Glug! Glug! Chomp! Chomp! Giggles galore!

Yesterday I went to the Taj Connemara for lunch. Nothing unusual in that, you might think, except I had received an invitation addressed to ME. Not My Darling, not Mr and Mrs - just me. 'Come for lunch' it said, 'Sushi and Tequila'. I RSVP-ed that I would be there, but when I got up yesterday, I did not feel up to it. Have been feeling a little unsettled the last week or so. I told My Darling that I won't go, but he insisted. In fact The Ray spent the afternoon with her Dad just to make it easier for me to be footloose and fancy free!

I walked in feeling a little weird - not sure I would know anyone, not sure of the game plan, then being greeting by the staff there like a long lost friend and not recalling any one's names! Nightmare!
Anyway - I spotted 3 faces I knew, who were sitting at one table, in a room full of clucking women! Chennai's social elite was present, GM's of other hotels, wives of GM's etc. All women, all dressed up and all smiling!

I sat down and was presented with a margarita to smooth the way. Green apple to start. I decided I didn't care for the apple puree at the end. So they brought me a pomegranate one, an orange one, a lemon one and they kept on coming!! A small salad starter was served, and I caught up with the friends I was with.

The sushi platters were beautifully presented. Lucky for me I love sushi and know what most of the seafood is. Poor buggers who had no idea, or were sushi virgins, were all at sea with a bunch of fish!! (pardon the very obvious puns!!) The taste was fantastic.

Then came the shooters - ginger and Cinnamon, lemon, orange and plain - well how could I waste drinks that were poured already???!!! This was about the time that the tempura arrived. Yum Yum Yum! Prawn, calamari, unidentified fish and a variety of veggies. Dipping heavenly fried food in a scrummy sauce while starting to go numb around the teeth and tongue areas was a miracle of manual engineering! I can proudly say I did not spill anything! However suddenly almost anything anyone said was uproariously giggle-worthy! Great way to spend the afternoon with a whopping great big grin on your face!

Around 2pm, I started making leaving noises - needing to go to school and pick Nikh up. but the Thai food was whooshed onto our plates - who can resist a Thai chicken green curry and lemon rice? Not I!! the veggie curries were a little on the spicy side for me, but helped sober the lush up a little! I downed a glass of Pepsi with the vague idea of diluting the 80% proof shots that had been like bullets at a firing range repeatedly hitting the bullseye in the pit of my stomach!

I finally got up on wobbly legs, desperately needing to pee, at 3.20. Piled into the car and slept all the way to school! (poor driver - what must he have thought!)

I used to be derisive of the 'Margarita Mums' who literally rolled into school around 4pm every Friday (you know what Aussies are like - hee hee!!) and here I was doing exactly the same thing! Do you know how blisteringly bright the sun is across the AISC football pitch on a Friday afternoon?!

Some kindly, very amused and sympathetic mums bought me a large ginger tea with enough sugar to drop a bull elephant into a diabetic coma! But I have to say it almost did the trick! By the time I got home with Nikh at around 7pm, there was just a dull throb in the middle of my forehead and it's twin in the back of my head! No dinner for me! Just bed!! Hic! Hic! Snore!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ - or lack of!

I wonder what it is that makes me wake up after I have gone into the deepest sleep? I have nothing to think about, nothing to worry about and absolutely nothing to stress about - and yet I am awake at nearly 1am .... again!

Admittedly things are not going swimmingly at The Ray's main play place, and the sheer helplessness I feel about the goings on there are creating a knot in my tummy. But I know I have viable options should it all go to hell in a hand basket - and I am a believer in things being meant to be....

I miss my mum and dad and the Angel. I miss Lisa, Jen, Danie, Marcela, Ania, Asha, Patty, Aisling, Jane, and others too numerous to mention. I miss being able to go to the mall and just walk, walk, walk and then stop for a Starbucks hot choc with tonnes of whipped cream on top! I miss driving myself to the shops or to the club - I miss playing tennis everyday (or as often as!).

