Christmas 2014

Well, here we are again - another Christmas Newsletter! 

You may remember that when we were leaving Abu Dhabi last year, 'Plan A' was to come back to the UK for a couple of years and Kevin would free-lance. Suddenly ‘Plan B’ materialised and Kevin accepted a job in Mumbai.

Well, now we are back to Plan A!

After a year (or so) of living and working in Mumbai Kevin decided he would leave the full-time job in India and start free-lancing from the UK. So I didn’t return to India at the beginning of October as planned - I started looking for a rental property and was very pleased to find one 10 minutes' walk from Mum and Dad’s - but more of this later.

To begin at the beginning...

We had a very enjoyable Christmas 2013 in Australia with the family. Sophie flew in from the UK - She is still teaching chemistry at Huntingdon and enjoying life in St Neots.
 Her new interest is roller hockey!

Kevin and I flew in from India.
 We spent the first week at Paynesville near Matt, Nikki, Jasmine and Isabell.
They are all doing well in East Gippsland - the girls are gorgeous!!

Nikki is establishing her own business venture Ultra Violet Flowers
 and we all wish her very well with that.
 Matty continues with his sideline of water sports
 and he also recently sat his final exam to get his Bachelor of Applied Science.

 Dan and Lizzie and Tom and Aiden joined us too.

Dan and Lizzie are just about to leave Orange and should be back in Melbourne before Christmas.
This is them with all their worldly goods just loaded into a truck...

Tom continues with his new taxi firm and has just finished building a house which has now been put up for sale.
 Aiden is now 14 - where does the time go?
He is now much taller than me and his Grandad, and is doing well at school.

I seem to have got a little sidetracked - back to last Christmas!! We had a lovely week, enjoying various water sports as usual! The second week we were in Melbourne - spending New Year’s Eve with good friends Liz and Gary. Unfortunately, what with one thing and another (not least the cost of flights), we are unable to have an Aussie Christmas this year but plan maybe to travel there again at Easter 2015. Maybe by then our Aussie Permanant Residency will have come through and we will have to go there to finalise it. So far we have been working on this for 18 months!!

So - back to Mumbai. Kevin and I travelled around to see as much of India as possible in the time available - and of course Mumbai. I must admit that I am a little disappointed we didn’t see everywhere on our list! We particularly enjoyed ‘happy journeys’ on the local train system which are just as you see on the travel programmes - the doors don't close and people hang out of them and of course the trains are very, very crowded!

In February we were invited by Deepika to attend her niece’s wedding in Bangalore - It was an amazing long weekend, visiting Mysore where I bought a silk sari, and then enjoying the Sangeet. Later that month, I spent almost a week in Ahmedabad with lady friends on a trip concentrating on textiles. This was an amazing trip - we packed so much in - from ‘history’, to textiles, to seeing camels and an elephant on the street!!

In March, we visited the Coorg Plateau where we stayed at a resort in a coffee plantation - the blossom was wonderful! We visited Madikeri and we saw elephants - this time on a reservation. We had wanted to go on a safari to see them in the wild but unfortunately there were bushfires where we had planned to go.

In April, Dan and Lizzie were travelling - they went first to the UK. We also nipped over and organized a family get together on Dan's Birthday, so lots of people could meet Lizzie! They then came over to India - Kevin and I went with them for a long weekend to Kochi in Kerala. Again we were all amazed by what we saw!!

In June, Kevin and I went to Srinigar - an interesting trip as Kashmir is a highly militarised area given its proximity to Pakistan. Lots of Indian tourists there but not so many non-Indians. Srinigar hit the international news just after our trip due to extensive flooding in the monsoon season. Our accommodation was on a houseboat - lovely apart from the vendors in their small craft who pester anyone who looks like a tourist. Nevertheless another wonderful trip!!

Whilst not on trips (!!) we lived in a large apartment in Mumbai, with a super view of Lake Powai. We went to the gym, we ate many spicy meals (even pizza is spiced up!!)  I became involved in the American Women’s Club, and continued to ‘craft’.
I joined an Indian embroidery class and a quilting group.

At the end of June I set off for Australia. Bec had asked me to look after Aiden and his half sister Montana while she and Adam were in Brazil (at the time of the World Cup). During the three weeks, I saw a lot of Tom and we also all went over to Paynesville
 to see Matt and Nikki, Jasmine and Isabell.

 This is Tom and Nikki at Matt's 30th Birthday meal.

 Although it was winter Aiden decided the weather was fit for donutting.
 Rather him than me!!

This picture is of me, Aiden and Montana messing about in onesies...

And while we are on with onesies...

Tom in his Father's Day present from Aiden and Dan in the one made for him by Lizzie!!

I then went to the UK for the rest of the Summer. As soon as I arrived, I went down to Devon with Mum and Dad to visit Liz & Pete and everyone. John, Julia, Chloe and Emma were over from Perth! The following weekend we were all off to Anglesey for ‘Menai’ - and Kevin arrived to join us. I did a little less sailing than usual as Sophie was sailing with her Dad - however I enjoyed some good races with my brother Andrew.

At the end of the regattas, Kevin set off again for Mumbai. He obviously didn’t really want to catch his plane - he managed to lose his luggage on the train down to Heathrow and missed it. Fortunately there was a happy ending to this tale and he caught the next day’s plane (and hats off to Virgin Rail for returning the luggage on the same afternoon that Kevin misplaced it).

I stayed in England to spend some time with Mum and Dad, and in late August Liz, Sophie and I went on a girls’ trip to Ireland. I suppose the most memorable sight was the Giant's Causeway.

It was at this point that Kevin decided he was leaving Mumbai and started packing up the apartment. There was really no opportunity for me to return. It was then a matter of waiting for our container of goods and chattels to arrive! Kevin arrived back from Mumbai just a couple of weeks before it did. In fact it arrived earlier than expected…the day I had arranged to go on a weekend away with Angela, to visit the Quilting Show in Malvern . (We had a lovely time!!)

Unpacking has been quite a trial - the packers in India used vast quantities of wrapping for everything - good for preventing damage but a nightmare to unpack. We were submerged in paper and boxes - and made many trips to the recycling centre!

Next was Liz’s 65th Birthday - we all went down to Devon for a huge Halloween Party! Great fun, helping get things ready and dressing up. Sophie and Kevin performed as mad scientists - amazing what you can do with some chain, wire wool, copper wire and a match!

The house is just about sorted now - it was difficult fitting our Abu Dhabi sized furniture in this tiny place but it’s finally organized. Kevin has gone back to Mumbai for 3 weeks - he will be back just in time for Christmas on the 20th. In the meantime we are getting ready for Christmas. Mum and Dad had their Advent Sunday lunch for 16 at the weekend - next, we are planning to pop over to the cottage in Anglesey for a few days - and for the first time in many years we will be hosting Christmas Dinner in the UK!

Best wishes to you and yours for Christmas and the New Year and have a wonderful 2015…

Sue and Kevin

xx