Tuesday, 9 January 2018

The new house and school

We have the keys to the new house and so we are very excited. It is in a cul del sac in a quiet street with four houses. All the neighbours are extremely kind and friendly.
 On Saturday we went to get the internet connected (that's a whole story in itself!) and ended up  gatecrashing a party which was very vibrant and fun. We had already been invited to a street bbq for the Sunday so felt rather cheeky when Julie came across and took the boys off our hands . Her kind offer ended up with us stopping much longer than we had anticipated.
There are a lot of different nationalities on Palm Meadows so it is very interesting trying to remember all the new names. There are French, Swedish , Belgian, Iranian and Indian families , not that many British ones though.
The next day ,we turned up again early ( to continue with the internet connection) , helped with the tables for the street, met another set of neighbours, plus some of the same ones and spent the rest of the day eating and socialising under the tree in the shade. It was so lovely.
The boys played with the other children on bikes and scooters and even disappeared into the next street to play.  They are in heaven with the amount of freedom they can have to play and roam.

The house is behind us


School Day 1

But they were not in heaven the next day when they had to get up at six o'clock to drive to their new school! They have joined Indus International School. It is a very relaxed and happy school.
It takes anywhere form half an hour to an hour to get there  according to the flow of the traffic. Arrival time is eight o' clock with lessons starting at 8:40
We arrived at school and were taken to the dining hall where the children can choose from a wide variety of breakfasts , both Indian and European. the teachers also have their breakfast too . They come on the buses with the children along with bus parents (spare staff) so each bus has four adults on to supervise. Then the children all go to their lessons.
After breakfast , the boys went to get their uniforms and then were taken off to their classes. Bless
them , they were rather nervous.
Meanwhile, we had to have our photos taken so that if we turn to take them out of school early they can match the boys up with us. Even our driver, Arjun , has to have this done.
 On leaving the campus, the guards even check the boot of the car to check you are not taking anyone you shouldn't.
We had a small window of time in the middle of the day to get jobs done then we had to do the journey again to fetch them back. Both of them had enjoyed their day although they both had been nervous and tearful at some point of the day. They said that they had missed us too much! Softies!




School Day 2

We were outside the hotel at 7:10 waiting for the bus.  No bus turned up! So at 8 o clock we rang and apparently they had told us the wrong bus which went a different way something like that. Even so this meant that we had to make the journey by car again .
The boys went off to lessons ( not quite as nervous) and we spent another hour waiting while they sorted out the correct bus. The school were very apologetic and in the end it was all sorted and we were reassured that the children would turn up in the evening.
Off we went again on the journey back. With most of the morning gone, Andrew went to get on with his work whilst Carla had to socialise with ladies that lunch.

Luckily the boys did turn up in the evening. Milo was reassured that Arjun and Andrew (notice the order of people)were both there to get him across the road. The boys had had a better day but produced a lot of homework which is not popular with either of them. They both went to bed early -the first time since we have been in India! On going to bed , Milo said " I don't think I can manage the curry at lunchtime any more and I'm so hungry" He went to sleep with the reassurance that he can have a sandwich as a pack up to help him tomorrow .



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