Home Sweet Home.

Look what we came home to last night.

The ever gorgeous Margaret had been to the apartment during to day to get things ready for our arrival home after our long 3 week holiday. This rangoli (coloured sand picture) was outside our front door, the air-cons were on and their was a plate of shortbread on the table with a hand written note to, Mr Andrew, Mrs Megan, Miss Eliza, Master Sam and Master Mac wishing us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. How sweet was that?

Walking into the apartment it was as if the fairy's had been while we were away. And they had been. Freshly painted walls, clean windows and fly screens and all the lights and ceiling fans had been dusted and cleaned. What bliss. Three days before we left I had the thought that it would be great to have the place freshened up while we weren't having to live with the stinky paint fumes, Margaret's brother is a painter so I enlisted him for the job and Margaret and Victor had strict orders (and a cash bonus) to get the place sparkling. How lucky are we to get home from our holiday and have a lovely fresh, clean home to come back to. I know I complain a lot about living here but having these things accessible to us make it all much easier. We are so blessed to have such trustworthy staff that we could get up and leave while the place gets a makeover. Margaret truly is our gift from God while living here. What would I do without her.

So it's back to reality, today we spent the day unpacking and sorting out. Getting used to walking on these marble floors again is a killer, our legs and feet are aching and we are all exhausted.

I can hear my pillow calling my name.

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......