Halleluiah!!!

Two brilliant things happened this morning.

Our Air Freight boxes arrived from Mombai.

And the rains must at least be virtually over as the swimming pool has now been cleaned and refilled and is ready for use again.

The Air Freight boxes arrived in Mombai about three days after we did!! But only arrived here this morning!! When we first arrived our passports had to go to the local Police Office in Jamnagar for the preparation of our Residency Permits. So our passports and the huge volume of paperwork could not go to Mombai until after that. By this time the Customs Office at Mombai Airport had almost decided that these boxes were not going to be collected and they were already beginning to arrange for them to be returned to London!! And then, of course, there was the matter of the fact that many roads have been flooded between Mombai and here with the Monsoon rains!! But never mind, they are here now and everything is in good order!! All we need now is the apartment to go with our things!!

The swimming pool is enormous and outdoors. There is 'ladies only' swimming every morning from nine to eleven. And virtually the only people who will be using the people are three of the ex-pat ladies (including me) so it feels as if we have our own private pool, We swam for the first time this morning and it was absolutely heavenly!!

I tries to put these pictures side by side, but although it can show this way in the draft, it doesn't seem to happen the way I plan when the piece is downloaded to the Blog!! Oh well . . . . !!

Anyway, if Housekeeping arrive to tidy up and clean our room and we are in residence we have found this tranquil place beside the central gardens of the Guest House!! Just the place to read a book for a little while, while someone else does my domestic chores!! A tough life, but I am trying to deal with it!!

These pictures show the Hindu Temple right in the heart of Jamnager. Surrounded by little shops, people and traffic in a very bustling part of town, it is an oasis of beauty and colour and open to everyone to visit and view as well as those who want to come in to pray to their Gods. We were welcome inside having removed our shoes, but I was not comfortable taking pictures inside although I told there was no reason why I shouldn't.

The whole of the inside was painted in bright colours (and I do mean very bright colours) showing patterns and story scenes of Hindu gods and Hindu tradition. There were two large (and loud!) bells which was rung whenever a Hindu devotee passed by. There were lots of candles as well. There does not appear to be a timetable of services, just the opportunity for devotees to attend and either read from their religious books, chant or simply be there.

There are hundreds and thousands of Hindu Gods and because of this there can be numerous Festivals almost all the time.

When some people saw me with a camera in Jamnagar yesterday I was asked to take this lady's picture.

Apparently, she has been fasting for a whole month prior to the Ganesh Festival. It was said that this was a personal purification process and a way of proving that she is a suitable candidate to move closer to being a better Hindu.

All things considered, we thought she looked remarkably healthy. All she has taken for the past month is water.

Today is the Hindu Festival of Ganesh - the God that looks like an elephant. And models of Ganesh are paraded through towns and villages all over Hindu India from yesterday for about a week I think. Not a brilliant picture I am sorry to say, but one I took from the window of the car!! I missed included the camel in the picture that was pulling the cart - sorry, about that!! But I am sure you get the idea!

We enjoyed a lovely barbeque dinner party with Sheri and Carl Lake, our new American friends, on Saturday evening. Because so many different people are having a look at this Diary now perhaps I should tell you the names of all the people present. The first picture shows Sheri at the head of the table. The other pictures show (from the left) Doina, Joy, Gavin, Carl (Sheri's husband), Laurie, Malcolm and David. What a motley crew!!

Sheri and Carl are from Houston, Texas, Joy and Malcolm are originally from Yorkshire and now call Scotland home, Doina and David are from Romania and Wales. So with Gavin and I from Scotland as well, we are quite a cosmopolitan bunch. And between us we have also lived and worked in all sorts of places all over the world. So you can imagine that the conversation was varied - to say the least!! A great evening was had by all.

So, what do you think of this as a mode of transport!!! Everything from people (young and old) to animals (sheep and goats); from vegetables to sacks of grain; and from furniture to building supplies and goodness knows whatever else are transported in an out of the busy, busy, busy and erratic traffic!!

I wonder if one would be useful for popping in to town to pick up the groceries!!

This is the little roadside store where I got a new strap for my watch.

The storekeepers noticed my camera and want to have their picture taken!!

The parks in the township, all the road sides and apartment building gardens etc are well cared for lovely to see. The gardens in the Guest House area are lovely too and this is one of our gardeners. They have virtually no tools, they just work away all the time crouched down with a bag for the rubbish. Even working all over the lawns taking the weeds out of the grass one at a time by hand. But the results are lovely.

This is one of the small army of waiters who look after us in the Dining Room and Room Service. I just happened to catch him as he was walking through the gardens!!

They are keen to be helpful and keen to practice their English. English language skills are one of the most important skills they can learn to improve their job prospects.

I hope you have not been coming in to this Diary too often just lately and not finding anything new to see.

Access to internet can be a little erratic here!! Sometimes we cannot get access for a couple of days.

So my intention is to add bits and pieces and pictures whenever I can, but this has to be subject to access to cyber space!!

I must confess that I do not know the gentleman's name (the staff here do not wear name badges) but I do know that he keeps our room neat and clean and tidy every day - and always with a smile on his face.

He brings me The Times of India every morning; washes the dishes and fetches and carries the laundry - and always with a smile on his face.

Have managed to take these close up pictures of some embroidered pieces I bought the other day in Jamnagar. They do not seem to transfer from the camera to the Blog in the order I intend, but I have to be thankful that I can trasfer them at all!! The second and third pictures show a sort of pelmet. This would be put across the top of a front door as a decoration to welcome people to ones home of special occasions. A bit like the Christmas wreaths we might put on a front door. The other two pictures are of a bedspread. All the embroidery is in coloured wool and the designs are prepared free hand. Hope you like them.

