Merry Christmas

Well it's Christmas eve and here I am sitting pool side in Nusa Dua, Bali. Something just doesn't feel right.......
Shopping is done, no cooking to do, no working 12 hour days. Why is it that Christmas needs to be a busy, hectic, crazy time to feel normal?
We have had a great holiday and really enjoyed our time with Mum, Dad, Jordan and Brady over in Kuta for the week. We came over to Nusa Dua on Tuesday to have some relaxing time before we hit Singapore next week. Eliza tells us she is sick of being on holidays and would rather be home, Sam has been living the dream once again and has had fun keeping up with his big cousins and Mac is continuing loving the water and can't get enough of the pool.
We all have a few more freckles to add to the collection and feel really relaxed ready to take on Chennai in the new year.
So our thoughts are with all of our family and friends as you celebrate Christmas. We will be missing our family once again celebrating Christmas day on our own, but we hope to be back sharing in the festivities next Christmas at home feeling "normal" again racing around doing all those last minute jobs to prepare for the big day.
Now I'm off for a dip in the pool to cool off and I will try to chill out and get into that Christmas spirit. Merry Christmas to all.

Bali Bound

Once again the Purdy's are off on holidays. Bali and Singapore here we come. Time to relax on the beach, do some boogie boarding, catch up with Grandma and Gramps for a week, have some kid free time (thanks Mum and Dad, wink) and then hit Singapore for some more fun and a bit of shopping.

Today is the day to get myself organised, time to get the cases out to once again, in fact they never got put away after Dubai, they have been on my bedroom floor getting in my way. Enough clothes for 3 weeks and making sure there is room for a few Christmas gifts. This time I have vowed to pack lightly.

So the cases are all out on the bed and I hear some rustling coming for the bedroom.......

And out pops Mac, ready for his holiday.


I tell him it might be a bit uncomfortable sitting in a case all the way to Bali, he didn't think so...

The Not So Spectacular Day

Yesterday we headed back to the Eye Hospital for Mac's follow up. Now I am just plain confused.

The Doctor retested him and now says he needs Bifocal's to help with his "Accommodative Esotropia" vision problem and to help turn the eye back to normal, this along with patching his good eye for 2 hours a day will eventually mean that he will eventually grow out of his glasses. She has really contradicted herself from one visit to the next and this leaves my confidence in her diagnosis shattered.

I then went on the hunt for frames to suite bifocal's for a little person, that were not brown or orange or pink or purple, he is a boy and as far as I know boys don't wear pink or purple frames. Remember we are in India and orange and brown are the 2 most favourite colours here.

So I head into 4 different optical shops to be told that,

• this is not the prescription for a child,
• oh he must have had eye surgery,
• one guy even got a flashlight out and looked in Mac's eyes to check he hadn't had surgery because he didn't believe me
• and the last one that pushed me over the edge was that I must have given them my script.

NO, I don't wear glasses.....I am here to get glasses for my son, only to be told that children don't usually wear bifocal's and the frames need to be big enough to fit the bi-focal lens.

In the end it got too much for me and I left the 4th shop in tears.

What is it that does that to me in this country? Pure frustration and getting sick of having to fight for what I want on a daily basis.

How easy would it be to get on a plane and go home to have this sorted out by people that I can understand and trust. That's not going to happen, so today I need to put on my brave face and take the 'Mac man' back to some other shops to try on more frames. Which is not a easy task, he spent yesterday saying I don't like that one it's too small, big, ugly, girly or uncomfortable, it was only the bribe for ice-cream that got us through the day.

Stay tuned for tomorrows update. I feel there maybe more ice-cream on the menu today.

Oh Dubai, How I Love Thee...........

We have just spent a lovely fun filled weekend in Dubai. It was a four day weekend for Thanksgiving at the the kids school so it was a great chance to leave town and head the shopping and golf mecca of the world. The kids and I left Thursday morning and Andrew joined us early Friday morning. We were also thrilled to have our friends Darlene, Ben, Carissa and Ryan to share the good times with.

Waiting for our two suitcases on our arrival in Dubai I took the chance to get a shot of the kids sitting waiting. I then realized this was the exact shot I took 12 months ago on our arrival in Dubai for Christmas 08. They have all grown up so much.

Andrew enjoyed two games of golf over the weekend. He played at Emirates Golf Club and at Dubai Creek Golf Club, the experience of a lifetime and one to certainly lighten one's wallet. He was pleased to have a golf partner in Ben to share this amazing experience.

