bubbles and biscuits.

There's a change in the air here. The monsoon is thinking about leaving, like that party guest who rises from the dinner table to make his goodbyes and then half an hour later has everyone standing by the door, surreptitiously checking the clock, while he recounts for them yet another tale that just must be told. It is thinking about leaving, but it hasn't gone just yet. And though the days have been getting drier, the sun is still scarce; the sky a cloudscape of thick grays and whites. The mornings have been perfect- reminiscent of those days in the height of summer when you wake up at six and sit outside while the sun is still bearable and you can smell the heat that will arrive to blanket everything later in the afternoon.

The ever-drier days bring herald many things: the excitement of a changing season, the opportunity to turn brown again, after two months of cloud, and snakes. Lots and lots of snakes. So what have we been doing the last few days? Snake-proofing! Which is just a different way of saying weeding (it does sound more dramatic though, right?). So much weeding. The thing about living in such a fertile place is that as soon as you pull out a weed and turn your back on it, it pokes its little green head right back out of the ground in some kind of "hilarious" magic trick.

But one can only weed for so long without turning into a crazy person and so in between ripping undesirables from the earth we have been bubble blowing and biscuit baking (and alliterating). Because everyone loves a good bubble and baking outside is fun. Although to be totally honest we were not baking as we have no oven, we were deep frying. But for good alliteration that does not make, so I'm sticking with baking. They're biscuits, after all.

 

 

fifteen months.

Today was my fifteen month 'awayaversary'. Which means 15 months of no Saturday morning coffees with my BFF, 15 months of amazing new people and places and experiences and 15 months of wearing variations of the same 10 or 12 items of clothing that I have stuffed in my backpack (so they smell bad too). Seriously, I hardly even notice what I put on in the mornings now- if it is hole-free and doesn't have stains on it, it is my outfit for the day. So you can imagine the excited anticipation with which I await the arrival of a care package from home containing cheese, knitting needles (Will has a beanie to finish) and different clothes! And possibly even better than the thought that soon I will have a new selection of clean, rumple-free fancies to dress up in is the fact that they are being delivered personally by my mum. New clothes and a family reunion- what could be better? 

In my giddy excitement I decided that I shouldn't be the only one who gets to dress up in something new and gave wander with me her first makeover in...ever. I hope you like it. 

Other than blogstyling and planning Indian coffee dates with my mum, Will and I have been living the high life in the Indian jungle ever since leaving the farm a couple of weeks ago. We were couchsurfing/volunteering (but not really because we did nothing) with an incredibly hospitable English expat who lives in a tiger reserve in Tamil Nadu. 

 This was the view from the left side of the roof on his wonderfully airy house...

and this was the view from the right. Pretty nice spot he has there.

Apart from admiring the view we did (some) other things at Johnnie's place. Like cancel out all the physical work we did at the farm by scoffing so much home-made pasta, freshly baked bread, date-banana bread and entirely-home-made-even-the-cheese passionfruit cheesecake (I may have got a little over-excited at the presence of an oven) and drinking so many rum and cokes. And we swam in the pool and chatted to  Johnnie's elderly parents about living in India. 

And on a trip to the shops one day we saw twelve wild elephants. This little guy was just outside the car window, about a metre away. You would not want to be caught walking alone on this road...

And, most importantly, this is where we did our relaxing. Relaxing is a very important part of life you know.

We occasionally roused ourselves from catatonia to go into the nearby town for supplies. We saw this and decided the amazing packaging was well worth the $4 the packet cost. I'll give you a million dollars if you can guess what's inside...

We went for a wander one day and stumbled upon this colourful little temple. We couldn't decide if it was a tree growing around a temple or a temple built around a tree. Though considering the size of the tree, I would be inclined to go with the latter. Will walked along this path alone one afternoon- I was baking or sleeping or secretly eating cheesecake- and  eventually found himself in the forest. The forest that we had very recently been told hides an enormous wild elephant population, at least 100 Bengal tigers and bison and panthers and probably lots of other jungle creatures. Because of this, Will thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to get up close and nearly dead with some wild animals without a jeep, a guide or a cautious girlfriend. He thought it would be fine, as he told me sheepishly later: 

"I figured that I would keep walking til I saw an elephant, then turn around and go back. I forgot they aren't stationary." 

