You can see the gears whirring...

We're now in Singapore. Which really has very little exciting about it except for our friends and their baby daughter. Who is very personable and quite good at mimicking the blank look of the person looking at her.

We’ve shot through

We manage to leave Australia just before Sheila develops a twang

One of the few holiday photos I liked.

Highlights for Sheila were experiencing the local culinary delights of Dim Sims, potato cakes and Chiko rolls (only the finest Australia has to offer for the Sheila); watching the tearful reunion of mother and son (I cried, but only because the DNA tests proved parentage) and actually hearing at least two Australians use the phrase “Fair Dinkum” in a non-ironic manner.

Highlights for Bruce were the departure lounges of Melbourne and Sydney airports respectively.

“It never strikes twice, so you stand outside first”

I turn on the laptop in the hotel room in Melbourne and there’s a headline – “Siege still ongoing in Mumbai” with all kinds of not very nice looking pictures of general chaos. Trying not to panic the Sheila I turn on BBC World News and get more of the same. As we’re both sitting there watching it all (having slept through the first ten hours) we both decide that we’re still keen continue staying in India. The grab hand of Fate plucks you out when it will so no sense in worrying. Besides, this puts it all in perspective.

You can't go home again

We arrive in Melbourne.

After Sheila not getting any better we call the hotel doctor who naturally blames it on something she must have picked up in Delhi. We don’t care as he hands over s script for something stronger. Much, much stronger. Whatever it is, it takes the nasty gastrointestinal beasties in hand and slaps them about hard. Which is good as it means she’s well enough just in time for the road trip - the maternal road trip. The fun never stops.

But first we do the family catch-ups. Mother, Sister + her husband, Grandfather, Uncle + Aunt.

It’s good to see them all over the next few days. My sister does a one woman marketing effort on behalf of Melbourne telling me how it’s really developed in the last few years. “Do they have an Opera House yet?” I ask. That shuts her up. The weather holds up reasonably well after the flash flood rain of Sydney, It all goes swimmingly, even my Uncles really atrocious jokes which haven’t gotten any better in 20 years (which is good as I had promised Sheila they were bad).

We even manage to see on old friend of mine who is now shockingly a mother with a grown up job and everything. Luckily she brings her husband and daughters along to dinner where I get the chance to tell her young girls about their mothers’ days in the circus as the low clown on the totem pole (meaning she was the last one out of the tiny car and got hand-me-down putty for her nose). It’s good for them to know these things. They are the future after all.

Just drive she said

We set off down to Melbourne with Sheila violently ill after eating in Sydney’s finest restaurant and having to drive two days down a scenic coastal road packed full of Imodium. The wide open spaces and beading of small towns along the way were the same as I remembered from childhood Christmas holidays. It’s nice to know a new generation will have the opportunity to suffer the same character building process of a fortnight of 35 degrees in the shade boredom.

After stopping overnight in Eden, Sheila started getting very excited about viewing the Melbourne Opera House and Melbourne Harbour Bridge after I’d told her so much about them.

Sometimes it’s hard to shatter those dreams.

Strewth!

So we’ve done the family visit/trip down under. It was full of "wonderful" adventures. On first landing in Sydney after having cleared immigration (the only time in my life when I go native and the Sheila endures the foreigners desk – cue much “But you’re all convicts, why are you checking me?”) we then proceeded to get lost heading to our first port of call – Dr. Rahuls. This was even with a SatNav and Sheilas helpful advice to “turn it upside down as we’re in the southern hemisphere”.

Eventually we got there and after a short rest and catch-up with little Oliver (the brains of the outfit) we then set off to explore the finest Sydney has to offer. Sadly we missed out on any chance of seeing Dr. Rahuls place of work a.k.a “The Love Shack”. Still it was probably for the best, nobody wants tourists with cameras in the middle of a ObGyn session – although I’m sure Dr. Rahul would be great at pointing out places of interest.

The puppy ate my blog

I know I’ve been a tad lax in updating this but I have a good excuse. Actually I have several but Memsahib says none of them are believable and this is the best of a bad lot. Two of the local dogs round our way have had puppies. Very, very cute puppies. They sleep in a nearby culvert and the local guards keep an eye on them.

The big question I have is how two dogs with predominately orange colouring have produced such a doggy rainbow. I mean look at them - chocolate brown, tan, black, black and white, and even grey. Maybe the female dog has some explaining to do.

Anyway I have been so overwhelmed with the cuteness of them that I have neglected all my duties. But now I’m back on track. Clean and sober. Ready for a second chance. (Is this the bit where I mention letting God come into my life?). I’m all geared up to shovel a backload of updates into the maw of you the audience over the next day to bring us all back up to date together. But first I just need to go pat the puppies…

Dodged that bullet

We’re back in Delhi for a few days before heading onto Australia for a overdue obligatory family visit.

When we flew back the in-flight entertainment system was playing up and at first they tried restarting it several times (ground engineers advice apparently - "have you tried turning it off and on").

I was expecting to hear the call "Is there an IT consultant on the plane" but sadly the opportunity for glory never arose.

I went to sleep and when I woke up all the screens were playing the closing scene from "Mama Mia" - Memsahib explained that they'd jury-rigged the system to show everyone the same single film - whether you wanted it or not. I have never been so happy to sleep in my life.

Dr Strangelove lives next door

We had Diwali happen around us a few weeks ago and now we've returned for a London visit just in time for Bonfire Night. Ignoring the underlying reasons for either event and simply comparing fire-power, leads me to believe that pyrotechnic yield is another area where the Asian Tiger is kicking the U.K. Lion. I strongly suspect the only reason India even developed nuclear weapons is because somebody had to one-up his next door neighbour and his paper wrapped barrels of gunpowder they call crackers in the shops here.