We have branches in India, UK, Italy and The Netherlands
This is now what I say when someone asks me what I do, as it is becoming increasingly more difficult trying to plan when we will go away, where people will be and who is looking after Andy. It is the same for sourcing good quality food which is becoming more tricky too with the deliveries sometimes turning up and other times not, because someone has gone on holiday, forgotten or has a “fever “. It is how I imagine planning a military operation, I think I need a drawing board, so we all know what is going on. This started last June when I went with Max and Milo to Sicily, leaving Andrew and Andy unsupervised in India. Andrew was super lucky as we all kindly stopped for his birthday (and for our wedding anniversary) before we left.
The journey was a bit of a shocker because as we were flying past Doha, just after we had left Dubai, the airspace was closed due to the missiles that were sent in the Middle East. We could see on the news on the aircraft that something was happening. We didn’t see anything though.
Max was starting university in August and so he had to take everything that he thought he needed from India to Sicily. He had packed and unpacked several times to make sure everything was there. He did have a second chance if he had forgotten anything as Andrew had another 3 weeks until he came out to join us.
In Sicily, Milo’s friend came to stop with us for a week. Salma is Swedish but speaks several languages, fluently. She was an absolute delight to have stop with us and it was good to have someone who influenced the boys so positively. Milo and Salma met some Sicilian girls and boys and, subsequently, quite a lot of my time was spent ferrying them down to the beach or down to the teenage clubs at night. Of course, Sicilians don’t do early evenings so this meant setting off at midnight to fetch them back from the beach where the night life would still be going strong, but I do have my limits, I don’t do 4 in the morning anymore. They had such a good time being real teenagers.
We met up with our friends from Bangalore in Taormina and spent the day with them. Sheetal, Thea, Nikita and Mathias were over from the US where they now live. It was so lovely seeing them again.
Andrew came out after his three weeks of eating what he wanted and living on his own with the dog, although he spent a lot of time out with our friends, but we missed him, we don’t like being apart.
Andrew’s Mum and Dad came out to Sicily, and along with Avril, we spent time sitting by the pool in the sun, drinking wine, or going out for pizza, drinking wine, or down by the beach, drinking wine. I think you can get the gist of our daily pattern.
We all had three weeks together, celebrating Milo’s 16th birthday during that time, then Milo needed to go back to school so Andrew and Milo left. School starts in August not September in India.
This is where all the military planning comes in. I had to stop with Max, not a hardship of course, so that we could go to Rotterdam together and settle him in, then I would fly back from there to India. The initial plan was for me to fly back to Sicily, stop for a week then go back to India but that plan went pear shaped.
Firstly, I was traumatised that my baby boy was starting university and secondly, when Andrew got back to India, he was not happy with the cleaning that had been done by the maid. Before he had returned, we had discussed letting the maid go as she was rather slow and moaned about cleaning! She’s twenty years younger then me and complained if she had to clean the windows, sweep behind the furniture, use the vacuum, clean more than one floor in a day etc etc. Generally, she just liked to sweep slowly and mop the floors – for four hours a day !
Anyway, Andrew had a word with her because while he was away our friends had gone to stop for the weekend at our house and they had had to clean the fridge as all the food had gone mouldy inside. When asked why she hadn’t cleaned the fridge, she said she was going to clean it before Andrew came back – so for three weeks she hadn’t opened the fridge or cleaned it like she had been asked to do. I had left a list in her native language and Arjun had gone over the list with her.
There was also a hanger that had fallen on the floor as Andrew had left and, in his hurry, he hadn’t picked it up and it was still there when he got back, it hadn’t been moved. There was probably a layer of dust around it too! To cut the long list of things she hadn’t done short, let’s just say that she was rather offended about Andrew speaking to her about her work and she gave him the keys back and promptly left.
This meant that Andrew had Andy, Milo, all the cleaning, shopping and all the madness to contend with as he worked the long hours he works, so we decided that it might be better for me to fly back directly from Rotterdam.
Meanwhile, Max celebrated his 19th birthday with Avril and I and it was the first time without Andrew and Milo. It felt so strange.
