Philosophical thoughts

India stimulates all sorts of reflections like …. What’s the purpose of the line?

a boundary, a border, between in and out? Here and there? Normal and abnormal? The limen … an important guide, the threshold, between one world and another.

If India is anything to go by, it may have no use, other than helpfully creating ‘purposeful’ work.

I pity the poor guy — with his trusty leaf blower and a hanky round his mouth, — who momentarily shifts the dust from the road and into a cloud to probably help the paint stick,

On both our trips to England, Manjula was amazed and intrigued at how the traffic stayed within the lines that marked the lanes.

Wedding part two

The morning after the reception.

Timings are followed exactly (9.00 to 9.30 am) unlike the night before when things hadn’t started almost two hours after the advertised time.

The knot is tied and I’ve poured milk, gently thrown rice and had tiffin.

Behind the scenes in the choultry or wedding hall is the sort of place where Manjula started working.

The bride’s proud father

Poppy’s School

My friends in India often ask what things are like in the U.K. so here’s My granddaughter’s school.

I’m here to collect her at the end of the school day.

It’s probably a school from the 19th century when ‘board’ schools were introduced.

I love the old building and it has a great feel.

It’s managed by the local government

Here’s one or two great additions to help improve safety.

Manny is overseeing the renovation work at the school.

I’ve stayed with Poppy and her parents Ben and Alice in north London.

We’re losing so much

There are signs everywhere of the man-made environmental damage resulting from not anticipating the consequences, concentrating on short term gains and our lack of care.

Even seas go missing. Due to all the above combined with local and global pressures.

All around the world, including in our backyard in Karnataka with the Kaveri river, there’s conflicts about water being taken from rivers and little being left for the communities further down.

Found them

Today’s panic was that I’d misplaced shirts, shorts and especially trousers.

I fly to the U.K. next week, my first trip for over two years. Here I wear shorts and T shirts unless I’m formal when I wear kurta and pyjama.

As it will be variable weather and much cooler moving to really cold in the U.K. I need shirts and trousers but I couldn’t find them. We’ll know I have.

Next shoes.

Things I’ve learned from Manjula

A first cycle tour after a loooong gap and what a lovely couple Diana and Josia, from Mexico and the US respectively, currently working in Chennai.

In my attempts to be the wise owl I passed on the two key pieces of advice of the many things I’ve learned from Manjula.

Be there for your partner, we’ve heard so much about presence there’s a risk of overkill but when I read this (see below) it seemed so pertinent. Our love means we should be present for the other.

The second piece of advice is to prepare for the end. In terms of helping each other plan and as part of that decide if you want to be resuscitated. It doesn’t matter how old you are.

Article here about older people and their plans for ‘letting them die.’ How young is too young?

An insight from earlier this year.

Ganesh goes for a swim

Preparing to take Ganesh and his mum Gowri to the river.

So where’s the Ganesh we bought last week?

The Ganesh we first bought and fell in love with has been added to the extensive home collection.

Can I come too?

Here’s more details from five years ago

We’re big on Ganesh throughout the year and found a workshop carving wooden statues from three years ago.

Age showing through increasing inability.

Big announcement.

The old man has managed to send money from his bank account to pay for a book by something called UPI should I be proud or ashamed?

Maybe the shave helped.

It’s taken ages and I mean months to work it out. I think I need a lie down before I advance to QR Code.