Pre-monsoon, my bottom

Hubby isn't home yet and my stomach is making earthquake noises. So hungry! Will he ever come home (and why am I so hungry? I had a cheese and ham sandwich at ten - could it be worms?)?

Gary is inside the living room, hiding from the thunder, which everyone is still insisting is not the monsoon, but is the pre-monsoon rains. Pre-monsoon, my bottom, is what I thought yesterday when I got caught in them on the way back from the cafe, but hey.

I was very excited because a new cafe has opened outside the Gurkha camp. It looks very nice and clean and posh, but its a bit of a disappointment. I had visions of going there to write every day, a la JK Rowling, but I think I'd rather be at home where there is water in the taps, so I can actually wash my hands when I go to the loo, and where my coffee-sipping experience isn't marred by the sound of building work and the aroma of raw sewerage...there are some things about Kathmandu I won't miss.

I also got excited about finding air dried strawberries in the shop opposite school (it's the strawberry and trout shop - for all your trout and strawberry requirements). I have noticed that the trout and strawberry shop has begun to diversify. It's now a shop for all your trout and strawberry needs, and also some of your stationery needs too.
Hmm, I think we'll have trout and strawberries for supper. Oh, and maybe I'll buy a notebook as well....


My on-off trip to Dwarika's hotel for my birthday is off again now. There is another bandh, and first we were told that diplomatic plates wouldn't be let though by the protesters, then we told they would, now, having changed our hotel reservation twice, it looks like I'll have to change it again. Bummer.
Another thing I won't miss about Kathmandu: the whole world coming to a standstill because of a bandh.

It's raining again. Pre-monsoon, my bottom!
Bye x

tuesday on the sofa

Hubby is muttering about being 'manipulated' into more guilt-jewellery. It wasn't manipulation, I just asked. And he said yes. Moreover, having just had lunch with my would-have-been trek-mates and seen their photos, I think it's justified, really.

I know my cashmere and silver days are numbered. In three months time we will be back in Blighty, with or without a quarter and a school place for the kids. I'm almost looking forward to going back to shopping at Lidl, actually (wonder if they still do mini onions pickled in balsamic vinegar - yum). Not looking forward to the weather quite so much...but at least I have a nice stock of cashmere to keep me warm (not to mention a nice stock of silver, to keep me sparkly).

Typed up a few scenes today. Poor old heroine's life is really getting pants. Why has everyone lied to her? Why is everything going wrong in her life? She's about to hit rock bottom (I'll be starting those scenes in the morning, and I have to admit I'm looking forward to it a bit - but only because I know it will all eventually work out, and within the next three chapters, too).

Kids are all sitting on the sofa watching Tangled (again). And talking of hair issues, the Twins' hair has started to get that nice budgie green tint to it (or is it canary? can't remember - parakeet, probably) from all the chlorine. They are swimming every day at school. I have threatened them with a tomato sauce hair masque to sort it out, but they don't seem keen. I can't possibly let them go back to the UK with hair like this though as nice H, my hairdresser friend, will probably stab me for crimes to follicles.

Right, need to go and review someone else's book for the youwriteon.com website now (and in return someone will review mine, which is jolly nice).

Take care xxx

ps. another bandh threatened for friday - think the kids will be off school for my birthday (in which case I shall set them to work making a nice big chocolate birthday cake with plenty of fake smarties on top).

weekend

Isn't it nice sometimes to have a weekend where you do nothing?
This weekend I have taken the kids swimming and been into town to order a nice leather weekend bag* for my birthday and have our family Sunday lunch at KFC (more of a treat than it sounds - KFC is the only fast food outlet in Nepal). Oh, and I went to the book launch thing this afternoon (I got two signed copies of the book. I know the author because he was in our creative writing group and I even critiqued one of the stories in the anthology - exciting feeling so close to fame!). But that's it. And it was really quite nice to do almost nothing.
I have promised myself I will do lots and lots of writing this week. However, I have also promised myself Friday off, as it's my birthday. I know that in order to be a better writer I should really spend every spare second writing. But I also quite fancy a full body massage, and I really need a pedicure. What to do? In these situations a Christian would probably solve the dilemma by thinking 'What would Jesus do?'. As an aspiring writer of women's fiction, I like to think 'What would Joanna Trollope do?' 
Joanna Trollope would surely opt for the birthday spa treatment, no?

* in anticipation of when my book gets published and I have to do overnighters at literary festivals and the like (I can dream, can't I?).