Rotterdam
Then, we set off for Rotterdam. What a wonderful place to be at university. It is such a friendly city. It is easy to get around and the waterways so pretty.
Max shares a house with 4 other young men, all very nice and kind. I met some of the other mums and we bonded over the cleaning, as the house had not be cleaned since the last students.
A trip to IKEA on the tram sorted Max’ s bed linen and anything that he needed.
We had decided against hiring a car as I realised that I would never negotiate all the different lanes. There’s a walking lane, a biking lane , car lane and finally a tram lane and then the same sequence back to the opposite side of the road. The bikes go so fast that I also decided this was out of the question too!
Meanwhile, as Andrew didn’t have the maid any more to accept deliveries, things were getting complicated as the delivery companies would ring me in the Netherlands so that I could give them a gate pass to get into the community in India. I would then have to guide them verbally them to the house and tell them where to leave the goods- on the chair by the back door. This started to get really challenging as one delivery company doesn’t like to ring the door bell but prefers to stand at the end of the drive, to ring and tell you that they are there ( at the end of the drive way instead of walking the extra few feet to ring the door bell) which is of no help what so ever if you are not in. This happens when I am actually out shopping in India or even when I’m in the house, so imagine the conversations I had when these delivery guys are standing at the end of the drive in Bangalore and I’m in the Netherlands in IKEA.
I also have the food apps on my phone so I order all the shopping for Andrew too, there are no shops close to us in our society, everything has to be ordered and coordinated. This is also because in India you can’t get any ready made meals and not all foods are sold in one place so shopping is another military operation. I have to order bread, meat, household things separately and they only come on certain days. If you miss the ordering slot then there’s no going to the shop to buy it as they don’t exist, nearby. We have a tiny shop but it only sells emergency supplies and Indian rice etc. We are lucky that we have the golf clubhouse to order things like pizza from even though they are expensive.
I stopped for 5 days in Rotterdam then I had to go back to India. During this time, Max had settled in well and had dropped me several times to go out with his new friends, which I was pleased about.( not being ditched but that fact he had made friends !)
Back to India
That flight back to Bangalore did feel extremely long. I am now used to flying on my own but it was the fact that I had left Max behind. Andrew had managed to get an upgrade to business class for me so I could cope with my trauma more easily. I now realise that that would be the last time having such a treat, everything is currently measured in rent and food money for Max now!
Whenever we fly we stop in Dubai on the way back (or the way there) we go into one of the lounges. We get a pass from our bank in India. This time I popped in and decided a sandwich would be good and joined the little queue. Now, we have a friend who never eats from food that has been left out unsupervised and now I am of the same mind. I watched a guy in front of me wipe his nose and then proceed to open about three sandwiches, close them and put them back on the shelf. I asked him what he was doing and he said he didn’t know whether he liked the food! I told him he was spreading any germs he had and did he realise? He just stared at me and I did my scary teacher stare back. There are tongs for the food so I picked them up got the 3 sandwiches and put them on a new plate and handed them to him, all the time staring at him. I hope he felt awkward, I didn’t, I was getting ready for my final flight, the one that I absolutely dread and I had left my boy abandoned in another country, so my patience was wearing rather thin. The guy took the plate and slid away. I think my evil eyes bored into the back of his head until he disappeared.
But I made it back to my other boys without any further confrontation or trauma and they were especially happy to see me as I had a suitcase full of Dutch treats.
Monsoon and the snakes come out to play
It was now the middle of August, and this is monsoon in Bangalore and the snakes come out to play. They were everywhere, our neighbour stood in a bush in her garden and she got bitten and had to spend a couple of nights in hospital, one snake was in the hotel swimming pool and was gleefully swishing its tail at the guy who was trying to catch it with the net.it kept leaping in the air too which was rather scary. Several snakes were spotted crossing the roads and to top it all, Milo and I saw two just behind our hedge from our balcony. We watched until they disappeared but then Andy started to go crackers sniffing the air, so we knew that they were still there. Sitting in the garden meant being constantly alert.
