Life drawing wasn't. I got there and there were loads of 18-year-olds drawing plaster casts of feet and copying things from art books. I'd brought along one of my drawings, which the art teacher first asked whether I'd copied and then proceeded to criticize. Anyway, they've got exams coming up and then it's the Desain holiday so I will start in about a month or so, and I'm already nervous about it.

Scary lights came on on the Landrover dashboard this morning, and given my experience earlier this year, I asked Bishu Ram to drive to camp immediately to ascertain the problem. Turns out it's not a big deal, and we've ordered a spare part now. So I forwent a whole hour when I could have been sipping latte and writing to hang about in the camp workshop.

The writing is going slowly, but okay: so far this week my heroine has discovered her grandmother's body, gone to her brother's funeral and discovered that her boyfriend has a pregnant wife. She is also about to get caught in a major earthquake, bless her. All this and it's only Wednesday. It's happened because I reached a bit of an impasse, so decided to write all the key scenes this week, which is very exciting. I was crying when I wrote the bit about her brother's funeral (I am a bit hormonal this week, mind you, so this is no guarantee of the quality of writing, merely that I am a bit of a sap).

Hubby is in Pokhara tonight, quite possibly sampling the delights of the dancing dwarfs. Oh, which reminds me...there was a 'bhund' (like a kind of strike/protest) this week in Thamel, which is the touristy part of Kathmandu. All the dancers and bar girls were out in force to show their anger at the new Home ministers decision to make all the bars and clubs shut at 11pm. It's such a country of contradictions. There's this atmosphere of cheery anarchy everywhere, and yet underneath it all, everyone is as militant as 1970s miners. Can you ever imagine strippers and lap dancers going on strike or out on the streets protesting in the UK? And bhunds like this can happen for all manner of strange things. Apparently earlier this year, Nepali businessmen called a bhund just to protest against the amount of bhunds that had been happening.

And another thing. Today was the day we should have blessed the tools. All the local workmen should have done puja (bringing flowers, food, etc.) on their tools. We forgot to bless our car. Maybe that's why the ABS has given up on us, if we'd heaped the bonnet with rice and marigolds we could have saved ourselves a hundred quid plus labour.

Sunil the tailor was supposed to come round tonight. I'm quite glad he didn't. I've been eating for NATO recently and it would have been quite embarrassing to try on the evening dress I've ordered and then have to send it back to be taken out. I must remember not to eat much supper on Friday when he comes back.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now to write the next bit in the book (where she discovers that she's pregnant by her married-with-a-pregnant-wife ex-boyfriend but she's now in love with someone else. Poor girl, I'm really putting her through the ringer).

TTFN xxxx