February 7, 2023 Christmas and beyond

Finally in the mood to post.  Some days it seems like such a chore.

November 30 was Jim's usual Robby Burns night celebrated on St. Andrew's Day.  A nice party made even nicer by my not having to do anything this year.

December 1 was Lesley and Ralph's wedding anniversary which was celebrated in style with a buffet specially prepared at the Royal Bar.

I keep getting inquiries about teaching English.  People are desperate to leave the country.  I even had an inquiry from my neighbour's neighbours who, it turns out, were trying to get their 13 year old daughter into Canada.  I told them that there was no way that a 13 year old could immigrate on her own.  It is incredible that despite wanting to get out of Sri Lanka, most people have no idea how to go about it or even any notion about the countries they want to go to.

December 7 to 9, a group of us went up to Hatton.  I was particularly keen as I had spent so much time up in that part of the hill country when I lived in Sri Lanka before.  We stayed at The Argyle; a true 5 star hotel.  They had a heated swimming pool, a spa, a good dining room, a nice bar, wonderful organic vegetable and herb gardens, a lovely strawberry patch and great rooms.  The only drawback was that it was cold.  We all had to have space heaters in our rooms.  It went down to 13°C at night.  I did manage to go swimming one morning, doing 1km., but the second morning it was really cold, blowing a gale and pelting rain.  I did not feel like swimming in that weather.  Even though the pool was heated, your head got cold every time you came up to breath.

My room on arrival

The view.  A misty, rainy day.

You can see Sri Pada (Adam's Peak) from the hotel even on a misty day.

The swimming pool was within sprinting distance of my room.

The pool is lit up with changing coloured lights at night.  Green here.

Red here.

On the day after our arrival, we went exploring.  First to 2 water falls that are within easy driving distance of Hatton.  Jim had also visited an old church which we found.  Lovely with a nice informative English speaking caretaker to show us around.

The first stop was the Mlesna Tea Castle right across from the Devon Falls.  We had a warming bowl of soup as it was still cold although not raining.

Then it was on to Devon Falls.

After that it was St. Clair's Falls.  Apparently Devon Falls feed St. Clair's so if they do as the government has ordered, they will deplete Devon Falls to get more water flowing into St. Clair's.

St. Clair's Falls surrounded by wonderful tea country.  Sadly a lot less tea then 35 years ago.

There is a Ceylon Electricity Board museum at St. Clair's Falls.  The Upper Kotmale Hydropower Project is nearby and also can effect water flow in the falls.

Our next stop.  Warleigh is an Anglican Church serving the large Tamil Christian population in the Hatton area.  It has a congregation of about 25.  The nearby Anglican Church in Dikoya which is serviced by the same pastor has a congregation of 350 however.  Built in 1878.

Lovely stone structure.

Quite a bit of nice stained glass for such a small church.

The altar.

This bible was printed in the 1860s and presented in 1879.

The pulpit

The pipe organ.  The gentleman talking to Yvonne is the caretaker.

The church is located on the banks of the Castlereagh Reservoir which feeds the Wimalasurendra Power Station.  It is a beautiful setting.  The caretaker pointed out the grave with the new headstone as that of his wife.  She is buried beside their son.  Sadly, there is no more room in the graveyard, so he cannot be buried with his family.

I drove up and down with Douglas about whom I had some trepidation as the last time I drove with him up to Newara Eliya he drove like a maniac and I was quite scared.  None of those antics this time thankfully.

During December I was preparing to receive my new housekeeper, Kumari.  She came twice to get her kitchen, bedroom and bathroom ready for moving in on January 2.  Vineetha was quite put out by the change but would not budge on her refusal to live in.  Understandable given she is taking care of 3 young grandchildren.  So she has been pensioned off and Kumari has come to live here.  She has been more than excellent.  Unlike Vineetha, she is more sophisticated and has more education.  Her father was in the British army.  She is the eldest of 11 children.  A real self starter with a lovely personality.  She did more in the first 2 weeks than Vineetha had done in the previous 6 months.  She also likes to garden so the garden is looking better than ever.

Mahjong continues unabated.  We are getting more skilled all the time.  Replacing Gerry's mahjong set was proving to be a bit of a problem.  Just as were discussing how to deal with this, we got an email from Gerry saying she is going to donate her wonderful set to us as she is starting to get rid of her stuff before they move back to Australia on a permanent basis.  Such a wonderful gift, but sad that they are leaving.

The usual Christmas lunch was at Radisson (formerly Ozo).  It was quite successful in that it was well attended with 35 people.  Almost everyone brought a raffle donation, so nearly everyone won a prize.  The down side was that the food was crap and expensive to boot.  I won't bore you with all the names, but you can tell everyone is having a good time.