A few days later, I was in the garden again and underneath the ledge of Milo’s bedroom windows (they go from the ceiling to the ground) I could see a snake wedged in the tiny gap. I grabbed Andy and shoved him inside and then I crept back outside. But it wasn’t a snake, it was a snakeskin. Still sends shivers down my spine! No idea where the snake was.
In monsoon, when you move around you must have roving eyes and an awareness of your surroundings all the time. The snakes do slither away but it’s the fact that they are so stealthy and lurking with intent (to my mind anyway). I won’t miss them when we eventually leave India. The snake below is a scary one found at the factory.
Salad.
One thing that is hard to source in India is good lettuce that doesn’t arrive shrivelled up, limp and with slugs hiding inside. We went to dinner at our friend’s house and they had the sweetest tomatoes and lettuce. They had found a new supplier; it was from an Indian and Israeli partnership. The guy who runs it is British and he sent some salad to us. I can’t believe that something so simple in the UK is so hard to get here in India, but we now can eat flavoursome salad. I just have to convince the driver that brings the salad to leave it in the cool bag and not on the top of it in the heat ….
October: Dengue, The Netherlands and Sicily for a quick trip!
Dengue season had come round again with the monsoon and there were rumours that India would roll out a vaccination to combat it. I have already had dengue and if I get it again then it could be very dangerous. Potential death being one outcome, so I wasn’t keen on getting it again. I spend a lot of time analysing mosquitoes that fly near me and whether they carry dengue or not. I was never bothered until I got dengue, now I can be quite paranoid about them. Andrew spoke to some of the pharma companies he works with but they said there would be no vaccination until the end of 2026, but it is available in Europe.
This is where my eyes widened, I had an excuse to go and see my boy in his new home again and to get vaccinated. I needed two vaccinations, three months apart. So, in my mind, The Netherlands for one and Sicily or The Netherlands for the second one. A plan had formed and I had checked out the flights to go. I found a travel clinic in Rotterdam that would vaccinate me and one in Sicily for three months later. I rang school and said that Milo would be away for a week, I told Andrew to book some vacation time and we were off to The Netherlands. No one was allowed to disagree with me.
Rotterdam and our boy
It was fantastic to see Max so soon after he left as we thought it would be Christmas before we would next see him, so this was a bonus. In Rotterdam, it was a delight to be able to travel so smoothly on the trams, trains and the metro. We stopped in an Airbnb next to a beautiful lake, we walked so far, even in the rain (hard to do in India) We explored and we had a wonderful time. Milo liked it so much that he said he wouldn’t mind going to university there too. So, definitely no more bidding for upgrades on the plane!
I have to say I am extremely impressed with Rotterdam, much of it was rebuilt after WWII but it is so calm and spacious. The buildings are newer than the rest of the Netherlands, but I really like it.
I was also impressed with the clinic that I went to get my vaccination; it was a joy to not have to wander around not knowing what to do like we do in India. One clinic, one desk to check in, the same place to pay and the next room to get vaccinated. Easy and you don’t need a map, a degree and to “know” someone to get treated!
After 5 days in Rotterdam, three of us flew to Sicily for a week (well, while we were on that side of the world) We love India, but it is getting more and more like we need to escape to ‘reset’ ourselves more frequently and to cope with the madness! We need the food, crisp air and the freedom to walk around. The chance to do DIY, gardening and biking is a joy.
The last flight, the one we ‘hate’
This time on the dreaded flight back to Bangalore someone actually stood up when the plane was still wobbling on its way down to land! The wheels hadn’t even come down from its hold, and this woman had stood up. We know it was a woman because the cabin crew was yelling “sit down madam, sit down madam- NOW!” It is always entertaining on that last flight, without fail. What an earth possesses anyone to stand up at that point, especially in India as the cloud and hot air (I think ?) can make landing very bumpy. It can be quite an ‘armrest gripper’ as the plane descends. Any way, it gave everyone something to talk about as we waited to get off and to go through immigration.
