Bath and Bristol

We visited the Bath spa on Friday night, meaning to buy a twilight session, but they were all booked up. So we had a shorter session and more expensive package and it was still good - especially the steam rooms with different aromas and heats and foot baths.

We ate Sally Lunn Bath buns for tea, which are something amazing - huge as a tea plate, but light as a fairy cake, and delicious with cinnamon butter - I'm glad we found that café.

We made a quick wander round the Roman Baths yesterday morning before visiting daughter. So I need to come back because there wasn't time to see everything.

Daughter's fine physically, intellectually, academically and socially - I think. She grumbled mildly about hall food and ate a splendid meal with us in a fish restaurant. We talked lots, and then husband drove us into the city where we explored shops like the new precinct, and bought a piece of jewellery that she'd seen. Husband showed us some of his old haunts so daughter knows even more shops to explore in the years that she is there.

Adrian's Monday in Ahmedabad

A little tenderly, I got up and we went out shopping with our host, K, as a guide. His mother-in-law had a range of womens clothes to see in her house (where some tame, if still fearful, monkeys came for peanuts).

Then we walked to a mens clothing shop to get some more goods to take home.

Monday shopping

It's siesta time (after 4 local time, nearly 11 at home) and we're in the hotel reading, writing and will say our 'goodbyes' this evening.

K picked us up this morning along with his Auntie Beris to go shopping for kurti (short tops) and kurtas (long tops). His mother-in-law sells them from her home, and we arrived to find choices of clothing already arranged on hangers in the sitting room. There were several of us women there, trying on various colours and sizes. I saw colours like turquoise that daughter would like, and wanted something for SD#2 too. Her father recommended a red one, and we will have to find out if it will fit her. I chose a turquoise blue cotton one with Hindu patterns on for daughter but they didn't really have anything small enough for her, and a blue one with Parsi markings for me, as well as a pair of trousers with lace round the base of the legs. I'd paid and we were about to leave, when M-i-L showed me a lovely black kurti with patterns including green. I tried it on, as she assured me that it would fit, but it was too tight round the arms, so I was about to discard it when I realised it is bound to fit daughter. So I got out my purse ...

Then K walked us up the road for about half a mile to a men's outfitters where husband bought himself a kurtus (a long one) and we got a blue one with special patterns on for son. K says he guarantees he will like it.

Then it was back to the compound for a cup of tea and a parsee cake made of dal paste - lovely - and to say goodbyes to a lot of the family, such as the little boys, the auntie, Z's sister, K's cousin, and even the servants, who were very friendly and kind. There were invitations to New Zealand where K lives, and to come back in 2010 for the younger boy's Navjote. I think we might come.