Special 


A very special friend, the lovely Leela, invited me out for a drink, to celebrate my ‘significant’ birthday. (Yes, I’ve been celebrating it for quite some time now!) this was during my April trip back to Blighty.


Well Leela. Is something of an innovator and is really great at helping others as a facilitator and coach. She’s especially good at using her artistic skills to help people create a shared understanding and most importantly act on it.

Come on Farrell. Get to the point!

well she’s working her magic on me.

Here is my birthday gift, drawn in the next four pictures…… and  no that’s correct I’m not 42 😉



Its an invitation.

to work out what it is I love.

what would be your 42 things?

more to follow…

New Journey 3

In our innocence we thought it would be easy to register as a homestay. 

I’ll fill out some of the detail (saving you poor readers, from the full unbelievableness. That’s when I feel rested and up to it 🙂 

Bill the flowerpot man! 

We’ve now had the ups and downs of dog-cat land for over a week. 


We first heard the assertive miaow of the kitten after a wicked storm. The resulting flash floods must have separated him from his mum. 


Lucie has been singularly unimpressed. She jumps from grudging acceptance to attempts to catch and well… I reckon she wouldn’t have the first idea what to do, if she did catch the cat. 


Well the whole situation has presented a major challenge. We leave for the UK in two days and Eric the Viking has come to stay, do his studies, look after the house and care for Lucie. 


It’s too much to ask him to look after the cat and deal with the potential conflicts. I do also need to recognise that Lucie does feel jealous and left out. If we were here, I reckon we could handle it and the bear/eagle would learn to live together. 

So….


We’re off to People for Animals. We’ve left Bill, and he left Manj with a ‘lasting impression’  the first and only time he’s scratched. Well she was most in favour of taking him there! (She’s now getting a Tetanus injection.)

If he’s still at the Shelter when we get back from the UK. I’ll smuggle him home. There was however a telephone call while we were in the office of someone looking for a cat! 

So Indian 🙂 

Is there a right way?

How not to handle it!

As you may know we have an alien in our midst. The heavy storm last week and torrential rain seperated the kitten from it’s mum. The first we heard of it was the woeful cat crying from Next door. Later that day it was out on the street (our neighbour is not the most tolerant or easygoing. 


So we fed it a bit of egg. Personally I’ve an open mind about these things. But cats are not BIG in India and well there are two bossy women here (yes Manjula and her side kick Lucie) me I’m way down the pecking order. 


Ring any bells?

Well as you might imagine they are not too impressed. 


The ginger disrupter. Is going to have to work hard to win them over. 


Yes a bit like this. 

But the cards are stacked against him. 

Manjula is close to being won over. 

Lucie is wound up, close to attacking. (Bark worse than bite?) 

The cat is a bit demanding and God knows where it’s shitting. 

We’re off to the UK in ten days time with Eric looking after Lucie and the house. So the whole thing might be a challenge too far. 

New journey 2 

Update

We’re trying to get registered as a BnB. First call was the City Corporation. Wrong! We need to go to the Police first to get their authorisation. But it’s useful as we realise that the evidence of tax payment from the owner isn’t a good enough xerox copy so need to get it redone. 

We find a helpful advocate and his English speaking assistant. The letter from the owner giving Manjula permission isn’t good enough so we have to redo the rental agreement.


Bored? Had enough yet? 

You’ve seen nothing. 

We’ve had to get new stamped paper, check the revision of the agreement is AOK, sent it to Bangalore for the owner to stick his pic on it, sign over the pic and every page of the agreement, get it witnessed, send it back to Manjula, she does the same. Then we take it back to the advocate to be officially signed and stamped. 

Meanwhile we write to the Commissionerbof Police.  

Farrell Footnote

We’ve operated up until now as a AirBnB but as of this year we now have register with the Karnataka Government. 

So to all intents and purposes this is a new venture that we will launch in September. 

It will of course still be Mysore Bed and Breakfast, at 163 Moksha and the laid back team are in residence. 

India then.  Same but different. 

Which ways best?

as we plan our second trip to the UK next month Manjula confesses to me that there’s one aspect of the trip she’s not looking forward to.

It’s a delicate matter!

It’s a significant part of every day!

so, which do you prefer?

