Nain and Taid come to town

The day after we returned from the Maldives Sue and Suresh landed in Chennai.  We spent the first weekend having a belated Christmas celebration before the boys returned to school.

At the end of their first week with us we celebrated the Tamil harvest festival - Pongal.  Some of the residents in our compound organised a celebration with traditional Indian games for the children, rides in an ox cart, talks and displays about the festival and a fortune telling parrot!

Sam took a couple of days off during the visit and took his mother and Suresh on a guided walk around the main temple in Chennai and they also did a cooking class.



We managed to fit in lots of traditional food, shopping and sightseeing.  One of the highlights was a trip to the World UNESCO site of Mahabalipuram, which is only half an hour away.  Emily proved to be almost as big an attraction as the temples and rock carvings!

Towards the end of their stay it was Sue's birthday. We started off the celebrations with something she has never done on her birthday before - a swim!

This was closely followed by a champagne breakfast and pressies.

For lunch we went to one of our favourite restaurants, Amethyst. It is in an old building with a verandah and a lovely garden.  A little oasis in the city.

In the afternoon we sent Sue off for a relaxing massage.  Dinner in the evening was at one of Chennai's best Indian restaurants in the Leela Palace Hotel.  The only drawback of the evening was that it was an unexpected Government dry day, so after dinner we headed home for nightcaps!

And relax...

 When we first found out we were moving to India some friends who had lived here before suggested we put the Maldives on our to do list.  I have always thought of the Maldives as more of a honeymoon destination than a family holiday spot.  However, after a bit of research we found that it was not all romantic meals on the beach and that there were specific resorts that welcomed families.  Therefore it made the to do list.  We originally thought it was the type of holiday we might leave until the end of our time here but after the shenanigans with Emily's passport we felt we needed a relaxing break.

All of us were pretty excited as we set off on the 2 January. Although Emily didn't seem bothered much.

Our flights took us via Colombo were we stocked up on a few bottles of wine.  The man in the shop didn't really want us to buy them as apparently you can't take alcohol in to the Maldives.  However, no one seemed to want to search William, Oliver and Emily's bags!!

There were fantastice views from the plane as we came in to land at Male.

After arriving in Male we had a 40 minute boat trip to the island we were staying on.  the crew informed us that the sea was pretty rough and the lady sent to meet us from the hotel said even she was feeling ill.

Everyone made the crossing without being ill but it was a huge relief when our island came in to view.  Although it was getting late the island looked beautiful in the evening sun.

The next five days were spent snorkelling, exploring the island, eating and relaxing.

Emily had learnt to walk over Christmas and it seemed that the Maldives was the perfect place for her new found skill to be perfected.

On our last evening we went for a cocktail on the roof and watched sharks being fed.  Although we had only been on the island for five days it felt like weeks and was just what we needed.

Christmas

Christmas rather crept up on us this year. Firstly the week of flooding at the beginning of December meant all thoughts of getting prepared went out of the window and secondly the resulting warm weather meant that it felt nothing like Christmas! he flooding meant that there were no turkeys available and supplies couldn't get through so we opted to barbecue a couple of chickens.  The price difference was amazing.  An imported turkey was being priced at around 90 whereas our two chickens cost a total of 1.70!

On Christmas eve our friends Natalie and Sakis came over with their children Sophia and Alex.  We had  a lovely evening and managed to get in the Christmas spirit despite the temperature!  William and Oliver set out food for the reindeer and wine and a mince pie for Father Christmas before going off to bed in a high state of anticipation.

It was at a quite civilised 630am that we were woken on Christmas Day by a very excited William and Oliver and a rather non-plussed Emily!

The rest of the day followed our usual traditions with a few unusual elements.  It was strange to be having a bbq for Christmas dinner and our post lunch walk was a little less bracing than usual!

                        

Boxing Day was celebrated with friends locally and their families and we had a few days out in Chennai before New Year.  Our friend Sarah and Dougal came with family to help us celebrate New Years Eve.  We all had dinner together then went up on the roof to watch the fireworks.  Some of our neighbours must have had some left over from Diwali as the rockets seemed to go off at funny angles!

On New Years Day we discovered a curry buffet at a beachside restaurant which hit the spot perfectly!