So while the boys golfed the girls and kids hit the Malls. It was so lovely to see the fun the kids all had running around the Malls like they had never seen anything like it in their lives. Filling up on lollies, Macca's, Cinnabon, Krispy Kreme's and good coffee for us Mums. I hate to think of the hours we spent in Carrefour in the Mall of the Emirates. Lets just say it was a few. We arrived in Dubai with 2 cases and left with 5 filled with beef, lamb, cheese, toilet paper, tissues, cleaning products, bread and lollies. Plus some Christmas gifts thrown in there too.

We all enjoyed going to the movies, the girls saw New Moon (GO TEAM JACOB) and the boys saw Planet 51. Mmm popcorn and Fairy Floss.

The kids and Dads spent a couple of hours at the beach surrounded by thousands of India men much to their delight being photographed and stared at, I hate to think of photos of Eliza in a bikini top shared on many mobile phones. Yuk.

It was a total reality check boarding the flight back yesterday. Being pushed and shoved trying to get on the plane is not fun. I can no longer contain my temper or my mouth and explained to the very rude impatient socially inept people that we all have a seat on the plane and it will not leave without them. Mac was even heard to say that something smelt really bad. Whoops. Then there was the guy that thought it was a good idea to jump out of his seat as soon as the plane touched down in Chennai to get to the front of the plane to get off. I shouldn't complain because we all had a great weekend and appreciated the chance to recharge the batteries.

You Better Watch Out!

You better be good, because Santa Clause is coming to town.

Yep he's here, right in the heart of Chennai. Well even if he isn't, his clothes certainly are. They were hanging on a community washing line in town today and when we saw them I made Victor do a lap to go back to get a photo. It was THE LEAST THING I expected to see, but it certainly put a smile on my face to know that the Christmas spirit is alive and well in Chennai.

All I want for Christmas...

All I want for Christmas is this Pashmina.

On Friday night I went shopping with a couple of friends. It was a Christmas shopping outing to a silver jewelery shop and to Spencer Plaza to find some Pashmina's for one of the girls Christmas gifts. Now this friend has very fine taste in Pashmina's and she was on the lookout for a particular shawl. I, on the other hand was just along for the ride until I spotted this shawl at the bottom of a pile. It was the softest and most beautiful thing I have ever felt, with a fine border pattern around the edge that had a hint of shine to it. I draped it around my neck and it felt sooo heavenly, than I asked the price of this fine shawl and CHOKE, I nearly fell over. Rs19000, yes that is 3 zero's on the end. This equates to $446.56 Australian Dollars. The shawls I have been buying have varied in price from $5-$40 and I thought the $40 one was a real splurge until I wrapped this beauty around my neck....I couldn't resist getting the camera out and getting one of the girls to snap a pic of me wearing it, because that's as close to acquiring it that I will ever get.

This photo does it absolutely NO justice but it was quite possibly the loveliest Pashmina I have seen.

And there is no way in the world that I have ever been good enough in Santa's books to deserve it. So there it sits in a pile of other shawls begging to be bought and loved, I may pop into the shop every now and then just to admire its beauty and dream of it's softness around my neck.

Thinking about what I want for Christmas, I have been remembering what my Dad always said to us when we would ask him what he wanted for Christmas.

"Well behaved kids" was always his answer.

Perhaps that is really all I want this year for Christmas.

Please Santa make that happen......

Tis The Season.

Well, the Christmas tree is up, the blog has had a festive new look and now begins the countdown to the big fellow in his red suit coming to pay a visit for all the well behaved children in the family. Sam wrote his Santa list today, Mac's not sure what he would like and Eliza, lets wait and see what Santa comes to the party with for her.....

We are heading out of town on the 11th Dec so we thought it would be nice to get into the Chrissy spirit a bit earlier this year and decorate the house. I always think it is a good reminder for the kids to behave if they would like their Santa sacks to be filled up on Christmas eve.

Have you been naughty or nice?

Mothers Intuition??????

