The Run up to Christmas

It's busy, busy here with loads of events during the run up to Christmas.

Last week I went on a Christmas Cookie Baking course! I'm sure we ate more than we should have especially the fudge pictured here with Debbie (who it turns out grew up 10 miles from me in the UK!)

This Monday Con sang with the Elementary School choir at the Tree Lighting ceremony at the Grand Hyatt. The choir sounded great and the tree looked amazing. We were very excited to see Santa come to Mumbai! He arrived in a rickshaw (cabriolet) as I think it is too hot here for reindeer.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw me at charity coffee mornings (how stereotypical) then Thursday was a trip to the supermarket and Friday a day at home trying to catch up paperwork before we go back to the UK for Christmas.

On Saturday we had Family Fun Day at the school. Like a school fayre, the children had various stalls set up and all proceeds from the day went to local charities. I spent a stressful half hour manning the indoor bouncy castle - all the time trying to restrict the number of children on the inflatable to a vaguely safe situation; shouting at children to stop climbing over the edge and trying to get children off after they'd had their allotted time. In the back of my mind I had the voice of Sarah, a statistician I used to work with who had trawled through figures for the NHS and knew that bouncy castles are the major cause of spinal injuries in children in the UK .....great.

Unfortunately on Friday night, our building experienced its first burglary. Someone scaled over the wall (easy, Ian has done it when he was locked out of the compound once) and then climbed onto the first floor balcony and broke in. Although very little was taken, the family there obviously feel vulnerable and shaken. We had a residents meeting today about ways to tighten up security. Lots of time was spent debating how to keep the security guards awake in the early hours of the morning, which I would say is an impossible task.

On Saturday evening we spent a lovely time with a group of friends celebrating Pat's 40th birthday. His birthday was a week ago and we spent it relaxing at our club playing croquet on the lawn! This Saturday we ate at the Italian restaurant in the Leela and I had imported Aberdeen Angus steak which was truly delicious. Apparently back bacon is in at Sante, a delicatessen in Bandra so I may well make a trip there this coming week. The Christmas decorations at the Leela were very opulent and the ones in out apartment don't look too bad either but on a rather pathetic scale. All in all I'm getting very excited about Christmas.