Friday was thrilling. Not only was there the class assembly (I noticed they cynical mum behind me had brought her soduku in with her). Son remembered his two sentences, and almost remembered to say them in the right order. We were Proud Parents (didn't cry though). Then, his twin friends came round for the first ever Sleepover. We had egg and chips and running and screaming and trifle and chocolate crispies and more running and screaming until about nine o'clock, by which time they'd all conked out in one room. The Twins were just beside themselves with the excitement of having their big brother and his two friends sleeping on their floor. Hubby very sensibly worked late that night and only got home in time to read them all a story and say goodnight. Odd how the fullness of his in-tray seems to coincide with the number of visitors to our house...

Just a quickie. Have had more than half a pint, so this may be somewhat incoherent. Just got back from my second 'do' of the week - life really is one gay old social merry-go-round in British Gurkhas Nepal. Unfortunately at all these (oddly Groundhog Day-ish as they all revolve around speeches and dahl bhat) events, I just seem to get into an interesting conversation with someone when there is a terribly important announcement/speech/dance/bingo/raffle. At least have managed to have a brief chat with a couple of Gurkha wives now so feel marginally less culturally estranged. Sort of...

Last night we had Teej party for all the wives, where we all got to wear our red saris and bindis, just to prove we were married. I think we are also supposed to wash our husband's feet as well, but i skipped that bit. Also my bindi fell off and my sari kept exposing my bra strap - so I feel I'm not a terribly good wife, in Hindu terms anyway. The highlight of the Teej party was the raffle, which had great prizes like a pair of mugs with Mickey Mouse on them, and a box of Ferraro Rocher. The whole thing was set up like some surreal game show, with lots of whooping and clapping whenever a number was called. Incredibly, I actually won a prize. And, yet more incredible, was that it was a lovely black bead choker, which I think I will wear lots. So thumbs up for Teej - think I will make the effort to go again next year.

Tomorrow Son has his first class assembly, which we are all very excited about. He has been practising his two sentences all week. I am expecting to be very proud, and possibly tearful, at around quarter past two tomorrow afternoon.

Don't think there are any functions scheduled next week, which will be very strange and a bit awkward, because it will mean there's nothing to talk about to the people who you don't have anything to talk about to (does that make sense?). I'm sure someone will invent some special occasion over the weekend, to which we will be obliged to attend. Hubby is starting to tire of them as they are really quite samey, but at the moment I'm quite happy to pop out for a beer and a curry in my high heels every week. Tragic - I'm such a cheap date!

The whole class rep thing went ok, in the end - a houseful of small manic people and slightly awkward parents (or maybe that was just me). There was plenty of cake eating, punctuated by the wierd "...and who are you with?" question (the answer seemed to be mostly DfID). I have promised to organise something without children next time, which will be even scarier, as I won't have the excuse of random nappy changing in order to escape. Hubby managed to miss the whole shebang (that doesn't look right - not sure how to spell it) by working late, until all the little darlings had gone home. So Friday ended ok. We had elected not to go to the pirate fancy dress party in the mess, which somehow didn't appeal (probably because we are antisocial killjoys).

Saturday we did nothing at all, except going for a swim on camp and forcing the children to have an afternoon sleep so that we could have one, and so that we could eat out in the evening. Hubby drove (Dinesh's day off) for the first time. He said it was 'fine' - I'm not sure all the random Nepali pedestrians, dogs and bike riders who were forced to fling themselves into the gutter to escape our battered Landrover would agree. Anyway, we made it to the cafe ok. Unfortunately we had the least patient waiter I have ever encountered, who decided that the 'babies' should have mashed potato and that Saheb should have a beer, before our bottoms had barely brushed the seats. Twins decided that as they are now big (three year old) girls, that they were far too old for mashed potato. And I'm happy to say that Hubby declined the beer option in favour of a coke (good news for other road users on the hairy mc scary journey home too - he needs to remember his driving glasses next time; it's not enough not to be inebriated, you have to actually be able to see). Afterwards we listened to some live music outside and looked at the fairy lights, which Son pronounced beautiful. So a pretty good Saturday, really. 

On Sunday, we felt we really had to 'do' something, as Dinesh was in work again (thankfully). So we decided to try Kathmandu Durbar Square, which is where all the old temples and palaces etc, are in the middle of town. It sounded pretty good in the guide book, but what we hadn't realised was that it was not pedestrianised, so we were trying to gaze in awe at the beautiful carvings and architecture, whilst simultaneously whisking three small children out of the way of speeding motorbikes and manic rickshaws. A bit like trying to appreciate Exeter cathedral in the middle of the M25. So not ideal. To escape from the madness, we went back to the Garden of Dreams for lunch. The Garden is this lush, exotic oasis, full of water features and with a great cafe. Son decided to do a bit of exploring before lunch. I'm not entirely sure whether he was being a space hero or an alien attacker, but he ended up at the bottom of an ornamental pond. We all tried very hard not to laugh. Actually, the waiters didn't try too hard - suppose it's not every day that a small blonde boy hurls himself off the marble colonades and into the drink. He took it quite well, really, although there was much muttering about cold knees for the rest of the afternoon.

