oops!

The scales are back in the gym. It's not good news, I'm afraid. Furthermore, I have accidentally invited the whole of foundation class to the Twins' birthday party on Saturday (not just the girls, as I'd planned), so I am currently chubby (although I might try taking my shoes off next time, to lose the odd pound or so), scared (of having to entertain 24 five-year olds for two hours), and still depressed (with my failed novelist status).

I'm now off to buy more party bags and sweets...

bugger!

Gutted! Manuscript sent back with red pen all over it. Not literally - in fact it was several pages of critique telling me exactly where I did everything wrong. Somewhat depressing, but hey. I'm trying to tell myself that if I can manage to do a Nepali dance in front of one hundred-odd locals, then surely writing another, better book isn't beyond me. I have put the manuscript under the bed. Hubby quite wisely told me that I should incorporate all the constructive crit (and there was a lot of it!) into the new book, and revisit the last one when I'm less emotionally attached to it (ie. don't burst into tears every time I look at it).

So I need to get back on the horse, as it were.

One thing the reviewer said was that I should think about whether or not I really want to write romance, and I think she has a point. I'm not sure I really do.

So anyhow, here's the pitch for the new book:

"When twin sisters Ria and Vee discover a family secret, it takes them on a journey that will change their lives forever..."

Or something like that. What do you think? It's not about girls and boys kissing or anything!

quality time with Hubby

Hubby made it to the new cafe (although only after he'd been into the office so that he could syncronise the new phone with his work computer). As I expected he played with new phone throughout the happy family time we were having, eating cup cakes and drinking iced chocolate. When I mentioned this to him, he denied it. No, he said, I've just taken a photo of my lovely wife. I replied that he'd taken the photo with the new phone just so that he could check out the digital pics application, to which he had no response. After we got back from the cafe he was ill with unspecified rear end issues, and had to go to bed until supper time. So much for a day off with the family, then. I'm sure he will be well enough to go to work tomorrow!

beach tastic!

A beach on a river, of course!

It took us a whole two hours to get there. We had to go all the way out of the Kathmandu valley and through to the other side. It's a bit of river where they dredge for building sand. We had to do a bit of off-roading to get there, and ford the river (of course I whooped and yelled 'yeah, baby, off roading to the max!' as we did so. No, of course I didn't, who do you take me for? Oh, okay, I did whoop a little bit, but I didn't say the other bit. Definitely not).

All of Kathmandu with children under the age of nine were there, or so it seemed. Five four-by-fours anyway, all crammed with hot, sticky kids just desperate to go and try to drown themselves in the river.

What fun we had.

Then the sky went dark and it got all windy and all of a sudden we were the only vehicle left and someone had nicked our best sand toys but left a pair of red shoes, so we scooted off too. The approaching storm chased us all the way from the beach, and now we are trapped in an echo chamber of thunder back here in Kathmandu.

Gary is looking doleful and wishing he were small enough to hide under the sofa. Sadly for him, he's not small enough to hide under anything, so he's sat on the rug looking scared instead.

Why are dogs afraid of storms? I was wondering whether he thinks its the ghost of some previous owner come back in giant form to give him a kicking for stealing a biscuit.

Gary is scared. So too is Sunil the tailor, who was summoned by Hubby to sort out his uniform in time for the Queen's birthday next week. Hubby was, well, curmudgeonly, at best, and Sunil is not the most robust of characters. Anyway, I expect Hubby's uniform will get done on time, but only if Sunil has the courage to set foot over our threshold again.

The reason he's grumpy is that he has a new (very expensive and shiny) gadget. I thought it would make him happy - expensive, shiny things generally make me happy - but it hasn't. In fact, I think his new phone is like a wayward young mistress (sorry, don't have the energy to follow this analogy through, something about being attractive, but not what he's used to...).

I have to stop writing now as the room is swaying. I'm still blaming the wierd post-flight middle-ear issue. Yes, I am, because I have only had half a glass of sparkling wine, honest.

Tonight is Nepali New Year and tomorrow Hubby has the day off work. The plan is to take the kids out for exciting cup cakes in exciting new cafe I discovered. However, I expect I will take the kids out and Hubby will stay at home wrangling with his new appliance.

Ho Hum. Must go xx

We are off to the beach tomorrow (minus Hubby). I know! In landlocked Nepal! How is that possible? I'll have to tell you tomorrow...

home sweet home

Back from HK. Hubby in Pokhara with his secret dwarf wife. Or attending a leaving do for a colleague. Either: you choose. Personally I prefer the dwarf wife option - he's always had a bit of a gnomic streak, so it would make perfect sense for him to choose bigamy with a pygmy. Anyhow, whatever the reason, he is not here, which is why I'm alone in the living room with a large spritzer and some leftover fried liver (sounds grim but actually jolly tasty, but perhaps I am just vitamin B deficient and that's why I crave liver, spinach and chickpeas).

