Explanations

From yesterday, I'll make a bit more sense of what we did!

1. It was the parent-teacher meeting at the nursery. I wasn't really able to give any majorly useful insights into the students but did find it really helpful to meet the parents and understand what stage their children were at and what areas I should focus on with regards to language etc.

2. It's the Dusserha holidays next week, we have a couple of training days, then we're off till the 18th. Ollie's supervisor is going away on Friday so we decided to go to Goa, as you do. It's the sort of holiday I never thought I'd go on, but I'm really excited about it. We're taking a sleeper bus and should arrive (relatively) refreshed on Saturday morning all ready to hit the beach! We've booked a nice little guest house with a balcony near Anjuna Beach and will have a week in a tropical paradise before heading back on another sleeper bus on the 16th.

3. I've had some silk yarn on order from Mint Fabrics for a while, and finally got to go to the shop, or rather the front room of someone's house to confirm the order and pick up another few bits and pieces. The shop is on the 3rd Main Road in SBM Colony in Anand Nagar. This would be fairly easy to find if the Main Roads made any sense. Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that doesn't really happen in India so while there seem to be three or four 3rd Main Roads, what is actually going on is that there are three or four bits of 3rd Main Road. So you have 3rd Main Road No's 1-40, 3rd Main Road No's 41-58, 3rd Main Road No's 59 - 112 and so on. Our rickshaw driver got hopelessly lost and had to get out and ask for directions several times. We found it eventually and I'm pleased to say I didn't spend too long eyeing up lovely things.

4. Coming back from Anand Nagar was as interesting as going there. We strolled around a little, pleased to get the opportunity to stretch our legs without having to worry about being mown down by a Tata lorry then decided to grab a rickshaw. Our driver quoted us Rs 200 to take us back to the ISI, which is actually pretty damn reasonable. Then he chatted to someone on the way and changed his mind and asked for Rs 350. We got out and told him we'd get another one, so he changed his mind again and asked for Rs 250, going back to being pretty reasonable. We got back in and while he was driving us home kept turning round and asking me (never Ollie, for some reason) for Rs 300. "Long way madame, long, long way" was the reasoning. Call me heartless, but the ISI didn't move while we were out shopping, and that coupled with being extremely tired made me rather intolerant of the way rickshaw drivers constantly ask for more money. He was told again, and again, and again, and yet again, that we'd agreed on Rs 250 and we weren't paying any more. After an hour of this I was really starting to lose my rag, so when we pulled up at the bottom of the hill at the ISI, and he predictably turned round and asked for more money, he got the full Teacher Voice and a stern finger and was told in no uncertain terms that he'd agreed to Rs 250 and that he'd better have change. Bizarrely, he flagged someone down, got the Rs 50 change and handed it to Ollie without a word. I'm getting better at dealing with rickshaw drivers, it seems...

5. We'd noticed a few Dominos takeaways on our travels round Bangalore and after a week of, admittedly very good, curry we were both craving something a little more Western. I do love the food here, and Ollie's in his element, but it's nice to have something familiar every now and then. After a couple of tries, Ollie managed to order a couple of pizzas and that, along with a couple of mugs of beer completely made my night!

6. We don't have a bottle opener yet, a spoon and a great deal of determination works just as well...