Anyway, should go, Hubby needs to do something important with this computer and a memory stick. xxx

Feeling very glum as I have lost my fountain pen. Also have hideous stomach cramps. Would like to huddle in a pitiful ball but as the pre-school class rep I am hosting a play date for twenty little tykes this afternoon, and their parents - Meena has been baking chocolate chip cookies all week - so I am not allowed to be gloomy or ill. Cannot whip up the enthusiasm for writing the book this morning without my pen, either. I have looked everywhere. Gutted. Well, I'm off to the loo now, and depending how that goes, I'm off to the med centre as well. Just thought I'd share that with you...

We did make it to the non-monkey temple, which was amazing, and actually far nicer without the glaring and somewhat scary monkeys. Think I might have got ripped off in a tourist shop by paying 900 rupees for skirts for Twins and myself and Hubby and I had a little spat in the car regarding my useless haggling skills. Until we realised that we were arguing about whether I paid seven pounds or eight pounds for the skirts, which isn't much, either way. On the way back we went to pick up a leather skirt I've just had made, which is lush and all the kids fell asleep in the car, missing an interesting sight of lots of Lady Boys in fancy dress - or maybe that's how they usually dress - in rickshaws. Dinesh told us that the procession was because it was 'Cow Day' or something, but his (limited) English and our (even more limited) Nepali didn't lead to any further explanation. I can only begin to wonder why men wearing make up and high heels swanning about in bicycle-powered vehicles has anything to do with the deification of cows...

In the evening one of Hubby's colleagues came over with ice cream (hurrah) and regaled us with tales from her extraordinarily tangled love life. She also told me that there's a wives' trip to Calcutta (Kolkata?) planned for November, which got me all excited, until I realised that the sole purpose of the trip is to go to Marks and bloody Spencer  to get Christmas stuff. Pul-ease! Surely there must be better reasons for flying to Calcutta than visiting Marks & Spencer?

Last night I got invited round to someone's house to watch three-month old episodes of Coronation Street (on video) - which is not quite as tragic as flying to India to get English gravy and stuffing, but is still a bit mad. Still, the company was lovely and so was the wine and chocolate, so I may be tempted to become a Corrie fan, just while we're in Nepal, you understand.

Went out today with Sanu, our housekeeper, to buy a sari for Teej. I'm chuffed because the trip took half an hour and my sari is about half the price of anyone else's. Very efficient. And I'm sure nobody will know that the beading on mine was done by machine and not by hand. 

Oops Snow White has finished, time to do bed time...

Sounds like we're living in a waterfall; monsoon rains barrelling it down. Hope weather is better in Blighty for friend's wedding, which I'm pretty sad to be missing. 

Saturdays out here are like Sundays in the UK. The big shops are open, but it's nominally a day of rest. Our great plan was to go to the Patan museum this morning, as we can walk there from our house (Dinesh doesn't work on a Saturday) - not for the history lessons and artefacts, you understand, but because it has a great cafe and clean toilets. But it started to rain, which actually was a good thing as kids are so exhausted after their very exciting first week at school, and furthermore Hubby is grumpy because they woke us up at five thirty this morning and he still has a cricked neck,  that it would probably have turned into a bit of a nightmare. Right now, sixty per cent of the family are asleep (Hubby and twins), Son is watching DVD so the monsoon is a good thing, for preventing us from thinking that we have to go out and do something, and allowing us all to droog about instead. Have plans to go and see another temple tomorrow, a bit like the monkey temple, but without the monkeys. Kids seemed a bit underwhelmed at the prospect of a temple without monkeys, but we'll give it a go. 

Hubby has just rearranged the living room (which made Son cry because in the process he destroyed a special secret hiding place between the coffee table and the sofa - think when I've finished bringing up kids I should work for the UN because there was almost as much diplomacy involved in sorting that debacle out as there was earlier on when Twin 1 destroyed Son's special secret mountain of cushions), which handily enough has left a great expanse of floor space, just begging for a nice big Tibetan rug. I also need to go and buy a red sari for Teej; I'm not entirely sure what Teej is, but I do know that I have to have a red sari for it, and everyone else has already bought theirs. I'm hoping that it will involve some booze and tasty Nepali snacks. Must go, there is a bottom that needs wiping (not mine)...

We are currently car-less. Dinesh, our driver, waited until after our trip down the muddy hairpin bends in the pouring rain on Sunday to tell us that the brakes are shot. And there's a leak in the fuel tank. And the oil tank too. So I had to pick the girls up from school by taxi (no seat belts, natch; luckily, thanks to cows, dogs and lack of pavements, the traffic is pretty slow and congested so I think they would survive a prang). 