Plumbing
We have solar panels on the roof and a backup heater for our hot water. When we want hot water in the kitchen and in Milo’s room, which is downstairs, we have to run about three buckets full of water before we get anything that is considered warm. I know it is 3 because I fill up 3 buckets for mopping water, now I do all the mopping myself. I had asked the plumbing department several times if this was correct and I got the usual “yes madam”. Not long after arriving back, we had no hot water whatsoever, so I called them. A new, young, enthusiastic young man turned up with the older “supervisor”. In India, there is always one person who works and the other that “supervises “. The new guy goes off to sort the water. After a while he comes back down, “It’s done madam” he says. I say thank you and off they go, not expecting any miracles.
I can’t believe it! we now have proper hot water for the first time in 18 months. I had to keep turning the kitchen hot tap on to double check I wasn’t dreaming. Milo came home from school and went to have a shower, and he came immediately to say he had hot water. So, the society has actually employed someone who knows what to do. It is hard to understand how difficult it is to get someone who is actually trained in the job they work in in India. This young man has been several times now for some plumbing niggles and he is correct every time. The supervisor is still clueless, but this guy is good and I constantly tell him.
The new sun loungers
Talking about being clueless, we had some sun loungers delivered and the delivery guy was hilarious. He turned up late, but it is Bangalore so I can’t call him out on that one. The guy rings me from the drive (none of them can seem to come another 10 paces to ring the doorbell) and abruptly says “fetch maid”. I smile sweetly and realise he doesn’t speak English, so I get my google translate ready and play “I don’t have a maid” to him in the local language, which is Kannada.
He’s flabbergasted and speechless, he speaks to the translator, “ ma’am , I need the maid to lift the sun loungers out of the van “
I think you can imagine my reaction. Keeping as calm as I could, I went to look in the van and the two 6 foot long loungers are wrapped tightly together, upended in the van.
The guy is looking from me to the sun loungers and back again. Through the translator, I ask him if he thinks I am going to try and lift the sun loungers down. There is no tail lift on the van and it’s quite high from the ground. However, the twit says he needs the maid. I point out that even if I had a maid, she wouldn’t be lifting two sun loungers down from a van. It is his job; he is the delivery guy.
What are you going to do about it? - He says to me!
So, he tries to ring Andrew who is at work. I can feel my teacher stare creeping in but at the same time I’m starting to laugh because he is clueless and doesn’t know what to do. He hasn’t got a supervisor to tell him how to solve his problem, he was expecting to tell a maid what to do and now he’s got me, a middle-aged woman who is 5 ft tall, wearing her flip flops and staring at him.
I would have unwrapped the loungers and brought each item down individually to lessen the load but, oh no, not this guy, he crossly unties the sun loungers from the wall of the van, drops them down together and then drags them from the van onto the drive. Then he struggles to stand then up again on their end against the pillar. Why? They didn’t need to stand on their end; they are sun loungers and meant to be on the ground.
He’s quite pleased with himself and asks me to sign the sheet, there’s no pen so off I went to sign it inside. I got him a bottle of water at the same time as it was hot. I signed the sheet but I had signed it in the wrong place. He then goes in the van and produces a pen (so I hadn’t needed to go in and sign with my pen ?) Meanwhile, while I have been gone, he has rung Andrew to ask for a tip. He has said no.
The guy then asks me for a tip.
It was my turn to be flabbergasted. I just walked back into the house and shut the door.
The taxi driver
Milo has a friend who lives in another community, and he will come by taxi if his dad has their car. He is very tall, but he is still only 17 and like Milo, not quite ready to battle the will of some people. When you order a taxi through Uber you must pay for the whole journey in advance and this is what he had done. He arrived and the driver wouldn’t leave because he claimed that he owed money, so Milo’s friend came to ask if he could he borrow some. Knowing that he was being scammed, I marched outside, bare foot this time as I couldn’t find my flip flips. The driver was still rudely demanding money from Milo’s friend but as I started to speak he waved his hand dismissively at me to make me go away as he was talking to “sir “. I pointed out that “sir” is 17 and not an adult yet and he could deal with me. The car was disgusting with paan spit splashed all down the side of the driver’s door and the guy looked so creepy. He continued to wave me away like I was a fly as I started to tell him more firmly that he could sit there or I would call security. Now, opposite our house there are private security guards stationed to guard the house, so I signalled to one of them to come and help. Bless him, he started to come straight away. The driver saw him coming, started the engine and drove away.