He lived to eat another slice of cheesecake, obviously, but it could have turned out very differently. When he came wandering back to the house hours after he left, he  told me the story of his walk. Of how he spooked a wild boar then came face to face with a bison (like a bull on steroids with horns the length of arms that could gore you to death with a single manouvre) and had to scramble to safety in a nearby Bodhi tree. Of how when he climbed back down the tree he followed the path to the river and saw an elephant bathing and just as he decided he was satisfied with this show and turned to leave he heard an ominous trumpet in the jungle behind him and realised he was stuck between two wild elephants and he really liked living. Of how he tried several times to get out of the jungle but he kept running into the elephants and subsequently clambering up his Bodhi tree in terror. And of how he finally escaped, by slowly walking up behind the elephant then briskly marching past, his face averted, pretending he couldn't see it- as you might do in the street when walking towards an acquaintance you really don't want to chat with. He told me this and I realised I would never be taking him on safari in Africa...in fact even Monarto may be unwise.

On a lighter, less my-boyfriend-came-very-close-to-being-trampled-to-death-in-the-jungle note, these are some of the very fine products you can purchase in India:

Your eyes do not deceive you; it is indeed a padlock and a firework endorsed by the biggest Nazi of them all. And a sanctimonious box of incense, just for good measure. 

Oh India, you crazy thang.

p.s. the beautifully packaged package contains 400 handrolled Indian cigarettes, wrapped in leaf and tied in thread, called beedis. Did you guess it?

from brighton to blackpool...it's the people you meet

While we were sitting on a bench in Brighton, we met the most morally confused homeless guy ever. After insulting a nearby busker by way of introduction, he asked us for a cigarette then told us his life story. Which included gun point robbery of an alarming number of post offices, two murders and a 30 year jail sentence. He also lectured us on how precious life is and in his very next breath told us he could kill us as well. Then we decided we probably had to go somewhere else that wasn't near him. He got very offended by this. So we either met an incredibly sane looking raving lunatic or a self-righteous murderer. Still not sure.

We also met some good old-fashioned non-homcidal people in Brighton. Mostly they were cool young post-grads doing creative things and living in filthy sharehouses. We filled our short time in this city by the sea going for (very) long walks on the beach, avoiding murderers (ok, one murderer) on the street, listening to talented MCs and poets fight it out slam style in a very crowded pub and cafe hopping to avoid the rain. England and rain is like night and darkness...an infatuation with wet is what you need if you are considering a life here.

We'd finished exploring (that's not true but our short time had run out) this vibrant seaside city of the south and we jumped on a bus for a 10 hour journey up north, to another seaside holiday town called Blackpool. But not before we had experienced the worst coffee I have ever encountered. It was literally undrinkable- we both forced down 3 or 4 sips and then decided no coffee was better than fighting the urge to vomit and threw them away. (I later tried to redeem this experience by buying two ridiculous chocolate concoctions from Starbucks, which Will deemed disgusting so I decided to drink both, spilled half all over myself whilst trying to manouvre around in the bus seat and then felt incredibly sick for the rest of the journey.

As we wearily alighted into the night of Blackpool, the very first thing we saw was a fairly vicious physical fight between two girls who were surrounded by a group of laughing morons ahem 'young men'. We had just spent 10 chocolate soaked hours on a bus to get here so you can imagine what we were feeling...

And although the very last image I have of Blackpool is of the group of young lads stumbling around the streets shirtless (this is English winter), very very unsoberly, at five-thirty on a Saturday afternoon, the time in between these two encounters was actually quite nice (we were staying outside of the actual town of Blackpool...perhaps this helped).  

We had decided to venture to this part of Britain for 3 reasons: we had seen a lot of the south and a lot of the south was flooded, we were flying to Cyprus from Manchester airport, and we were visiting some lovely people we met in Spain who said we could stay with them if we made it to England. We had only known them for 3 days- they are friends of James and Cathy, with whom we wwoofed for a month- and they welcomed us into their lives like we were long-lost friends come to stay. It was lovely. They are Tracy and Julie and they took us out for some amazing Italian food at the type of restaurant that is full purely on the merit of the food, they got us free entry into Blackpool's biggest tourist attraction the 'Blackpool Tower' and they insisted we come back and stay upon our return from Cyprus. We also met Tracy's two daughters, one of whom was a carer for elderly people and subsequently regaled us with almost unbelievable tales of octonegarian cunning (one lady switched her husband's false teeth glue with super glue to "get him to shutup!"- they had been married for 70 years and had apparently expected they would be long dead by now), and her dogs, Ruby and Dixon, two huge, slobbery, lovable boxers. 

As for what we did while in Brighton?...sheltered from a lot of rain (surprised?), did some knitting (Will), made brownies and lemon tart (me) and wandered around the slightly sad centre of Blackpool...being a seaside holiday town it isn't really the place to be in the middle of winter. It had the feel of a closed down carnival- the kids have all gone home, the popcorn and ice-cream is finished and there are just a few bored carnies hanging around, hoping to trick the few tourists who wander past unsuspectingly. 