Whilst the girls were at school this morning I went on a little organised trip round our local hospitals, just to see where we'd go if something happened. They actually weren't nearly as scary as I'd thought - not much more dilapidated than your average NHS hospital can be. And I saw people actually cleaning the floor with what certainly smelled like disinfectant. Apparently, in terms of the clinical side, they are pretty good, it's just the other stuff which can be lacking, such as screens for privacy etc. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the twins (who both seem blissfully unaware of their physical limitations and attempt stupidly ambitious physical feats at the drop of a hat) manage to stay out of hospital for the next two years. Son is thankfully somewhat more cautious, although I can imagine him thinking about something very interesting (the other day at breakfast he asked, "Mummy, what happened before the Big Bang", for example) and walking out in front of a big truck/rickshaw/cow.

The one worrying thing was at the hospital closest to us we were shown the 'disaster point', where we should muster post-earthquake, which got me thinking about the whole horrendous natural disaster thing all over again. I spoke to the doctor about it all, whose son is in the Twins' pre-school class, and she was distinctly un-reassuring, saying that after having seen photos of the recent chinese earthquake she thinks we're basically done for. Good oh!

Son said his first day at school was 'fantastic' and twins are in love with Miss Susan, so nobody is missing the summer holidays at all - least of all me; I spent a lovely morning in a cafe planning a novel (although because I've got lots of time, the plot is rapidly becoming more tangled and dense than Gary-the-dog's fur), and after lunch I went out for a spot of reflexology. I'm shattered now! 

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.

I know, it's been a while...power cuts are partly to blame (even though we have lap top and our own generator, the internet gets cut off at the same time) also Hubby seems to have been hogging the computer a bit. But anyway, here I am, fresh from surfing ebay for silver watches - I am hoping to get a cheap one that I can take to a jeweller here and get customised. I have really got sucked into the whole shopping thing, although luckily as kids still on holiday, there are limits to how much I can do. However, I did manage to order a leather skirt today and get some fabulous green satin for making a new evening dress, despite three-way handbrake. As a thank you to the kids for traipsing across town to the leather shop with me (the traffic was so bad that even our fab new car game 'pink umbrella'* got a bit boring) I decided to take them all out for cake and pop at a lush place called Barbarmahal (who I always thought was a cartoon elephant from a kids book, but it turns out is a tourist trap in Kathmandu) Revisited (I'm not sure why it's called Barbarmahal Revisited... revisiting what? Like Brideshead Revisited? never read it, but I do know it has a teddy called Sebastian Flyte in it - my facility for hoovering up trivia is pretty good - think if we ever settle anywhere I should organise pub quizzes in my local, with lots of questions on eighties indie bands and toys from literature). Anyway, it's a lush place with shops and cafes built in the courtyards of an old palace, with some yummy cakes on the menu of one particular place, which I was sure the children would love. So I forked out what in Nepali terms is probably the equivalent of about one weeks wages on a snack for my well-fed and overprivileged offspring, who pushed it round their plates and asked to go home. It was hard not to get irritated (and in fact I did), when there are people here who are genuinely hungry, and the food we eat is wildly extravagant in comparison to the usual local dish of dahl and rice. Next time kids can just have a banana in the car and be grateful!

Oh yes, one of the reasons I haven't written for so long is that we spent one evening preparing our 'go bags' in case there is an earthquake. We now have two rucksacks, which we keep in the hallway at home or they come out in the car with us, just in case. Apparently Nepal has not had a major eathquake since 1934, and as they usually come round every sixty years or so, we are way overdue. So, if we're out on yet another shopping trip  - not to Barbarmahal as I'm not going there again with kids - and the worst happens (massive earthquake, roads and Bagmati Bridge destroyed), we can at least camp in the Landrover until help arrives. Dinesh, our driver, thinks it's hilarious that I insist the bags are in the car whenever we go out, but we'll be the ones laughing (actually, we probably won't, we'll by crying hysterically along with the rest of the citizens of kathmandu) if it actually happens. We have a torch and spare clothes and shoes and a sleeping bag. We have enough food for around two days. It's only baked beans and boiled sweets, but kids will probably love it, beanz and sweetz and no cleaning teeth, hurrah. I'm trying not to think about the whole major earthquake thing too much because it is a big scary old thing, which frankly scares the beejesus out of me. 

* pink umbrella game is: five points for spotting a dog, ten for a cow, fifteen for a goat, twenty for a monkey and five for a pink umbrella. On a trip to a temple last weekend, we split into two teams, and the girls and boys teams both scored one hundred and fifteen points by the time we arrived. Which gives a fairly accurate idea of what the streets in kathmandu are like.