I always seem to be yelling at someone lately.
The new hospital (update from this week that ties in with yelling at people)
I will be going on Wednesday to yell again at someone else. There is a new branch of one of the hospitals that we are registered at, and it is closer to us so we decided to try it. We have Aadhar cards which means we are recognised as living in India, so we don’t have to pay all the international rates but the same as the locals. At the new hospital, after paying to see the doctor, I realised we had paid the international rate so I asked why. I got a load of garbled reasons. I produced my Aadhar card (again) and the guy went to change my details (and Max and Andrew’s). We went back a few days later and the same thing happened. I said we live in India; we are not visiting. We still got charged so after a few exchanges of messages, I am going to yell at whoever I can on Wednesday. It is the principal; we have never been treated as international patients. Andrew has just said try not to get arrested or banned as he quite likes the new hospital as it is cleaner and closer to us.
Max comes to India then I go to Bangkok (October)
We hadn’t finished travelling! Max suddenly had two weeks from university between his exams and the new term (Dutch university timetables are different to the UK and India). He felt he was going to be at a loose end and there was a concert he wanted to go to in Bangalore. He flew directly from Amsterdam to Bangalore and was happy to be back in the warm weather. He met as many people as he could and managed to do some shopping stocking up on his Indian snacks and things for his Indian friends in Rotterdam.
Then as quickly as he arrived, he was back on the plane to go back.
I had only been back a month when one of my friends who used to work in Bangkok invited me to go with her for a long weekend. How exciting! I had never been to Thailand, so Milo, Andrew and Andy were abandoned yet again!
We made the mistake of taking the 3am morning flight with Indigo. Beautiful plane but no TV and it was a bumpy journey. We could see lightning in the clouds in the distance, so the journey felt rather long.
Bangkok was not how I imagined. It was a relaxed place but with a quick pace, no sauntering people in a long wobbling row blocking the pavement. We stopped at the Marriot in the centre (well, I never really got a grasp on where I was to be honest, Bangkok is enormous). We were surrounded by a vast amount of huge shopping centres and good quality shops. In addition to the shops, there were food outlets everywhere! I was rather overwhelmed and didn’t know what to choose. I am not used to having a choice like that in India. The supermarkets were stuffed full of international food too. We realised that India only caters for the Indian market and that Thailand realises that travellers can make them money. India hasn’t got the hang of this.
We plotted what food we were going to take back and how we would get them into our suitcases and whether our smuggling would work. Although, my friend is a diplomat so no one can check her bags and I’m the logistics and resources manager for the family business (remember) and I don’t have the same clout, but it was worth a try to smuggle some cheese and goodies!
We walked miles looking at the shopping centres and we had foot massages every day. Fantastic experience! Every time we came out of a shopping centre my friend would ask if I could find my way back to the hotel – the answer was no every time as I had no idea which exit / entrance we had used , I was just following her blindly aghast at all the Christmas decorations already up and staring at the scorpions on sticks whenever I saw them .
After 4 days, it was time to try and close our suitcases and go to the airport. That was an adventure as we had been too casual doing last minute shopping and having the last foot massage, so it was a dash for the airport. There’s nothing worse than having to run to the check in desk to make sure you can get on the plane.
I would definitely go to Bangkok again, the restaurants are good, you can go shopping and buy ‘real’ food. My cheese and treats got smuggled through without a hitch. I will take a bigger case next time.
Christmas
Andrew, Milo and I set off for Sicily, via Dubai, stopping there for one night. We met Joe and Elena who now live there. It was great seeing them. We went out to a Lebanese restaurant which had such delicious food. While we were eating, weather alerts came on their phones. Bad weather was forecast and the warning was to stay indoors. We were due to fly early the next morning, so we were a bit concerned. They dropped us off at our hotel and we said goodbye and off they went into the night to their exciting young lives living in Dubai.
In the hotel, we were on floor 5 and Milo was in a posh room on his own on the floor above. During the night, a tremendous storm started, thunder, lightning, wind and rain- real crash, bang and wallop!