Who ever said always trust in your Mothers Intuition wasn't right. Well at least not today anyway.
Remember last weeks blog about Mac doing the cute winking thing and his teacher telling me he needed to go to the doctor to see what was wrong? Well she had the last laugh on me today.
Since I wrote that blog Mac's eye trouble has been getting worse. He has also been telling me his eye was "paining". How Indian he is becoming.
So I did some asking around and found out the place to go to have his eyes checked. I was quite impressed when I told Victor where I wanted to go and he knew where it was. I should have known that meant I was in for a typical Indian experience. We pulled up in the drop off area and I took one look inside and said to Victor, "Oh boy, this place is busy", He then tells me he thinks we will be awhile....
We get taken straight to a private sitting room and there we wait,and wait, and wait. Then the get taken from room to room for some initial tests. Then back to the room to wait. Sit here. Come here. Read this. Such great communication. Then the nurse comes into the room to put eye drops in to dilate the pupils. This is to happen every 15 mins for 1 hour and in between he is to keep his eyes closed. Mind you I am not told this initially so Mac was loving watching his favourite Indian cartoon show on the TV in the room where there are 3 other kids starting having the same drops in their eyes. I am then told he must close his eyes, "Well how about you turn the flipping TV off then" my patients is growing thin. Next 15 mins arrives and Mac is now screaming and refusing the drops. Indian people all looking at me wondering why my kid is so feral. We get through the next 3 doses and then the nurse walks in and shines a torch right in his eye and more tears, off to 3 more different rooms for more tests. "Read these letters, look at this picture, just a puff of air in your eye, keep your chin on this spot and you forehead here." Hello this kid is 4 years old and maybe he doesn't know all his alphabet and do you mind if I get my sanitising hand wipes out to clean that before my kid puts his face on it!!!!!!!!
Now 3 hours later we actually get to see the paediatric specialist who's 4 year old son is running around her consulting room drawing on the chairs and being very disruptive. She tells me Mac has a problem with his vision and he will need glasses, but come back in 10 days once the drops have worn off and she will fit him with some glasses. I can't wait to go back in 10 days, let alone try to keep a pair of glasses on my 4 year old action man.

It's Raining Again

Monsoon is here and we are all enjoying the cooler weather. I would be lying if I said we are loving the rain. Sure after living in Australia where our rainfall these days is minimal and we are on water restrictions for all of the year it is nice to see the sheets of rain falling and the lush plants and trees becoming even greener, if that's possible.

Last week in 3 days, we had more rain here than what we would get in a year at home in Lara. This creates havoc in this country. The roads have turned into lakes and once the water recedes they are left extremely damaged. Pot holes everywhere and it feels like driving on a rough terrain course.

The smell, well, like I said in another blog during monsoon last year, weewee's and poopoo's have been once again been re hydrated and the smell is Horrid.

The fashion statements around town during monsoon is something to see. Plastic shopping bags come in handy for all sorts of things. Mainly head wear to keep those beautifully coiffed Indian doo's dry. But as usual these very resourceful people can do a thing or two with a plastic bag.

The local cricket field is a lake and it is common to see children swimming along side the Water Buffalo. No cricket there for a while.

And the best part of the Monsoon is the power cuts. You never know when they will strike. On the rare occasion that you decide to bake a cake, power goes off or just as you are frocking for a night out and whammo, no power and frizzy hair. What's a girl to do. This girl runs into a friends house on route to the function, straightening irons in hand and heads out frizz free. Oh my straightening irons how I love thee.........

With all that said and done at least we have a roof over our heads that doesn't leak and candles for those night time power black outs, which is a lot more than many homeless people have. Last week in the middle of a heavy drop of rain I sat in the car waiting for Andrew and watched a family sheltering under a veranda hardly wide enough to keep them dry. A father and his two small kids, all barely clothed but amazingly with smiles on their faces. While my kids are sitting in the car fighting about something so trivial like someone moved onto their side of the seat. It was a good time for a reality check for all of us. The kids got a lecture while I shed a tear for this poor family. My tears will not help them but at least showing my kids the importance of being humble may make a difference to someones life one day.

This is a taste of what rain is like for all our friends and family back home who may have forgotten what it is like. I hope one day it will rain buckets again and our kids will be able to go out in it and play in the puddles.

After School Fun

On arriving home today from school these sweet kids were out the front of our apartment waiting for there bus, mind you it is now one hour and 15 mins after school has finished for them. No teacher supervision, just one of the boys organizing the other kids to have races balancing books on their heads. Yesterday when we got home they were having a blast playing in the puddles and having races floating their flip flops in the river of water out the front. Such a far cry from the organized after school activities at our kids school. Yet another contrast of our life in India. Of coarse I couldn't help myself and headed out with my camera, only to be flocked by 20 or so kids all wanting their photo taken. I had Victor and Palani (the guard helping with crowd control) Trying to get them to stand still for the photo and not move closer to me is impossible. And the boys that love to put their dancing skills to the test to impress me is hilarious.

