Arriving in Delhi

Well Hello everyone. I have been in Delhi for one week now, Ant has gone into his first day at school and I am sitting in an air conditioned dark apartment in Green Park ready to tell you all about it. Cyprus was great fun. We connected with family and friends, Christine and her kids came from South Africa, Thomas aka pigeon from Swizerland and the kids met many friends there. The downside was I did have to go back and forth to Nicosia very often to chase up paperwork for Tara.
She survived the journey but we didnt know where or how to find her. A man was sent to help us but he was less than helpful and we began an interesting 3 hour process of trying to locate her, complete the paperwork and go home with her. We were ushered into dirty dinghy offices, mercifully airconditioned where an official sat reading the paper. On his wall two posters "dont buy trouble" ( covert message to us perhaps ? ) and the Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles of India. Ledgers were produced and entries made, journeys to other dinghy offices, some of which were closed. Finally with a sufficient number of stamps and duplicates we were led to a little room saying live pets where Tara was sitting in her sky kennel no doubt wondering where the hell we were!We were delighted to see her and she panted her way to Green Park which is our temporary home while we wait for our container.
Green park has a main road which comes to life about 10.00 am. From fruit vendors to little provision stores to coffee shops and wonderful vegetarian restaurants it would appear to have it all. We live on the ground floor of a three storey apartment opposite a beautiful square of green with a moghul tomb in it.
Hightlights of the week :
Ants haircut at Shakirs for £2 where he was treated to a head and face massage like you have never seen before. He was laughing all the way home.
Visiting the house and meeting our staff, Shiva our driver and Kumari our smiling nepalese maid who is the spitting image of our favourite Nepalese woman Didi. We met our new adopted stray dog Chini who acts like a guard dog. T is useless in that respect. We met our neighbours and Mrs Kapoor the landlady. Fabulous middle aged down to earth matriarch of a large family. Totally in control and great to work with . She was responsible for a lot of the improvements to the house.
Our first monsooon. The heavans opened and before long we had water coming in under the back door. We opened to investigate and there was a gushing waterfall coming down the stairs. Charlie and Ant had a lot of fun wading through the 3 inches of water that had fallen on the flat terrace looking for the blocked drain.
Driving down two lane motorways the wrong way and this is with the official driver !
Finding markets with favourite goodies, enjoying the signs, "Deep Sewer Keep out", "For Bathroom Fixtures go to Hindware" and "Thailand for Sale 14,999."