I had a splendid outing to Jamnagar with Abdul yesterday morning. This whole area is widely known for its Bandhani cotton fabric. This is a very detailed form of tie and dye work to the basic material. In this little traditional shop this fabric is stacked up all over the place in all kinds of colours and designs. The owner of the shop provided drinks and seats and told me all about how it is made and distributed.

So, of course, I had to buy some!! I having the pieces I purchased made into a Shalwar Kemeez outfit - not sure about the spelling but the costume is the traditional trousers, tunic and scarf of this area. The tailor will be charging me approximately one pound fifty for the made to measure outfit - how absurdly cheap is that and only taking a few days. There will be more pictures of the modelled finished outfit in time - maybe!!

I am also hoping to go and see where the fabric is actually dyed and the tying design work is done - I hope so anyway.

Here are my first two photographs of Jamnagar. There were quite a few more, but there were 'not working properly' batteries in my camera . . . Anyway, I hope you like them. There will be plenty morepicutres as time goes on, I promise.

You have to be here to understand the rain and humidity of the monsoon!! Last Sunday we had fourteen straight hours of torrential rain!! It has rained really hard for at least part of every day since we have been here!! Every time you go outside for even a short walk you feel as if you need to come inside and take a shower!! Thank goodness for air conditioning!!

But then . . . . yesterday afternoon a good deal of thecloud cleared away - there really was still blue sky behind it and the sun came out . . . a most exciting moment!! I suppose it is too much to suppose that this will last - but I am ever hopeful!!

On the other side of the coin, the flooding in areas of India within two or three hundred miles of here has been and continues to be quite appalling. Feet of water and mud have covered a huge area of Surat, a large urban sprawl. Thousands and thousands of people rich and poor, have been without water, food, services or help for days and days and days. How they are coping I really do not know. We understand that this is the worst monsoon season in this whole area of Gujurat for years. How lucky we are that we are north of the disaster area and each day most of the water is draining away.

There was no monsoon rain for a couple of days and so we were able to go out for a walk yesterday afternoon. The breeze made the heat manageable!! This is part of the park behind the Guest House where we are staying at the moment. We then came back to the Guest House in the evening at watched 'The Return of the Mummy' on television!!

A certain amount of laughter and hilarity when we went to the dining room for dinner last night!

This young lady was celebrating her twelth birthday.

This is pretty much a rural area and I do not think that many of the young people have seen many Europeans, particularly ladies with light brown or blonde hair - or gentlemen with white hair, come to that!! So we were quite a curiosity!! Several of them came over to ask us where we were from and could they have their picture taken with us! They were also verychatty; wanting to ask us all sorts of questions!! So we asked if we could take some pictures of them for our diary . . . resulting in lots of smiles and giggles . . .

There are currently just three European ladies at Reliance Greens and we have been provided with our own driver - Abdul. Another something which makes us feel rather spoiled!

We can call him anytime and he will take us anywhere we want to go and advise us where we need to go for something in particular. His English is excellent and he is a very cheery person; only too happy to help us.

For the time being we are staying in the VIP Residency in a lovely air conditioned room on the first floor. We are being really well looked after and the meals are great with buffet selections of Indian and International foods for every meal. (The dining room is also lovely and cool.) We are enjoying being spoiled!

The Residency is built around a lovely garden and I hope you will like these pictures, with wide marble corridors; large terracotta pots with beautiful indoor plants and a beautifully carved swinging seat full of cushions to sit and view the garden.

In between the downpours there are several people working really hard to keep all the gardens in the compound looking at their very best.

The journey must have taken quite a while, but in hind sight it seemed to pass very quickly. A hire car from Aberfeldy to Edinburgh, flight from Edinburgh to London; transfer to a different terminal; plane overnight from London to Mombai; met by a driver and taken to a company rest house for a cool room and lunch; another driver to a small airport and then another flight in a very small plane with just about sixteen passengers - I would like to tell you all that I could see of the ground, but there were moments when I had my eyes shut!! And finally another car journey to Reliance Greens, which is the company town for the Reliance Project here on the north coast of the Gujurat region of India. I am told we are only about three miles from the coast, but must confess I have not see it yet!!

There is no need to see it yet, we have arrived in the middle of the monsoon season and there is quite enough rain and mud all over the place without going to the coast!! It is also very humid. But we are told that the season will end in two or three weeks time and the rains will be over for another year - we are looking forward to that!! Now we know why the women and as many men as possible during the British Raj spent July and August in the hills with the cooler weather!

Amazing to realise we have already been here for a week already . . .

P.S. I saw a red truck just like Rhuraidh's this morning - and it was full of gardeners and their equipment!!

We would both like to thank Christopher and June for having us to stay with them during the last few days before our departure. And also thank Scruffy, Spike and May for just 'being'.

Before we left the UK we were able to catch up with at least some of our family while with others we had to settle for sharing a telephone call.

We enjoyed a lively barbecue evening at Kass and Gavin's home a couple of days before departure.

It is more than thirty-five years since I last came to India and, to be honest I never really thought I would ever come again. What an opportunity!

This diary will be for all of you to enjoy our trip and for us to have a record of the adventure. We hope that you will enjoy our pictures and notes. Perhaps there will be an opportunity for you to add your comments - that you like what you see and read or have suggestions as to how we can improve the Diary.