friday, friday

I went to a clothes swap thing at lunchtime today. Everyone brought along clothes they didn't wear, and swapped them, for a nominal price (three hundred rupess, about £2.70) for other clothes, with the profits going to a local charity. I ended up with a jumper with a rabbit-fur panel on the front. I can't decide if it's a bit too Cruella de Vil. But I secretly like it, and the fact that it's very non-PC. In England I shall have to wear it to a McDonald's drive thru, in a very old petrol-engine car with a big zoomy exhaust, and possibly have matching crocodile skin shoes and handbag on too. Or something. A woman at the lunch-thing said I should be careful that outraged people didn't throw paint at me in the furry top. I said I didn't mix in those kind of circles - don't think many army types would really give a stuff about a couple of dead rabbits, do you?
I say it was a lunch-thing, but actually it was more of a canape and cake thing, and although I ate about twenty mini pesto omelette thingys, I'm blooming starving now.
The hostess was a very elegant, calm and thoughtful french woman. She's a writer too, except that she writes deep and thoughtful prose, and I write pot-boilers. Afterwards we had a little chat about writing. I think my book is to hers, what a mini mars bar is to supper at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Hey ho, people will always secretly crave mini mars bars though, I guess...Anyway, I'm a little bit in awe of her.
Nothing planned for the weekend, except an invitation to a book launch on Sunday. Bizarre that out here I'm a member of the literati. Back in the UK the closest I'll get to being invited to a book promotion will be knocking into the two-for-one book basket with my trolley in Tescos.
Right, supper time, at long blooming last!

desperate coronation street

Coronation Street has morphed into Desperate Housewives, which means that the Coronation Street episodes on the welfare discs are unwatched. Or at least they were. Last week I caught Hubby secretly watching the Street. He 'fessed up to it, so now we have Coronation Street night at home. It's actually quite nice to watch Corrie with someone who also likes to make horse noises when Gail comes on screen, or make comments about Dev's hair, or Dierdre's wattle - or try to predict the plot. I think soaps are made for shouting at, don't you? The only problem with doing Corrie with Hubby is that he doesn't like drinking at home, so rather than a nice chilled sauvignon, I'm quaffing diet ginger beer, but hey ho.

I'm almost over the whole not-trekking thing now. At least being here forced me to finish chapter eight, and start chapter nine, which has got to be a good thing as I have less than two months to write five chapters (can I do it? Only if I give up Coronation Street and Desperate Housewives and work in the evenings...hmmm...).

Went to Son's termly topic talk this week (missed the Twins' though, as it was on Monday and I was still sobbing into my pillow at that point). I'm always flabbergasted by the things they learn in primary these days. I remember doing mostly neat handwriting and things with papier mache at that age, whereas Son will be learning about how to create an electric circuit, how force is measured in Newtons, and having a debate between explorers and native peoples about the pros and cons of colonisation. Whatever happened to colouring in and times tables, eh?

Twin 2 has learnt to swim! Sudeep the swimming teacher has worked his magic on her. I'm not sure what stroke she does: style-wise, she looks a bit like a spider trying to escape the plughole; however she's stopped sinking, and remembers to breathe out underwater, and in when she pops up for air (well, sometimes she gets it the other way round, but luckily there is Sudeep, and the lifeguard on hand - and the pool is less than twenty metres from the med centre). I'm not sure how unusual it is for a child with physical disabilities like hers to learn to swim, but I'm pretty blooming proud of her, and I think Sudeep is too (she has also worked her magic on him, and he goes a bit misty eyed around her - I even caught him giving her a sneaky peck on the cheek when she nearly managed a width today).

And tomorrow is Friday - where has the week gone? I must write faster, or the summer hols will be here before I know it and my poor heroine will still not have had closure on her multiple issues...at least she's found out about her boyfriend and her father and is back in the UK and now only has to resolve things with her grandmother, her ex, her father - oh and there's the whole Afghan thing, too - can she possibly sort all that lot out in forty thousand words or less?

Right, ten to ten - time for bed xxx

I bet they are having lovely mountain views...oh, well, I decided to order a cheeky little lipstick on ebay to cheer myself up before starting the end of chapter eight. Just need to type it up - it's a bit steamy actually, which I'm a bit nervous about (not sure if I can pull off the whole sex scene thing - if you'll pardon the pun). Ah, Hubby has finally vacated the bathroom, so I'm off!
Night x

bummer

Hello, out there. I'm still here. No, I'm not trekking in Langtang. And it's not because of the pesky 'pre-monsoon' rains, or the scary leeches, no. I had prepared for those: I had waterproof trousers, gaiters, waterproof coat, insect repellent with Deet in it, and an umbrella (to protect against the sleepy leeches that fall out of the trees in the jungly bits). I also had five bags of cranberry and chocolate trail mix (one for each day), and  - optimistically, perhaps - some factor 50 sweatproof suntan lotion. Oh, yes, and I had increased my insurance cover to cover me for trekking over four thousand metres (which I hadn't done for the last trek - good job I didn't have an accident on the way up to Annapurna Base Camp...).
What happened was that Twin 2 was up all last night with fever and a cough and Hubby had diarrhoea (I think I may finally have learnt to spell this - has only taken three years in Nepal to crack it) and we had a very long conversation at five thirty this morning about the pros and cons of me leaving him with a sick child, a slightly dodgy bottom and being staff duty officer for BGN this week. So in the end I didn't go on the transport at six.
I cried, Twin 2 and Hubby got rapidly better, and Hubby bought me some nice jewellery (can never work out how to spell this one though) this afternoon to try to cheer me up.
Boo (I don't mean boo about the nice pendant, I mean hurrah - but boo about missing a week with my trek-sisters).
No escape from finishing chapter eight now, I suppose.
Oh, well, maybe not right now...I'm off to bed to read Cloud Atlas.
Goodnight x