We also visited Manchester, which is a very welcoming sized city with much live music, theatre, graffiti and hip youngsters. We sampled lots of food and coffee and spent the evening watching the opening night of four short plays by four different playwrights (unfortunately the rain bested us yet again, as it slowly drenched us while we wandered around for at least an hour searching for the theatre, after which we discovered was not actually within walking distance at all...it was a damper evening than I normally prefer for a night of theatre).

And here are some pictures of our exploits...

Brighton!

We found the original(?) Mad Mouse! It looks just as death-trappy as ours.

In the middle of a most thoughful birthday present...

The menace of the ocean in Blackpool

Manchester...

The famous ballroom at the Blackpool Tower

And how windy it was whilst we were there- that pole is usually straight.

Now we are in North Cyprus, which I can happily say has been bathed in sunshine for nearly every single day of the last three weeks. But more later. 

mince pies, moors and some very happy ducks.

I just had a look at my last post about Devon...it's massive...and I see I managed to slip a little Bath trivia lesson in there. Read up, there'll be a quiz later. But this one will be less of an investment of your time, I promise.

With a bagful of home-made gifts and a couple of jars of home-made fruit mince under my arms (I had a lot of time on my hands before christmas...), we delved deeper into Devon, to a little town called Winkleigh where some more of Will's extended family live. On the night before christmas we arrived at a wonderful thatched, converted barn- there were ruins to explore, baking to be done (and a subsequent truck-load of mince pies to be eaten) and table tennis to be played so we were all very happy.

On christmas morning we woke to pancakes and bacon, a surprise bag of very thoughtful gifts each and the promise of an enormous lunch. Will was oblivious to all this though; being finally allowed to play with his (christmas present) yoyo after pestering me all week for it, he did little else the rest of the day.

If you don't call the underside of a rock home, you will know about the fairly hefty amount of moisture this little island has been drowning in of late. Fantastic for the ducks and their brethren; not awesome for two Australians who are keen on sunshine. It does mean though that when the skies do stop crying, we are outside before you can say 'hey look at those two weirdos splashing around in the puddles'. So we have managed a few sun drenched adventures. I like to call them sundrentures.

We admired some very dramatic coastline and pondered over a dead cow on a beach in western Devon, then fed our appetites for tiny cobbled fishing villages and cream teas in Clovelly.

I demonstrated how being bad at tennis probably means you are also going to be bad at table tennis and Will and our new friend Ed demonstrated how boys will be boys by getting all aflutter upon finding full fire extinguishers on an abandoned train.

We got lost on a bike ride on Dartmoor and saw some Dartmoor ponies. I drank any kind of mulled beverage I came across (it's cold here, okay).

We outwitted the floods and managed to find our way down to Cornwall when most of the public transport demonstrated how pathetically unable to deal with water it is, and stayed in  a shack that will probably be in the sea in 10 years (this is no exaggeration- cliff-edge houses have been toppling over at an alarming rate recently). And the next day we had poached eggs for breakfast, a cider and a wander around the blue and white houses and smuggler's coves of Polperro for lunch and got a wee bit lost looking for a coastal path (after sitting in the growing dark and cold for 3 hours, waiting for a lift that was not coming, we were saved a 6 mile walk in the dark by the kindness of strangers- a lady who, according to her fam who were all bundled in the car, liked to 'collect' the lost and hungry looking).

We walked 5 miles on an internet pilgrimage and then had to walk home in the rain (luckily we had pre-rewarded ourselves with a pint before we left town).

And on those days when going outside was vetoed by a look out the window, a look at each other and a weary sigh into a cup of tea, we did other things. Like learn to knit. I am almost the proud owner of a completely boyfriend knitted, extremely warm and cosy looking scarf. And visit the smallest cinema I ever did see to watch about the muted horrors of Irish catholicism. And cook cinnamon buns and go shopping for hiking boots and visit a marble museum.

And in a wonderfully satisfying circle, we then went back to Halberton and Hugh, Lindsay and Jess, who were the very first stop on our Devsplorations. We spent our last day in Devon watching incredibly posh people on huge horses mingle with archetypal English farmers in wellies and those hats before charging off down the road with their hounds, wandering through a wintry forest next to a murky river, clambering halfway up a hill in the mist on Exmoor (and running back down it when that mist turned to rain) and trying to find somewhere that would give us lunch after 2.30pm in small-town Devon on a winter's afternoon.

Take-away pork pie anyone?

P.S. here are some pictures from last blog. enjoy.

This Kombi sells excellent coffee. This is my favourite thing ever. 

Exeter. We spent many a rainy day here shopping. This day we spent watching swans preen.

A country manor. We have delusions of grandeur.

The beautiful Devon at sunset.

What this? It's only the most famous stone circle of all time.

We did a spot of time travel whilst in Bath.

Some of John Wood's architecture.