I then sent some sweets down with Victor and Palani and the chaos continued. We stood in on the balcony of our ivory tower and took a few more photo's. Only after getting Margaret to tell them to pick up their sweet wrappers and put them in the bin. They have no idea of the impact of the rubbish on our environment. I hope one day someone in this country will wise up to all the rubbish and plastic filling the streets and start to educate these kids for their futures.

Bless This Kid

Last night after brushing Mac's teeth he started gargling some water. I have never seen him do this before.

So I ask him, "Mac who taught you to gargle?"

"Mr Bean" he said.

Do you think he watches too much TV? If he is watching Mr Bean goodness knows what he will do next. Stay tuned....

He has also started winking. Like, all the time. When I picked him up from school today his teacher tells me I need to take him to the Doctor, she said he has been winking all day. I told her that he is doing it a lot, just to be cute. Such a cheeky boy. Lets hope thats all it is.

When we left school today he asked if we could take his fav teacher home with us. Imagine having your very own grown up to play with that will let you do just what you want all the time. Oh, hang on, he has and her name is Margaret.

Time To Be Grateful

Ok, Today is a new day and enough with my "Pity Party" from two days ago.

It's time to be Thankful. Sometimes it's so easy to see the bad things that life deals you and harder to focus on the good. So for me it time to be "Grateful" and give thanks for all the good things God blesses me with on a daily basis.

Clean Fresh water

Good food

A wonderful hard working husband

Sweet kids

Sunshine

A comfy bed to sleep in

Amazing experiences

A driver and a car to get around these Indian roads safely

Margaret, my rock and god loving maid

A wonderful school for my kids

Moisturiser, lipstick and mascara

True friends

Supportive Family

My Sister always there to encourage me

Coffee

Chocolate

So it looks like I have heaps to be grateful for.

What are you grateful for?

Trouble in Paradise

Today has been a typical TII ( This Is India) day. Haven't had one for awhile so I figured it was about time to have another annoying, difficult, frustrating day in paradise.

I am struggling with a chest and sinus infection at the moment so that didn't help my temperament.

The first issue with my day was when I went to the ATM to withdraw RS 15000. The ATM would only give me 40 notes at one time. This meant 40 Rs100 notes at a time. So after having to make 4 different withdrawals I was getting a tad peed off. Especially when I ended up with 160 notes bulging in my purse. Then to top it off the woman who had so rudely pushed in front of me in the cue, tries to hand me her business card. A weight loss center. Oh, how rude can these people get????? I then go into the bank to make a complaint and wait in line for 10 mins. My phone rings with a call that I had been waiting for, so the lucky complaints guy got out of a good old ear bashing from me.

I got home to find my favourite nightie has got stuck in the activator in the washing machine and the door handle on the fridge has broken off. So I make a call to the Westinghouse call center to get a repair guy to come and rescue my nightie. As usual the call center girl and I have much difficulty understanding each other, I hope someone will be here within the next 24 hours. We will see.

When going to use the phone I find it also is not working so another call to a supposedly English speaking call center. Oh the joys. The complaints operator told me someone would be here to rectify the problem before 11.30, was that am or pm?

Next thing that happens is the cable guy comes to collect the money for our cable bill and of course I have used every last RS100 note. I tell him he will have to come back on Thursday, the date that the bill is due to be paid. They are not silly every month they come a few days earlier than the bill is due and this means in the long run so far we have probably paid for a extra month easily....

Thank goodness tomorrow is a new day.

Desperate Measures

Reading my local Aussie newspaper online this morning I came across this........Hilarious


Man sues after Lynx fails to attract girl
news.com.au
2 November 2009
AN Indian man claims he has been cheated by the cosmetics firm that makes popular deodorant Lynx after failing to land a girlfriend for the past seven years.
Vaibhav Bev has been using Lynx deodorant since 2002, in the hope the company's promotional campaign - which features scantily clad women throwing themselves at men - had some basis in real life. Mr Bev is suing the maker of Lynx - marketed as Axe in his home country - for more than $100,000, seeking compensation for "depression and psychological damage". "I used it for seven years but no girl came to me," he told the Daily Record. Indian compensation lawyer Ram Jethmalani advised the company that makes Axe, Unilever, to settle out of court. He said any claims by Unilever that Mr Bev failed to find a girlfriend because he was unattractive were unlikely to succeed. "In fact, some of the best-looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys," he told the Daily Record. Unilever has so far declined to comment on the case.