So, yes, here we are back in Kathmandu.

There was a survey thing in the Economist the other week which rated the world's cities according to quality of life. I'm not sure how many cities there are in the world, but we came fifth from bottom. Which is not surprising, as things are pretty grim outside the wierd expat bubble we inhabit. Apparently Vancouver came top. Not sure where Hong Kong was, but it must be near the top, as things do actually work there and it's not at all scary (not once during our week did I worry about civil unrest, being run over by an adolescent on a motorbike or dog poo, which I have to say was a welcome respite from day-to-day life here).

However, it is still good to be home. Especially as Meena is trying to mollify me and as a result making things that actually taste nice (although as I said that might just be my vitamin deficiency kicking in). Before I went away I asked her to come in one day whilst we were on holiday and clean the kitchen. She didn't. I was just a bit irritated by this, not really angry, but it came on top of having some wierd middle-ear-thing as a result of flying, which meant that on the morning after we got back I felt as if I was at sea in a force seven, so I just wasn't very happy when I told her she really needed to clean the fridge and the microwave please. She's been trying to get into my good books ever since (cocoa biscuits with white chocolate topping: yum, yum!). And I've been to the doctors to get a prescription for travel sickness tablets. The thing is, they don't entirely work, so I do still feel a bit, well, tipsy, a lot of the time - everything is swaying gently - but without the giddy euphoria or desire to sing karaoke (shame!).

Kids have their friends for a sleepover, so we have two eight-year-olds and three four-year-olds crammed into the Twins' room. It's not even half-past eight and it's pretty quiet already, so I think I'm almost safe to have another spritzer and put on a DVD. The only problem is that I have only got sad DVDs left unwatched. I have one about a widower with two kids coping with his wife's death, and one about a Japanese dog coping with his owner's death, and I don't think I can cope with either of them. So I might have to watch yet another episode of Mad Men, in which you end each episode wondering quite what enthralled you for the last forty-five minutes or whatever. It's quite oddly addictive. There are almost no sympathetic characters in it, apart from the hard-done-by wife and the hard-done-by secretary (I think the writers are women). The men are all amoral at best. And yet somehow it's compelling - but that might just be because I have nothing else to watch (a bit like me suddenly finding Meena's cooking as tasty as you fancy).

Does anyone have any ideas for good DVDs or box sets (preferably not of the coping-with-death-of-a-loved-one variety)?

Aha...it is now completely quiet upstairs so I am off to the pre-feminist dystopia of New York in the early 1960s. Night x

Hong Kong

Here we are in HK. Nearly didn't make it as Son developed a mystery virus just as we were due to leave. When our airport car drew up he was lying in a ball on the sofa, moaning and shaking, with a stupidly high temperature. So instead of driving to the airport, we drove to the medical centre, and called out the pediatrician, who, fortunately pronounced him fit to fly. By the time we reached Hong Kong his fever had miraculously abated and he was his usual (sweet, fidgety, pedantic, impatient) self.

We're staying in the Marriot Sky City, which I think is intended for pilots and business people. We do lower the tone somewhat, a family of scampering guttersnipes, quarrelling about who gets to press the button on the lift. However, we have solved the whole breakfast issue by upgrading to use the Executive Suite, which means we get all-you-can-eat breakfast, free drinks and biscuits all day and free canapes at six (yes, of course this means free supper for us tightwads - I'm entirely comfortable with my children having mini-spring rolls and samosas for their tea, thanks).

At the moment Hubby is watching a sad war film on the telly, which I really can't face. I want to keep the whole magical Disney moment alive as long as possible and not spoil it with life's harsh realities. Ooh, yes, we went to Disneyland yesterday, and it was fab, worth every single one of the many, many pennies it cost. Today we went to the Peak, which wasn't fab at all; it was immersed in cloud and blowing a hoolie - felt more like Scotland than Asia.

Tomorrow we might go to the park and then watch a family film at the cinema. Now I know that doesn't seem worth going all the way to HK to do, but we can't do things like that in Kathmandu...I can't tell you how much of a treat it is to be somewhere where it's clean and things work, and the roads aren't full of potholes, and people in shops and hotels are helpful and don't just look at you in a vaguely resentful way for wanting to spend your money in their establishment. I love Nepal, I do - but it is so good to be away from the developing world for a little bit.

Anyway, I think Hubby's sad film is nearly over, so I think I'll go now.

Take care xxxx