Happy New Year 2008!

It’s been a while, I know. I apologise for the delay in writing on my blog. Things have just been so hectic here!

For those of you who haven’t already heard our good news – Penri and I are expecting our first baby in April. We couldn’t be happier and are getting really excited now that my bump is starting to show.

Christmas was pretty good – we had a nice relaxing day with just the two of us. We decided we’d spend the day at home and just played computer games, watched TV and then went out to the Park Hotel for dinner, which was lovely.

Penri's mum sent the cats some catnip and because they haven't had any since February 2007, they went crazy for it! We gave them some in the morning and then decided to put a bit away for later. Well, that was the plan ... however, I went in the kitchen to get a drink and Socks had found the packet of catnip. She'd gone crazy and eaten most of it. I managed to catch her on camera ...

















Aren't her eyes amazing?

I had my Drama Show (MADRAS Kids) on December 8th, which went really well and I was so pleased with the outcome. There were 31 kids involved and they all did a fantastic job. For me though, that’s it for my Drama Club. I have passed it onto a friend of mine who is going to run it from January. I wish I had more time and effort to put into it as it could potentially grow to be something huge, but with the baby due, I just don’t want to commit to something that I can’t see through. I must admit I have really enjoyed setting up the Drama group and both the shows I did were really successful, so I guess I’ll always have that to take away with me as fond memories of living in Chennai. I'll really miss running it as well; the kids are fab!


















Madras Kids December 2008

I am still helping out with the OWC (Overseas Women’s Club) till February when we have the annual Garden Tea. It’s a very posh event, which I was involved in last year (playing the piano) but this year I’m on the Entertainment Committee so there’s a lot more to organise. There are only two of us on the committee and the other lady is on leave from the end of December till February, so I’m pretty much on my own on the committee. Luckily, the president of the OWC is Stephanie, who’s a really good friend of mine and I know we'll be working together and she has it all in hand, so that's cool.

The last reason I have been run off my feet, is we have just moved house! We decided if we are going to be here for another 9 months then we are going to move somewhere a bit more manageable and a bit more baby-friendly, which our last house was not! With all the power cuts and water shortages and the winding staircase, it just wasn’t suitable, especially with the baby being due in April – it’s the hottest time of the year! So, I spent two weeks packing boxes and suitcases in preparation for our move. I was trying to take things slowly as I don’t have the energy I used to have, but I never actually realized how much stuff we have acquired and what I thought would possibly fit in 10 suitcases and the same number of boxes ended up being a whole truck full!!

I'll write about our move in another post otherwise this one will be incredibly long!