We had to get up at 4am to go to the airport for 5am and we had just finished getting ready and closed the cases when the fire alarm went off. We shot to the door to run up to get Milo but luckily, he had just grabbed his bag and run down the stairs which were next to his room and ours. We all continued down the fire exit stairs along with some other people, some in their pyjamas. Interestingly, other people were coming out of their rooms in their night clothes and just standing there but we got moving. We came out somewhere in the basement with the other people and then had to loop round to get to the front of the hotel. By this time the hotel staff had appeared to say there was no fire but it was the heavy rain that had set the alarms off. One of the guys asked us why we hadn’t used the lift! The other guy with us, astounded, said the fire alarm was ringing and you are not supposed to go in the lift. The guy just said oh ok! Obviously, he doesn’t have any self-preservation.
In the foyer there were lots of buckets catching the rain and people were now wandering in their pyjamas to ask what was going on and, in true Fawlty Towers style, the hotel staff were saying there was nothing to see and ushering people back to their rooms! Hilarious!
The bus arrived and we had a hairy journey driving through a few flooded roads to get to the airport. We were lucky because the clouds seem to part and we got off the ground with no delays or problems and no missiles trailing behind us this time.
Sicily
We love Sicily, we have our sweet little home, and it is so quiet and tranquil. We all seem to sleep so well when we are there. It’s like someone has given us sleeping pills and it’s not the jet lag that can overwhelm us.
Max arrived a day after we did so we were back together again. Max was pleased because he was getting free food and accommodation! He did mention that he was pleased to see us too.
Avril did a fantastic job cooking Christmas dinner at her house.
It was fantastic.
Unfortunately, she was poorly the next day and had to stay in the house so the boys and Andrew didn’t see her much while she recovered.
Etna decided to erupt and we spent several days watching the explosions in strategic places and walking up the mountain to find the lava flows. Note to self- always carry water and food and don’t listen to excited teenagers when you set off up a mountain! We set off from one of the car parks and followed the booming noise. It was chilly when we set off but the sun came out and we ended up in our t -shirts with all our jumpers and clothes wrapped around us as we had no ruck sacks. We gave up after about an hour and a half because it was lunch time and teenagers don’t like missing their picnic which was still in the car!
Then, it was time for Max to leave and, a few days later, Andrew and Milo went back to India. I had another three weeks before my second vaccination and I had all the DIY jobs in the house to do so I was at the house on my own but I had pizza and I had wine …..
The storm
I always wonder why things go completely pear shaped when I am on my own! My DIY timetable floundered. It all started with a dip in the temperature that caused a quick flurry of snow during the night, which in turn froze, on the drive. It meant that I couldn’t get the car down to the gate as it was like sheet black ice. The previous owners of the house had once slid down the drive, out of the gate and into the wall opposite so I wasn’t going to try. I had some salt and put that down, but the ice was too thick. I needed to get out of the gate because I was supposed to be going with Avril for her hospital appointment.
I tried hacking at the ice with a shovel, but the drive is over 100 metres long so it was going to take too long to do this and it was freezing cold so my hands were struggling. I tried warm water, then hot water, which I had to carry from the house after going up the stairs and back down again, carrying heavy buckets. An arduous task but this actually did start to work. It took me 4 hours! Four hours! Then I could get the car down to the gate, although I was too late to get to Avril.
I decided to go down to have a walk by the sea. Warnings had been giving about the approaching storm and that the following day it was recommended to stay inside. Along the beach, the sea was so rough, and the waves crashed so loudly that in places where there were buildings it was deafening.
Recently, along part of the seafront road, part of it had collapsed and I stopped to look at the hole. While I was doing this a woman approached me and asked me what I thought. This was in Italian, so I said I thought it was rather worrying as the storm was coming. She then produced a microphone and a man with a camera popped up from behind his car. They were from the local television station. I said what I had said in Italian to her again and then carried on walking, laughing to myself as I had no idea if my Italian was correct! I don’t know if my wise words ever appeared on TV.
I went back home, left the car at the gate as it was too slippery to get it up the drive. I gripped the side rail to walk back up the drive, as it was difficult underfoot again. Now my language was becoming colourful again as I muttered under breath.
