Two pink fairy bags and one blue Scooby Doo bag are ready to go in the hallway. Yes it's the end of the summer hols for us (they run from end of June here), and kids are going to school in the morning. Have mixed feelings about it, as we have had a pretty good time (although spent far too much money in cafes buying fizzy pop and chips), and despite the odd lurgy - finally succumbed to Kathmandu tummy last week and am fast approaching a size 10 again, hurrah - I have been an alright mum, way less shouty than in the UK. Still, I have plenty of ideas for what to do with my three hours spare time every morning, and they don't involve either shopping or going to coffee mornings, much to Hubby's relief. I did, however, make it to one coffee morning on Friday as it was one to welcome newcomers, which was nice, if a bit too formal for me (I'm not big on standing up in the middle of a circle of around thirty women and having my photo taken). The kids came too, and were little angels, far too busy eating the free cake and crisps on offer to bother even getting out of their seats or showing any interest in my inaugauration (not sure how to spell that one?) into the 'partners' club'. Managed to cut loose before the bingo started, using the kids getting bored as a pretext (although I think they would happily have sat there scoffing carbs for another hour or so). Friday was one big social whirl actually, with the welcome coffee morning and then a do in the mess in the evening. I have never been to an evening quite like this one before (although from what I'm told, I certainly will again - probably every month): the night kicked off with bingo (again! seems a bit of an obsession...), followed by some pretty tasty curry, although I made a bit of a cultural faux pas by joining the mens' queue for the food, when I should have eaten first with the ladies - although Hubby and I were too busy asking the Chief of Staff about being a buddhist (never really got an answer about how someone who believes so strongly in the sanctity of all life that he won't even squash a mosquito can happily spend his career as a colonel in the British army. A pretty big big contradiction, huh?) so I missed the call for the ladies' scoff. Afterwards there were some speeches where there was an inverse relationship between interesting content and length of monologue. And then, there was some really quite exciting Nepali dancing, where the dancers lip synched to some tinkly changly (yes i made that word up but if you'd heard it you'd know what i mean) folk tunes. The gist of the dancing seemed to suggest luscious young girls trying not to fall in love with grinning young lads. It was an interesting cultural experience for me, at least for the first half hour, but then I started to think that maybe if you've heard one tinkly changly tune with a gorgeous snake-hipped Nepali mouthing the words, then perhaps you'd heard them all. So Hubby and I did a tactical withdrawal. By this stage Hubby had quaffed a full three pints (fifty per cent more than on a usual night out!) and embarked on a long discourse with my Health Visitor, who also happened to be there, during which he remarked on our sex life at least five times. I will not be able to look her in the eye next time I pop in to discuss the children's vaccinations.

On Saturday he had a hangover, although he claimed to be grumpy merely because he had a cricked neck from sleeping oddly...

Today we escaped Kathmandu and drove up to a viewpoint resort in the hills. It was a beautiful view, but a really scary old precipitous Landrover drive to get there. I got attacked by a leech (and I had an attack of truly girly squeamishness whilst I poked it off with a stick and Dinesh gallantly trod on it) when we arrived, and there was some blood, so it had already started its lunch, the bugger. The view was a bit cloudy, but Hubby checked his super-dooper watch, which is also a barometer (and has several other very important functions, which I forget), and confidently predicted sunshine as the pressure was apparently going up. Shortly after this it started to rain in earnest, so we had lunch indoors with a great view of grey wetness. Oh, and my flip flops broke ( I only had them made a couple of weeks ago, so that was pretty pants), so I gingerly tip toed back to the Landrover afterwards in mortal fear of another leech attack. And then we had the journey back down the perilously slippy mountainside in the rain. 

But apart from that it was a pretty good day out - would do it again...maybe. Actually maybe not.