money, money, money

I just went into camp to cash a cheque in the admin office only to be told that 'Sorry, there's no money, ma'am'. I said no worries, and that I would go and cash the cheque in the bank on the High Street, which has an agreement with the Gurkha camp, only to be told that 'Sorry, there's no money there, either, ma'am'. It transpires that Nepal has run out of money. There's none to be had in the ATM machines or the banks and apparently people are having their credit cards refused as well (in the few places that accept cards). Bummer, huh? I am down to my last twenty five rupees (about 20p) as well, and we are supposed to be going on holiday to Pokhara tomorrow morning. Feeling a bit sad at the prospect of cancelling our little holiday jaunt. Have you ever known a country to run out of money? And here it's the equivalent of our Christmas holidays. It's like telling everyone on the day before Xmas eve that there will be no cash available until after Boxing Day. Can you imagine? Only in Nepal...

anarchy and mess

The housekeeper asked me to buy some floor cleaner the other day. I really meant to go, but got engrossed writing a scene and suddenly realised it was time to pick up Twin 2. As I drove past the supermarket, I couldn't help but notice that the car park was littered with broken glass, bricks and military police. So, we might have had to suffer a dusty floor for a couple of days, but at least I didn't get my head stoved in by rioting supermarket staff. So that's a good thing.

Hmm, what else has been going on? Oh, yes, we had that super-dooper fun-filled evening in the mess (maybe you saw the invitation I posted the other week?). As well as the really enticing invitation, which made the evening sound like a glorious night of fine dining and gorgeousness (yes, okay, it made it sound more like a school detention), there was also a two-page admin instruction that we received a few days prior to the event. There were ten points on the admin instruction for the event, which included details on how to pass the port correctly, dress code, etc. Point number ten was "It should be an enjoyable evening".

So, we were not only ordered to come to the event, we were also ordered to have a good time.

One of Hubby's colleagues was on duty that night, and therefore couldn't drink, so he elected not to come to the dinner. I heard the Deputy Cheif of Staff muttering that she hoped his absence would be reflected in the comments in his annual report. Luckily she doesn't actually write his report, or there probably would be some petty blather about him failing to attend a compulsory dinner.

Anyway, we went, and we had a good-ish time. I seem to remember that the invitation promised 'suitable entertainment' after the dinner. What was deemed to be suitable was, erm, standing outside next to the flower beds so that the smokers could go and have a fag and still be within earshot of the scintillating conversation (irritating yoga teachers, the difficulty of Nepali dancing and the problems of teaching your cook to make a decent cheescake, mostly - personally I'm not a big cheesecake fan, so I did glaze over a bit at this point).

I had one, brief, half-decent conversation with a retired half-colonel, who disagreed with the current government's policy on integrating the training package for the navy, army and air force (there are some bits of overlap between the forces). He thought they should all be trained separately to maintain individual corps ethos, and I thought it didn't really matter so long as they were all trained to the same level, and it was saving the tax-payer some money. Of course I was swiftly branded a 'Guardian-reader', and the conversation moved onto other things.

The good thing is that we went and tried to have fun (so far as this is possible), thus obeying orders.

I suppose what's so wierd is that out here we are utterly surrounded by anarchy (rioting supermarket staff, etc), which is why it's doubly odd to feel under such control by your Husband's employer.

Hubby has been asked to organise the next dinner night. I may suggest a Nepali theme: we all bring black flags, start shouting abuse at senior ranks, have a massive food fight and burn a few tyres in front of the mess.

I feel that would be entirely within keeping of the cultural sensitivities of Nepal at this time, and should make all the Gukha soldiers and their wives feel totally at home.