Later, the wind got up, and it rained so heavily. This rain was horizontal and due to our elevated position on the hill, was smashing directly into the windows. My concern now was the power going off. If I don’t have power I have no water because it can’t be pumped up to the house ( although I have buckets and the swimming pool water) If there’s no power then I can’t get out of the gate either as it is electric so I wandered back down the drive, slipping and sliding, to manually unlock the gate, just in case but the power stayed on.
The car was due to be checked in the garage the next day so we decided that I would stay at Avril’s for the night just in case the weather got too bad again.
The next morning, we dropped off the car and Avril and I went for a drive to watch the sea, we sat on the beach and noticed the police starting to arrive and film the sea.
We tried going back up to Vena, but the wind was dreadful and the fog/cloud had set in. The warnings about the worsening weather increased so I stopped the night at Avril’s again.
During the night the storm (Harry) was so bad that for the first time in about 50 years the sea came over the wall and took away the roads and damaged buildings, knocked down trees, even part of the railway track disintegrated. The roads were closed off and traffic had to slow down on the motorways. One motorway was closed because of the damage to the road.
In the middle of this, I needed to go back to the house to check on it. Off I went, but luckily, the rain had melted all the ice (and we had bought some deciding salt just in case). It was so wet that the rain had seeped through the windows, as the rain was horizontal again when I got to the house. I was there in time to catch the water and soak everything with towels and sheets. My plan was to stop at the house but then the power started to flicker. I had switched the gate back to electric and so knew I had to be quick. But I wasn’t quick enough, as I locked the kitchen door, the power went off. In the driving, horizontal rain I managed to get the gate unlocked and I left to go back to Avril’s, leaving the house in darkness.
The next day was my second vaccination appointment so the plan for the day was hectic. I got up at 5:30 to go up to the house to see if the power was back on. Nope! I rang Andrew as I tried to work out how to switch the power back on, as a switch had tripped, but nothing worked. So, soaking wet, I got back in the car at 7am and drove back down to Avril and off we went to Catania for my jab.
Meanwhile, Avril managed to contact “our “electrician, who was a long way away working, but he gave us suggestions of what to check for and what to do when we got back until he could come to help.
Vaccination
What a lovely young enthusiastic doctor. I had to answer lots of questions and prove that I had had dengue, I have all of the answers on my phone in a document. The doctor was so shocked that India had no vaccination for dengue yet. Before the payment had come through from Andrew, the nurse had stuck the needle in and I was vaccinated! Yay! I was so relieved
After a quick breakfast, we set back off for Vena to try and sort the power. We tried what Nino said and we got the power back! We removed all the soaking towels and checked everything and off we went again back down to Giarre. My plan was to take Avril back and then go back home but by 6 pm the dengue jab was cutting in, and after the early morning wake up, I was rendered powerless and couldn’t face driving back up again. Pizza and a glass of wine did the trick, but I stayed the night again.
So after 5 lovely weeks, terrible storms and a hitch with the ice on the drive way and the storm, it was time to fly back to India. There were no problems this time and no business class, of course!
Andrew and his googly eyes
More or less as soon as I got back, Andrew had an eye appointment, and I was at the dentist. My appointment went well but Andrew’s didn’t. When he was young, he had been messing about with his friends while they shot at cans with an air rifle. One bullet had ricocheted and hit him in the eye. All was fine until now. It appeared that his pupil was shrinking and that he had a cataract. The doctor, who was also an eye surgeon, urgently made me look at Andrew’s eyes after he had had drops put in them. His pupil was in a “D” shape instead of being round. He looked like something possessed!
Surgery was booked for the following week, and we checked in to the hospital by 7:30 in the morning. In India, when you go into hospital you have to have someone with you all the time to go and pay for everything, get food, pay and fetch the medicines, it is very strange to us. It means that we had to go to each counter separately for each department that they asked for, I think it was about 4 to check in and they are on different floors so it can take a while.
We knew what the surgery involved as Dr Battu had made us watch several videos on what would happen, no good for anyone that finds surgery queasy, I must say. Andrew was having his cataract removed and a new one with a super duper ‘bionic’ lens put in and he was having a ring put around his pupil to pull it back to shape.
