Saturday 29th December - Adrian

We struggled to get out of bed as our bodies still said that we were in the small hours and went downstairs to the small room which called itself a restaurant for continental breakfast - tea/coffe, pineapple juice and toast. Almost as soon as we were finished we were taken off for lunch at the Zoroastrian Hall (1929), a large building like a church hall, with lawn in front and terraces or patios at the front and sides. One of these had long tables laid out for lunch, where we sat as large platters were filled with a first course of chappatis, pickle and a meat curry, followed by a second spicy dish with rice.

After lunch four adults and two children piled into a rickshaw (a 2 or 4 stroke 3-wheeled vehicle in green and yellow with an old-style convertible hood. I sat in the front alongside the driver - a dubious privilege as the horrors of the traffic are even closer there, and, as the small front wheel is almost underneath you, even closer to the wheels of bicycles, scooters, and the backs and legs of pedestrians, the hand carts and the monstrous fume belching buses.

I should have mentioned that we stopped first at the apartment of Zenobia and Noshir, the grand parents of the small boy whose navjote ceremony (a sort of first-comnmunion) was the cause of all the celebrations.

In the afternoon, while wife caught up with her sleep, I went for a walk, first of all to the completely misnamed 'Italian Bakery' (I asked what Italian bread they had but the Indian girl at the counter told me they had none).

I carried on walking, along the line of the old-city walls (brick-built and extensive but in disrepair) as I felt that the river which flows through Ahmedabad (dividing it into and old and a new town by its considerable width), lay behind the buildings on the opposite side of the road. As I walked, the new buildings opposite the wall (hotels, apartments, the Mount Carmel primary school and the Ahmedabad Rifle Club which was now degorging contestants from a National competition) thinned out and the spaces betweeen occupied by shanty settlements of increasing squalor as I approached a cross-road and turned left to find a bridge crossing the river (Sabarmati?)

Christmas food & visitors

We have visitors on Sunday and on Christmas Day too. There are only 12 for lunch on Sunday - us five at home plus husband's brother's family and our son and his family. When the local grandchildren visit after lunch, we'll be a few more to play.

On Christmas Day we are 15. Us five plus visiting Italian in-laws and 5/6 children with their respective partners and offspring.

The menu includes a stuffed bird from Heal Farm and the usual accompaniments. I especially like their Grande Marnier tart. Yum! And I expect there'll be a little champagne.

Freshers' Parents Lunch

We had an unanticipated invitation to Hertford College this month. It read:

The Principal and Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford
request the pleasure of your company at
THE FRESHERS' PARENTS LUNCH
On Saturday 12th May 2007
Drinks in the The Principal's Lodgings - 11.30 - 1.00pm
Lunch in Hall - 1.00pm

Son was pleased to meet us, and we had the chance to meet his fellow student who comes from the town where my parents now live. Husband and I had interesting chat with him and his parents. The meal was lovely, the wine appropriate, the company good. After the meal, son gave us a tour of the college, before we wandered off to the covered market to pick up something interesting for supper. What luck! How nice.

It seems that the university is making new efforts to open itself to the world, so others can better understand it.