I feel so grateful that friends enter my life with such ease and I feel like a real Meany to still be yearning for those who have moved onwards and around the world-wards! But yearn I do! Does this needing and wanting and missing ever fade, I wonder?

I have been trying to wear myself out - I bounce! Yup literally bounce on an adult trampoline that sits just behind the sofa in the sitting room - so I can watch TV or listen to music etc with no-one turning back to look at me! OK this does not always work out when Nikh or The Ray try to join me! Chaos ensues! I have lost one one single gramme of weight - but I will continue my Tigger impression because I feel as though it is making a difference .. not that you can tell!!

What's New?

I just realised that my last post was the end of November! I had better get more organised about this blogging thing - I just never seem to be at the computer with enough time to get this written in addition to everything else!

Since I last wrote - Nikh had a Chef Party and turned 11. he had about 25 friends (girls and boys) at The Park for the most incredible, well planned and well organised 4 or 5 hours! The kids came in and were given a Chef hat to wear. I had aprons made for them and they all wore these. They all looked so very cute! They all cut out cookies and made sausage rolls which were sent to the back kitchen for baking. then they helped make the pizza dough and the cheese pasta dish. I loved the shock on the kids' faces when they realised quite how hot it is in an industrial kitchen! After this, they put toppings on the pizzas and started eating the pizza and pasta as soon as they were served. They fell upon the food like a ravenous pack of wolves! Anyone would think they had never been fed!
Then came some sweet stuff. They made fruit trifles, iced cookies and cupcakes with a lot of finger-licking and slurping their tongues around their lips! Icing was squished out of the bags, slopped on tables and floor and generally ingested all over the place!
The kids got a bag with a new and updated recipe book collated by Nikh and he had mixed up a choc chip oatmeal cookie mix which the kids could cook for themselves at home. All they had to do was add butter, mix and bake.
I think this is a business I could easily go into! All credit to the chefs galore at The Park who came together to create and execute this extravaganza!!

The Ray turned four a few weeks later and we ended up having her party at home in the garden. There were about 30 kids with siblings, parents, grandparents, maids, drivers etc making the total number about 70 or 80 people in our garden. We had also invited all our neighbours to come down and have tea and cake and they were sweet enough to come!
I had prepared 5 different 'make and do' activities for the kids - they had to decorate their goody bag, make a silver shaker, make a door hanger for their bedrooms, make a mask and a hat. I had tonnes of foam shapes (Thank Goodness for Hobbycraft's and Woolworth's sales!!), I had cut all the templates out - which goes against the grain, but the thought of scissors out with this much chaos was too traumatic for me! The Ray's friends had to make and decorate all the items and make them personal. Glitter glue went splattering everywhere, stickers, bindis, tattoos and marker pens were wielded with devilish imprecision! Parents were very good and helped their kids with each activity and then laid them out to dry on the goody bags in one corner of the garden.
Foodwise - all home cooked - hummus with crudites, tomato pasta, jam sammies, raspberry jellies, cheese sarnies, cut out cookies in 'R's, hearts, planes, circles and starts (all the Ray's fave shapes!), mini cupcakes with Winnie the Pooh sugar decorations attached and all the homemade lemonade we could guzzle! Samosas with chutney added in for the adults and a picnic feast was prepared! I have to say that I made 85 jellies and I was left with 7. Not bad going kids!!
Well, I am now on a downward spiral until my birthday - but no biggie!

Biren had his in London in December - at the end of this year he hit a big milestone - so I guess we will be planning and baking and cooking again nearer that time! My Dad turns 70 this year too (in Nov) so another big one coming up!

Now I am trying to sort out an amicable resolution to issues at The Ray's school - she was blissfully happy there until the last few days - she is learning tonnes there. the teachers are fantastic and their curriculum has evolved and developed over the years since Nikh went there into something really worthwhile. I am sure it will all work out in the end!

Meanwhile - my new year's resolution is to write a monthly newsletter about my family and try and get something on the blog everyday - boring though it might be!