I’ve just started reading GUT by Giulia Enders in which she relays important research findings and one study helps answer the question: “Are you sitting properly? ” ….

if you take into consideration the time it takes, the satisfying feeling afterwards, using less energy (i.e. Not forcing it out) avoiding haemorrhoids, and one or two other things, the squat method comes out on tops….

so there you are

But we knew this didn’t we?

there is a second aspect to this and it’s how we clean ourselves, I wonder if any research has been done on that subject?

IMG_1252

I’m definitely with Manjula on this one!

Wildlife in our garden. 

We have beautiful art both natural flora and fauna on our roof terrace and peeking  through are images from the painted sides of bullock carts.


The new buds on our Brahma Kamla plants are also coming out. We hope to see them flower over one night  in the next two weeks.

It’s a bit wet. 

Last night we had heavy rains and thunderstorms. TV and Internet stopped working, Lucy was cowering on her bed. Monsoon is at least a month away so it’s a little early to be getting so much rain. This morning while walking Lucy there were signs everywhere. 

The streets resemble a beach. Partly the sand that’s been spread everywhere but also the rubbish looks as if it’s been washed up by the tide. 
The piles of sand outside construction sites, the rubbish dumped at street corners, grass removed to create sandy soily verges all help create this mess after they’re all liberated by the rains. 

new journey

imagewe’re setting out on a new journey…. after the wonderful experience last year (Note English sarcasm) ..to firstly ensure that Manjula’s various IDs were accurate and consistent with name, gender, address, date of birth ( it took, four months), then the ‘reality game’ of applying for a passport (two more months) and being knocked back a couple of times (the board game of these tangles with bureaucracy will be in shops soon) then to top it all we applied for a TOURIST (yes just for a holiday) visa from the UK Government just at the time of some insignificant Vote or other (Brexit aka Biscuit idiotic referendum) only to be summarily rejected (Brit Govt is fast on its rejections, three weeks total) and applying again with an avalanche of papers (two weeks)… for you dear reader, what feels like lifetime’s experience compressed into six months has already been documented on these pages. Some of you may remember it .. well this new journey is…. wait for it…. an application to register as a Homestay with the Karnataka Government.

IMG_1428in my English wistful sort of way I think it will be very straightforward and probably a damn sight easier than a similar process in the UK.

lets see

background is we’ve been operating on the same basis as an AirBnB property but this year the Karnataka Govt has introduced a new rule and that means everyone has to register with them.

As I say let’s see, first step following the ‘critical path’ , let’s find out what’s required 🙂

Manjula’s Meals Number two

Dhal 

Manjula provides lovely Indian vegetarian meals at Mysore Bed and Breakfast for our guests from India and countries throughout the world. Our international guests, in particular, are interested in learning more about Indian cuisine.

She can often be seen with the kitchen full of guests while she demonstrates and provides lessons on how to cook various dishes. It does get a bit cramped!

Our meals together are an important part of sharing our home.

After many requests we’ve decided to post recipes, even demonstrations here on our journal/bloglet. We’ve started with a couple of simple examples, first: Ragi Soup (Ragi is fast becoming a smart-ish food) check here for the recipe and on this page follow the link to our first home made (and it shows!) video featuring how to make Dhal. The recipe is below. check the video

If you wish to see a really good video of Manjula cooking. It’s not a recipe but a great video of Manj at work, created by our lovely friends Tom and Amy. This is a serious professionally made video, not to be missed! 🙂  Its here.

The recipe for Dhal
Ingredients for the first stage
11/2 tsp Turmeric powder
11/2 tsp Cumin seeds
3 Tomato
4 green Chilli
1 small Garlic
Small bunch Coriander
2 cups water1 cup Dhal

1 cup Dhal

Chop veg in small pieces
Add all ingredients together in pressure cooker.
With lid on and gas lit, leave cooking for twenty minutes or 4-5 whistles of the cooker.
Switch off and leave to cool for twenty minutes.

Check and if necessary add a little more water and boil for a few moments
Ingredients for the second stage
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp mustard seed
2-3 red chilli

add oil to a saucepan, then mustard seed, fry for a moment, then add cumin seeds, fry for a moment then add red chilli, fry then add Dahl. Fry for ten minutes. Then it’s ready.

Farrell Factoid

Manjula’s meals have become a great success at Mysore Bed and Breakfast. She doesn’t, however, cook every night (so please note its availability is not guaranteed). Guests usually do however get at least one dinner. We are a vegetarian household. I’m the vegetarian, not Manjula who eats out with me or other friends to get her regular meat input!