Feel I should write something tonight. Actually, think I might do a bit of light internet shopping instead (honestly, I have nothing to say - not that that makes any difference usually, I know). Today I spent what felt like forever, but was in fact two hours, at a fifth birthday party, and then I had to drive home (no driver), and then I had to cook supper (cook is off on compassionate leave because her husband is in hospital). We still haven't managed to recruit a gardener, either - feels like the world is falling apart around me. Hence need for retail therapy. Tootle pip x

yoga anger

Have to get this off my chest. I just walked out of yoga. The yoga teacher told us that yoga cures cancer within six months, and this is "fully scientific". For some reason I saw red. I was absolutely livid. Maybe its because I'd just seen on the news that Patrick Swayzee has just died of pancreatic cancer. I don't know. I tried to hang on in there and calm down, but then he started telling us that if we rub our left thumb it will improve our eyesight, or something. Now, I'm not anti complementary therapies at all. I have reflexology regularly to calm hormonal madness, and it does help. Telling me that yoga will reduce blood pressure, I could cope with, but telling me that it can cure cancer is just a load of rubbish. And I think what annoys me is that all of us will have our lives affected by cancer at some point, and nonsense like this just gives people false hope.

I'll go back to yoga again and if he can stay off the pseudo-scientific pontification and stick with the lotus position then I may start attending regularly again.

Surely yoga is supposed to calm you down, not make you angrier than a big slice of angry pie?

Canadians like to talk. A lot.

As a matter of fact, the dancing went quite well, since you ask (I think the triple whisky I downed just before going on stage was a factor in my performance). Show me a stage and I'll show you an exhibitionist - tragic really, but not as tragic as the make up and costumes we were forced to wear. Myself and my co-performer, who were, as you know, supposed to look like pure-hearted mountain girls, were got up to look like what can only be described as the love child of Danny La Rue and Widow Twankey in a seaside gypsy tent. Hubby said he has honestly never seen me looking quite so bad. And, given that he has been present at the births of all three of our children, that is a fairly damning statement. Anyway, the good news is that I managed to do the whole thing and didn't get one step wrong. I felt sick afterwards, though (the come down after the stage rush, I guess). Hubby's speech in Nepali went well, too, I think (I couldn't hear much of it as I was at that point locked in a dressing room and having blue eyeshadow and a fuscia pink head scarf forced upon me).

Not much happened over the weekend, although we did go for a grown-up meal out with the parents of Son's best friend from school. They were very nice development-type people. He is English and she is Canadian. Now, I have quite a bit of admiration for the Canadians because they have produced some tip-top writers over the years (Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and I'm sure lots more that I can't remember right now). I have only met a handful of Canadians personally (four, actually), so this may be a sweeping generalisation, but my goodness they can talk! Hubby, even when he hasn't had a few whiskys, can usually sneak in the odd anecdote about his time on the tanks, or some random yachting yarn, I think managed one sentence. In fact, I think we managed a sentence each (I had to interrupt to get mine in). His was: "So how was your last posting?" Mine was "Good job your leg wasn't eaten by a bear!"

I think we were at the restaurant for around three hours - still, you can fill in the blanks yourselves.

Anyway, it's a school day tomorrow, and Hubby has just reminded me that he's up at five thirty for a run (and good for him), so I should go.

Nightie night xxx

Pure hearted mountain girl, my arse!

Still contemplating an attack of 'swine flu' to get me out of Nepali dance thing tomorrow night, although I somehow feel that I'd be letting everyone down if I did. We have a dress rehearsal in the morning, yikes.

It feels that all I have done this week is dance. I have been dreaming wierd Nepali dance moves.

In Nepali dance you're supposed to lip-synch to the song whilst you're dancing, but my Nepali language skills are only marginally better than my dance ones, so that's out of the question. Apparently I'm supposed to be singing something like this:

I don't need expensive blouses

I don't need silk saris

I don't need nose rings or earrings

I'm just a cute little girl from the mountains

I'm a pure hearted country girl who will never leave my mother land...

blah blah blah (but in Nepali, natch).

Now bear in mind that this will be performed by two middle-aged English women. Hilarious, eh (except for me and the other expat wife involved)?

