We were awake bright and early this morning at 6 a.m! Luckily I had gone to sleep at 10 and Abi was only up a couple of times during the night so I slept fairly well.
I decided that we're having a day at home today because we were out yesterday and we're going out tomorrow so it's good to have a day just chilling. Going out in India is so much harder than going out in UK. Things just seem to take so much longer, I guess the traffic being horrendous doesn't help but even just going to the supermarket takes twice as long! Also, the heat really wears you out and even just a trip out for a couple of hours leaves us all exhausted. So, as I was saying I decided to stay in today.
We had a fairly uneventful morning and just played and watched some TV and tidied up a bit. I put up the first one of the posters from Laura in DJ's room. It had to be the Peppa Pig one! We decided that we are going to put the majority of the posters in Abi's room as that is going to be the playroom but I couldn't not put the Peppa one in his room. He loved it and spent ages looking at it, naming the characters and pointing things out on it. It was so funny, when Raj Kumar was cleaning DJ's room in the afternoon, he pointed at the poster which has ABC written in the window. He said 'A is for Apple, B is for ball, C is for Cat and E is for Elephant'. It was so funny and very sweet. He told me he took six classes in English. It's the most English I've heard him speak in one go!
Both DJ and Abi went to sleep at 2.45 which is not what I planned, but DJ was so tired he couldn't keep his eyes open. I only let him sleep for 40 minutes because I was worried he wouldn't sleep at bedtime. I was right to be worried! It took me two and a half hours to get both children to sleep and by the time they were both asleep it was 10.30 and I was absolutely exhausted! Pen was late home too so we all had a very late night!!
We woke up this morning (Friday) at 7 p.m. I brought Abi into our bed and laid her between us with loads of toys and tried to close my eyes for 10 minutes more. A few minutes later DJ appeared in our room so chances of sleep after that were impossible! He was climbing all over everyone! So, I got up and started getting children washed, dressed, fed, usual routine :)
Dylan watched a bit of TV while I tidied up and then at about 10.30, I started getting things ready to go out. Pen dropped us at Melinda's house at 12 and we stayed there for lunch and a couple of hours play time. At quarter to 3, we all went in Mel's car to another lady, Kristen's house. There was a play group on from 3-5 p.m for under 4's. DJ had a brilliant time! The great thing about going all these different places is, he is getting more and more comfortable playing with other children and playing without checking that I'm there every 5 minutes! In fact, today at Kristen's house, he didn't even look for me once! I kept going to check on him but he was just really happy which was lovely!
Kristen lives in an apartment within the Golf Course and it is a beautiful place – both the grounds and the actual apartment. It's by far the loveliest apartment I have seen in India and is decorated really beautifully. It made me a bit sad that our apartment is still so bare and doesn't have anything in it! Although I am working on that! Since being here, I have bought the chests of drawers, a pair of long brown curtains, a stair gate and this evening I bought an oven! The lady selling it isn't leaving till the end of the month so I have a couple of weeks to wait for it but it'll be worth it just to be able to cook a roast or a casserole or even to grill things!
Our cargo has now left Mumbai and is en route to Delhi. You would think I would be jumping up and down for joy at this news but I must admit – I'm feeling very pessimistic about it. I guess I don't want to get my hopes up only to be sorely disappointed. At least I know it's somewhere on the way :)
Anyway, back to what I was saying – at 4.30 Kristen ordered me a taxi as we still don't have car seats for the car which means I can't drive and I still don't have a mobile, which means I couldn't call a taxi. The taxi finally turned up at 5.05 and we were the last ones to leave the play group. It took an hour and a half to get home because of the traffic and because of the distance to our apartment. We live on the other side of the highway to all the other apartment buildings so it's quite a distance to go, however, our apartment is on the same side of the big highway as Pen's office, which makes it easy for him to get to and from work. That's a real bonus as Penri hates commuting.
The taxi driver spoke excellent English and told me that his normal job was as a chauffeur for the Sheraton Hotel and he drove a Mercedes for them. He said when it is quiet at the hotel, he takes breaks and does taxi work to make extra money. Not sure how much I believed him on that note. He was chatting to me all the way home and he said something that I must write on here because it made me laugh. He said 'You need three things to drive in India … a good horn, a good head and lots of luck'. He followed it up by saying 'Anything is possible in India' which a few seconds later was just the case. One side of the dual carriageway was closed so all the traffic from the other side was driving head on towards us on the wrong side of the road! It was crazy and probably didn't help the traffic!
We got home and I made Dylan some dinner then I fed Abi and washed and dressed both the children for bed. I couldn't believe it was already 8 p.m! Abigail fell asleep immediately and then I took Dylan to his bedroom. Within 10 minutes he too was asleep. Exhausted after a very busy, very fun filled day. Looking forward to the weekend and spending some time as a family :)
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