Mac the Fish

We can't believe this little boy of ours. He has no fear and after a week in Thailand his swimming has improved so much. He spends more time under the water trying to duck dive to the bottom that he does above the water.

Now to try to teach him not to dive into the shallow end.

A Spooktacular Halloween

The kids are getting to experience all sorts of new fun things while going to a multicultural school. Friday they got to dress up and celebrate Halloween.

I put my hand up with a bunch of other Mums, to help out in Sams class and do a Halloween craft activity and afternoon tea. The kids all had so much fun dressing up and doing a lap of the school Trick or Treating.

Eliza being in year 7 got to attend the Middle School Halloween Dance. By the sounds of things it was a fun night (not that I get told much these days) and they too had fun dressing up.

Eliza and her friend all dressed up for the Dance

Today the Halloween festivities continued and we all attended a Halloween Brunch at one of the bih hotels in the city. It was organised by a few of Mums from school who did an awesome job. Once again the kids got all scary and had heaps of fun doing lots of scary crafty stuff.

Mac and Ryan the Superheroes

I got the chance to have a cuddle of a dear little 8 week baby named Brooke. So sweet. Mac would have love to have taken her home with us. I take my hat off to Brooke's Mum and Dad, what a huge thing it is to have a baby, let alone doing it all on your own in a foreign country. They are doing a great job. So I had my baby fix and got to hand her back.

Andrew and I even went out on Saturday night on our own for dinner. Eliza got paid very well to stay home with her brothers and 'brothersit'. All went well, no fights and we were really proud of them. We were only 10 mins away and we had got Mac to bed before we left so it was only Sam that Eliza had to deal with. It was so nice to be out, having a meal in the company of other adults with no kids falling asleep at the table.

Andrew, Graeme and Adrain with one of the waiters at the restaurant.

They were giving these Devil's horns away at the night club where we were out for dinner, I couldn't help myself. The kids love them

So that was how we spent a very busy week in Chennai, between rolly polly balls and scary kids I'm bushed......time to put my feet up.

United Nations Day

Thursday the 29th Oct we celebrated United Nations Day at AISC. And what a big day it was. The kids all decked out in their country's national dress and the Mum's all got on board and produced food on mass, enough to feed 1000 we were told. For us Aussie Mum's that meant rolling hundreds of rolly polly balls. I took on a friends batch also, as her schedule was fast becoming outrageous and so Margaret and I stood and rolled about 300 balls. Thank heavens for her, we are quite the team, her rolling, me coating. All done in no time and the mess cleaned up pronto.

The day started with a parade of the different country's flags and Eliza got the honour of being a flag bearer along with 2 other Aussie kids, one from High school and another from Elementary school. Then we were blessed to hear some lovely singing from a 3 different grades and the school choir. 'It's A Small World' and 'We Are The World' never cease to bring a tear to my leaking eyes, especially when miles away from home.
(Oh, ok, I even cry at St Anthony's assembly's)

Then we Mum's got to work and set up for lunch to feed the school. It was great to see so many Mums getting on board to help. Us Aussies teamed up with the Brit's so it was fun to share the day with a great group of Poms...

We had the pleasure of being placed next to the Korean Mums and their Noodles and Sushi rolls, boy are they a funny bunch, one woman couldn't take her hands of our Cricket Bat and the rest kept pinching our Balls. (Rolly Polly's)

The kids are filed through with their plates overflowing, some more game to try something new and others happy with their own familiar food.

Here is a list of the food we all got to sample,

KOREA
Kimbop (rice roll)
Japche (noodles)

INDIA
Vegetable rice and raita (yogurt)

LATIN AMERICA
Totopos (chips) with salsa

EUROPE
SPAIN - Tortilla
DENMARK / SWEDEN / FINLAND - meatballs
FRANCE - Crepes
GERMANY- bread
ITALY - cold veg. pastas
U.K. & AUSTRALIA
Cucumber sandwiches, cottage pie, shortbread and rolly polly balls

JAPAN
Fried chicken and omelet, Vegetable and shrimp pancake and rolled sushi and sushi rice

U.S./ CANADA
Cookies and brownies
S.E. Asia
MALAYSIA – Lasilamak (Coconut Rice) with veg and non veg side dishes
THAILAND – Veg Phad Thai Noodles
SINGAPORE – Me siam (noodles)
PHILLIPPINES – Chicken adobo, Eggplant (Brinjal) omelet

TURKEY – Traditional Turkish Food