The hills are alive!

I'm lying in bed reflecting on three very intense days which you will get to read all about in just a sec. I apologise again for the quiet period... life has been a constant state of busy-ness which has meant I just haven't got round to updating you all on my life in India, that and nothing blog worthy really happened until this weekend. So sit back and let the joy of India wash over you.

I should mention however that we did have a bonfire last weekend again (you may have worked out by now that we have some fire-lovers here so any excuse gives rise to some form of flames) because it was my fellow Brit's birthday. We celebrated with fire, songs around the fire, marshmallows in the fire and then inside crackers (s'mores!), brownies, dancing and lots of lovely merriment. Happy birthday again Lia!

Saturday was very exciting day as a group of us finally did the famous (at least in the vicinity) hike we have been wanting to do since about our third week living here. We set out just after 7am and walked for an hour before taking a breakfast break where we were filled with bread, egg and apple. The surroundings got more and more stunning the further we went into the mountains and I got more and more excited about all the beautiful rocks! Please can I have a geography field trip back here? Look at these beauties...

That is a nice boulder!

Even if you aren't a geography nut (as some refer to me as) you must admit these are pretty jazzy compared to a standard pebble. 

We all had lots of fun hiking up. Thankfully it wasn't as hard as I had been led to expect so I could thoroughly enjoy all surroundings. We saw snow on distant mountains on the way up, but it got closer and closer until we were walking about 100m from some small remnants. I went off-piste to hold Himalayan snow (when else am I going to the able to throw a snowball in India?) and one of the guys came to join me. He has never touched snow in his life and has only seen it on TV. I was so privileged to be there when he picked it up, see his grin and hear his delight! It was beautiful. All of the South Indians touched snow that day, and had so much fun in the process!

 At the top we took way too many photos of the stunning view and were generally amused wandering around barefoot and climbing on all the boulders.

After about three hours at the summit we headed down. We all spread out and ambled at our own pace (or ran if you were Kris, Erik or Ark). I reckon we were out for about 10 hours altogether; we weren't hiking for the whole time though. It was a wonderful day, I'm really grateful that I was able to see some more of the incredible scenery and have a lovely day with my family here. I often find myself marvelling that I'm living in such a beautiful place, it feels like a dream!

Sunday was a thoroughly British day. Lia is my fellow Brit and we were in charge of cooking dinner so we headed into town to do some serious ingredient shopping for our three course dinner party we had planned. Before heading home with all our purchases we needed to up our strength - it's almost an hours walk uphill and we had a large backpack full of heavy veg, don't judge us - so we went to a cafe which boasts of a pudding called 'Hello to the Queen'. Well, it just had to be done. I'm not quite sure how it was related to Liz, it was a deconstructed banoffe pie really, but it did the job and we made it home thanks to Queenie.

We cooked for about five hours and had great fun in the process. Only British music was allowed to continue the theme, so we enjoyed Mumford and Sons, Rend Collective, Ed Sheeran and Passenger whilst hopping copious amounts of veg and rolling lots of pastry. Our starter was a carrot and coriander soup, followed by Cornish pasties (our often pathetic oven did us proud) with an onion chutney and stir fried veg and we rounded things off with Welsh cakes. Yum! It just so happened that som of the girls watched 'The Sound of Music' after dinner which finished a long day just nicely, although I was too tired to see the end.

Yesterday was an unusual day because our normal weekly schedule has been changed and so we did a deep clean. I thought this was quite ironic as I used to have to do deep cleans at work, but this was completely Indian style and went on and on and on. I was part of the kitchen team which pulled everything out, scrubbed walls and windows and surfaces, cleaned every utensil and then rearranged our system before bringing everything back in. It was very satisfying, but very long. I think we did about  8 hours with only a 20 minuted lunch break, so I was very ready to sit down after. But we should now not have to worry about mouse poo contaminating anything anymore.

So there you go, an account of my last three days in India. I will leave you with just one of the beautiful sunsets we keep being blessed with. 

Celebrations

Long time no speak... Sorry for the lack of communication over the last week! I have done a week without Internet which has been quite liberating as I have been able to fully focus on all the questions and ideas the things I have learnt this week have thrown up. It does mean that I have several (well three, but for the space of ten days, it is still quite impressive) celebrations to fill you in on. So here goes...

Last Thursday was Halloween and whilst the majority of people here don't celebrate, or even know about, this holiday, one girl influenced several of us to do something for it. This pumpkin was the main outcome, however none of us can take any credit for this carving except Kris! Some of the others dressed up as elves, two characters from Star Wars (I have no clue who they are, I'm so uneducated) and a moose. Lia and I used the rest of the pumpkin to make pumpkin pie. It didn't really taste of proper pumpkin pie because the spices here are limited to the curries and the sweet spices haven't reached India, at least this part, yet. Oh what we would give for nutmeg! But considering we were baking in India with a pretty pathetic oven and it was edible, we deemed it a success.

Last weekend was Diwali, and it was so cool celebrating the festival in the land of its origin (I think... I honestly don't know the history of the festival but India is the place you think of when you think of Diwali isn't it?). Saturday night we celebrated all together at home. This consisted of way too much food, dancing and fire. The food was made by two Indians but I had great fun helping for the small amount that I did. The quantity of food was ridiculous! We hade diamond cut dough things, pouri, sweet sticky rice, a chickpea side dish, tzatiki, Indian sweets, crisps, cookies and cardamon cake. Unfortunately my stomach didn't appreciate the food as much as my taste buds though and I spent the next night in bed as a result.

For those of you who don't know about Diwali, it is the light festival hence all the candles at dinner and the following light related fun. Obviously the light we personally celebrate is very different from the majority of Indians celebrating, but it was really fun to join in with such a central part to their culture!

A good majority of the night was spent dancing. And a good majority of my dancing was with a five year old who didn't want to dance with the group of us so we snuck off and danced together. It is so much more fun dancing like a child than dancing seriously (not that anyone danced seriously that night)! Who doesn't want to dance like their making pizza or are sweeping a floor? 

The same five year old was the cause of celebration yesterday as she turned six. We had a great time having a party for her. I went in my pyjamas (any excuse! But we has to go as children and I loved my pjs as a child - ask mum, I even went to school in them!), had my hair in four plaits which was my favourite hairstyle as a four year old and I drew my oldest teddy to accompany me - John.

We made hats and masks and then played so many kids games. Duck duck goose, musical statues, red light green light and pass the parcel featured. Cake, ice cream and presents all followed. All in all it was a very good kids party, which we all entered into the spirit of pretty well, I think.

It is getting a lot colder here. There is now snow on the closest mountains to us. I'm really hoping that it will reach us before we leave for Thailand in December. I would love got be here when some of the others experience snow for the first time! We are condensing down from one mattress each to sharing as the night get very cold. Our record so far is six people on three mattresses, but the question is will we beat this?

I have one quick prayer request for you, if you don't mind. There are several of us who aren't feeling on top form, and a few of us have very odd things happening with our stomachs. Thankfully it is nothing too serious, but it is hard to concentrate and learn all that is in store for us when we aren't feeling too great at all. If you could remember us in this, we would be really grateful. Thank you all!