Andrew went off for surgery, and I waited for him by his bed as I definitely couldn’t watch the surgery. He came back after 45 minutes with a big bandage and what looked like an egg cup over his eye, bit like a pirate. The first photo below is a jammy dodger biscuit and not the post-surgery image that he lead people to believe!
Once he was settled, I had to set off to buy all the medicines at the pharmacy.
By the time I got back, the Doctor was there saying that Andrew could be discharged. So, off I went again to get the discharge papers, at one desk, then to get confirmation from the insurance company, another desk, another floor, then back to discharge counter with the insurance document. Then, another desk to get an exit slip and a document to say the insurance company had paid. After this, I had to go to yet another desk where they decided to give me 7000 rupees back (I have no idea why as the whole thing was supposed to be cashless)
Back up the stairs to Andrew and to give the nurse the discharge confirmation and for her to check the drugs.
Finally, we were ready to go, and we went to find Arjun to go home.
The next day, Andrew had to go and see the doctor again and he was pleased with the surgery. He gave Andrew some very dark glasses for when he went outside to protect his new bionic eye from the dust. He says his eye now sees different colours to his other eye. By the way, the doctor is fantastic.
Events
Of course, we have been going to events, when we are invited, and we frequently meet our friends. Andrew often has to attend functions and meetings too. As Milo is now older, we must compete with him to ‘get the car’. We can’t drive him ourselves and we rely on Arjun.
Max had been awarded a scholarship - Lucky Boy ;-)
We are so proud that he has been making such a great success of his new life journey.
Milo, Milo, Milo, our star!
I have never looked forward to anything as much as I looked forward to seeing Milo in his performance for school. The school hires out a theatre, so it is quite exciting.
Milo had the the lead part dancing, singing and acting in the musical, Footloose.
Andrew and I booked tickets for every night, like all devoted parents do.
Milo hadn’t given anything away about any of it so I was beside myself with anticipation and happiness.
He came on to that stage with a bang! Centre stage, singing and dancing
HE WAS AMAZING! We were so proud!
I spent the whole performance with my eyes fixed only on him.
The whole cast were superb and everyone sang and danced so well.
The teachers had put in so much effort too , they had supervised sleep overs at school on the weekends and after school, to get ready and it had paid off.
Every performance got better and their voices became stronger as the cast got more confident and comfortable performing. Of course, they all got a standing ovation at the end too.
We are waiting for the recording to be put online so that we can view it forever.
Milo goes to The Andaman Islands
This was a trip for Milo through school straight after the performance. He went to the Andaman Islands for 5 days. In typical teenage style was reluctant to send any photos. When we reminded him he first sent one of his room. He was staying in a hotel on a beach with crystal blue water. When we asked him, he said, “oh yeah, the sea is quite blue!” Well, send us photos of the sea then!
Whilst he was there they did water sports such as banana boat rides, scuba diving, snorkelling and jet skiing. They also visited a museum to learn about the local history.
Max goes to Paris
Meanwhile not to be outdone, Max went with his house mate to his home in Paris for the weekend. He went on a fast train and was there in no time at all. He met up with an old expat friend he met at Bangalore, Coco, who now lives back in Paris.
Goa
We had booked to go to Goa back in October with our friends and their son. When the time arrived, one of them had to drop out due to work commitments so only 5 of us went instead of 6. Even so, we all had a great time and tried not to send too many photos to her of us drinking cocktails and dining on the beach.
 |
On the first night we were there, a couple appeared next to us asking us if we were Carla and Andrew. It is such a small world. Claire and John, who we knew from Skegness about 20 years ago, were having dinner in the same restaurant! They weren’t stopping where we were but eating there! It was such a lovely surprise! We met up with them
again, before they left to go back to the UK.
Yet again the food bill at The Art Resort was extremely reasonable and not expensive like Bangalore, just as well as Milo had had a great time ordering whatever he wanted with Gil and we had enjoyed the cocktails and bottles of wine on the beach.
We are now on the count down for the summer session in Sicily and Andrew’s big birthday.
That’s all for now folks – we will try not to leave it so long for the next update!
