pune 411040, maharashtra, India!

Hope everyone is fine...hope everyone isn't too cold...specially those crazy enough to live in Newcastle,scotland and alaska

Love Helz/Helen/Daughter/sister xx