Ho! Ho! Ha, ha ha!

Maya had her final day at nursery today as it's now holidays for a month. Even though this will throw up challenges for me of finding activities for us all for both morning and afternoon (any innovative 'rainy day' suggestions with simple resources greatly appreciated - the rain has the same limitations as intense sunshine), to be honest I'm pleased to see the back of the place for a while. Maya's daily nursery angst has been distressing for us both. Despite the fact the teachers assure me she is absolutely fine the minute I've gone and she does seem happy when I collect her, I still question whether it is the right decision for her to be there because of the strength of her reaction upon arrival. Something is amiss. Anyway, perhaps after the break she'll want to go back, or perhaps not...We're all paid up for next term but that's not the issue. I think we'll have to play that one by ear.


On another note, HAPPY (belated) WORLD LAUGHTER DAY!

I know, I know, you're probably thinking I'm slightly nuts, firstly wishing you a happy world dance day recently...and now this. But I promise you, it really was world laughter day yesterday! There are, would you believe, hundreds and hundreds of laughter clubs all over India where groups of people, young and old alike, get together in parks to combine breathing exercises with a good old belly chuckle. This, it's believed, helps to keep you physically, mentally and emotionally fit.

We get a daily regional paper called The Deccan Herald and I read in this that to celebrate WLD hundreds of people were gathering in a park in Bangalore to...erm...laugh together. (Speaking of newspapers, we've received our first Guardian Weekly and so finally we're feeling much more in the loop again about world events. The Deccan Herald only dedicates one side to world news and of the articles printed here, many are pretty bizarre. For example, last week about a quarter of this precious page was taken up by a story about a man in Australia who has some weird complex about hating his left leg so much that he plunged it into an ice bucket for 6 hours so he'd have to have it amputated - all very fascinating but the global repercussions are hardly huge...Anyway, I am seriously digressing...). Back to WLD - going to see lots of people having hysterics was something that I just could not resist having a ganders at. So on this muggy afternoon, we jumped in a rickshaw and tracked down hundreds upon hundreds of people dressed wearing funny white chef-like hats and marching down the street going 'Ho! Ho! Ha, ha, ha!' We ended up in a big hall where we were given butter milk and biscuits. Between singing and speeches the entire hall erupted into a booming 'Ho! Ho! Ha, ha, ha!' Maya and Lily thought this was fantastic and heartily joined in. Whilst in there, it started to rain heavily outside so we were stuck in the hall with a load of lovely laughing loons for longer than we'd bargained for, but honestly, it was priceless. Only in India...