Sunday, May 1, 2011

PHEW! May already!

Busy busy busy. Of course there was the Royal Wedding on Friday - yes I sat down and enjoyed it enormously, especially the ghastly get ups Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice turned up in. I love the way the 'hat' has a Facebook page now - ha ha ha. The bridal party looked lovely and the good old Queen was elegant as usual.
But while all that was on I was busy on the interweb emailing India backwards and forwards. You see, the SPOT that I posted actually arrived. Amazing. However, the person I sent it to believes I didn't set it up right as they keep pressing the send button and I don't get a message. I have explained about 4 times now that as it is a one way device, it will confirm that the message you sent got to the satellite, but what happens to it after that it cannot say. He keeps asking me for the logon details so he can 'check' that I did it correctly. Oh no my good man is the constant reply. And he reckons you can't get lithium batteries in Delhi. Rubbish I say. Plus I am still angry about the logistics bloke buying a new camera body for Rs35,000 that doesn't work. So I have told Maninder that whether he can get the SPOT to work or not he is to forward it to Robin soonest (an Indian saying). The SPOT site does indicate that it won't actually work in India, but as Robin is up in the mountains and at a completely different lat, long and altitude there is always the chance it will work as there are plenty more satellites available there. It's come this far it might just as well keep going! God give me strength.
It finally stopped raining in Sydney - everything feels so soggy and damp and it really makes my knees ache. Still, the zumba must go on.
On the GHT India front, Robin and Bob are now on their way to Joshimath via the southern fringes of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve. When I spoke to him briefly on Friday they were faced with a day of 800m down, 600m up and 1300m down to get to wherever they were going - which may have been Namik - the connection wasn't 100% clear. Next time I hear from him I'll let you know.
I've been organising the books in the front room as sir has bought so many books we had nowhere to put them. Up and down the ladder I go carrying books, sneezing from the dust (must speak to the maid about that), and deciding which ones to keep and which to throw. Then comes organising them into my un-Dewey decimal system - I'm still working on that.
And our Nepali niece and her hubby (the wedding in Nepal last June that I wrote about) got their visas for Australia so no doubt they will be busy trying to get organised in time for that- they'll be studying at a Swiss Hotel school in Adelaide from July. Big step. I'm sure poor Puru (her dad) is very sad...
Here's a traffic jam (just a small one) in Kathmandu to cheer you up for another week of communting. And the umbrella is because I was crammed into a rickshaw that I was too tall for..
as usual.
I was very amused to see during the week that although all the political parties in Nepal promised they wouldn't have any strikes (bandhs) this year as it is Nepal Tourism Year and yet there was an all-in strike the other day and people had to walk 11 km from the airport with their wheely bags on the crappy pot-holed roads to get to where they were going. Great advertisement for the place.
And last but not least, I just checked my footy tipping for the weekend and saw to my total surprise that I scored a perfect round! I think that means I get a cash prize. Should get a bloody medal since I don't know a thing about it. Robin will get a laugh out of that. I do miss him a lot...

2 comments:

  1. Lovely photo of you and Robin.
    Leanne.

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  2. Thanks Leanne. Taken in sunny Punakha in Bhutan last June - seems like forever ago. Sorry I missed you in Sydney over Easter.Take care and keep in touch x

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