I'm not sure whether all popular Nepali songs are as ridiculously sentimental as this, but anyway, the lyrics are a big fat lie because if you offered any pure-hearted country girl in Nepal a visa and a flight to the UK, she'd be off like a shot, as the UK is shortly to find out once its inundated by throngs of ex-gurkha families, thanks to La Lumley:

I don't need blouses or saris, I do need TK Maxx and an out of town retail outlet, etc...

dance dyslexia

I am so far out of my comfort zone that I want to cry. No, really, I do. I have rather rashly agreed to do a dance for Hubby's work Deshain (Nepali Xmas equivalent) do. Ho, Ho, I thought, that will be a laugh, forgetting, of course, that dancing requires an element of hand-eye co-ordination and flexibility, neither of which I possess, at all. The dance teacher was really lovely, but it's like I have a kind of 'dance dyslexia'. It just takes me right back to PE at school (except that our fat-bottomed, moustachioed PE teacher wasn't nearly as nice as this Nepali girl). The last time I felt like this was when I was on exercise with the TA. That made me want to cry as well. I always thought that the feeling was down to the bad karma of handling a killing machine, but I now realise that it was just utter frustration with my own physical inadequacies.

However, it does make me even more proud of Twin 2, though, for whom just learning to walk was the equivalent, for her, of learning a very complex Nepali dance.

I'm torn between just grizzing it out, and having a couple of swift drinks on the night to give me courage, or just wimping out right now. I'm not sure if, even with a couple of pegs of whisky inside me, I can face the humiliation!

I am off to sob into my soup now.

waiting for brownie

I'm waiting for some chocolate brownies to cook. I have to provide something for both "The Big Brew" (a charity fundraising thing on camp) and a PTA tea party on Friday. I am so useless at that kind of thing that even with plenty of help from Betty Crocker (ie. I bought a packet mix, so only had to add water), my muffins were sloppy and lacklustre. I blame this partly on cooking at high altitude (no, really, you have to set your oven to a higher temperature and add extra flour) and also my US cup to fluid ounces conversion: the chart said that one cup was equivalent to half a pint or eight fluid ounces. Well, which is it? Because on my jug half a pint is more than eight fluid ounces by some not inconsiderable amount. In the end I just guessed. Which is probably why the muffins are more just puffy pancakes, really. I hope the brownie does a bit better. I have high hopes for the brownie because they are acceptable in a variety of consistencies - some people like them cakey, and some prefer squidgy. I guess if they don't work either then I can mush the whole lot up with some melted chocolate and call them 'high altitude truffles' or something. Anyway, I'm sure no-one will care, it's just that my lack of domesticity gives Hubby ammunition for mickey-taking. But when was the last time he baked anything, hmmm? It's been a good twelve years since the last treacle tart, and I always thought that was a bit on the gungy side.

Hopefully it's cooked now...oops actually, I think I might smell burning...

send in the fun police

I just wanted to share this with you. It's an invitation to the next BGN function. Now, is it me, or does this invite just suck the fun right out of it?

Subject: Release-authorised: 20090828-U-LADIES GUEST NIGHT SAT 19 SEP 09-BGK 11202

Sirs et all,

1. The Kathmandu Mess will be holding a Ladies Guest Night on Sat 19 Sep 09. The night will take the form of a formal dinner night followed by suitable entertainment.

2. Attire for the evening will be Summer Mess Kit or Black Tie and Saree/Long Dress for the Ladies. Single pers can bring a partner but please do notify Mess Secretary with his/her details. All members are to be at the Mess for 1900hrs.

3. Please be informed that this function is a “3 Line Whip” hence nil return required. Mess members who are unable to attend due to unavoidable situation are requested to submit their non-attendance to the PMC by Wed 16 Sep 09 at the latest. Thank you//

surprise discovery past

I'm going out for lunch today, which means missing out on Nepali lesson. Shame! And we've been learning a new tense as well - the surprise discovery past tense. This is a tense specifically for when you discover something that happened in the past, but you've only just found out about it. For example, "Oh, look, the dog did a poo behind the sofa yesterday!" or "Oh, you have syphilis, you must have had an affair!"

I'm sure it will come in very handy when I am taking taxis or telling the housekeeper how Hubby would like his shirts ironed.