This photo is a bit special as the lady on the left, Rangitha, just recently got married.  So the raffle prize served as a combination Christmas/wedding present.

Christmas Eve saw my usual tree trimming party.  We are getting really good at singing Hungarian Christmas carols.  This year were joined by my landlady Tula and her granddaughter and husband visiting from Australia.  Shiami, the granddaughter, has a wonderful singing voice so that our rendition of Silent Night was especially lovely.

Christmas Day was exhausting.  First the annual breakfast at the Grand Kandyan.  Thankfully, their buffet breakfasts are back on so that we are able to go about once a month.  

The lady in the front right, Lilamini, lost her husband a couple of years ago and then almost died of COVID.  Nice to have her join us.

Then it was on to Lesley and Ralph's for their annual Christmas open house.  Then back home to pack the van to go up to Sally and Jerry's for Christmas dinner and overnight stay.  It was all great but the best by far was the stay with Sally and Jerry.  This was the second year that the same group has done this.  They pull out all the stops.  They made a good looking glazed ham for the dead animal eaters and salmon en croute for me.  All finished off with a flaming Christmas pudding made for a memorable meal.  Breakfast the next morning wasn't too shabby either.  Freshly made hoppers and homemade jams and jellies.  Hope we can repeat this for years to come.

There was a couple of days reprieve and then it was off to Nug and Ianthi da Silva's for dinner.  They live in an old family walawa that is well maintained and in a lovely garden overlooking a beautiful paddy field right in the heart of Kandy.  Nice evening with terrific hosts.

I had not intended to do anything for New Year, but a group of us were invited to George and Yvonne's for New Year's Day which meant that Simon and Pauline had to come into Kandy the day before.  That being the case, I decided to have a small New Year's bash with S&P and Malcolm and Viv.  We managed to see in the New Year and stayed up until 0130.  It had been Vineetha's last day, so I did not have any help for serving or clean up, but I managed.  I have become spoiled.

George and Yvonne's on New Year's day was very nice.  We drove out with Lillian which I had done last year as well.  It was a nice chance to catch up with her.

Yvonne is a good cook.  Lovely baked salmon the a thing called syllabub for dessert.  Syllabub is essentially trifle without the disgusting jello.  I hate jello, so it suited me just fine.  Part of the group was Zane and Arjuna; a Latvian woman married to a Sri Lankan. Zane used to come to film club years ago and Arjuna was best friends with Lalindra with whom I had the School of English.  It was wonderful to see them and catch up.  

They have planted 30 acres of tea and are making artisanal teas such as pink tea.  Arjuna brought small packets of tea for everyone as gifts and then made us a sample of the pink tea.  Absolutely fabulous tea. Simon and I promptly ordered some.  Crazy expensive, but worth the price.  Check out their website:  https://www.delicatebuds.com.

Front row, left to right:  Lillian, Yvonne, Pauline
Second row, left to right:  Zane, me
Third row, left to right:  Viv, George
Back row, barely visible:  Malcolm, Simon, Arjuna

Another reprieve for a week and then over to Lillian's for dinner.  She moved into a lovely place a few years ago in a small gated community.  She is Norwegian so her place is decorated with lots of beautiful Norwegian and Sri Lankan things.  She had invited a good friend of her's named Linda who lives out at the golf course.  She is a Kiwi and a very interesting person.  I was glad to have met her.  Lillian is also a wonderful cook, but I did not tell her that I was vegetarian thinking that she knew, so I had limited options for dinner.  A good evening nonetheless.

In mid-January I had a visit from the youngest daughter of my Sri Lankan landlords from 35 years ago.  She may have been 11 or 12 then.  She is married with a child and has been living in Dubai for more than 20 years.  Her husband and young son joined her.  It was lovely to see her and to meet her family.  It is really worthwhile keeping in touch.

I attended the first Film Club of the year and will likely go to the one in February as well.  However, if the food doesn't improve, I am going to give it up entirely.  Naturally, the price has gone up because of 95% food inflation, but the quality has also gone down.  The worst possible combination.

I had wanted to get a second connection for the satellite TV for Kumari.  Tula's daughter, Yazmin and I went down to the service provider in Kandy town to make the arrangements.  We spent 1.5 hours sorting things out only to find out the next day that they had fucked everything up.  Not only could they not connect up to Kumari's TV because it is too old, but the technical team was rude and unhelpful.  It then took me 4 hours to straighten things out with Dialog on the phone.  In the end, I had to phone one of Yazmin's former students who works for Dialog to sort the mess out.

As I was running up and down the stairs to get Tula's connection reactivated, getting a delivery from the courier, organizing the delivery of rail tickets for Simon and Pauline to go to Colombo along with a tuktuk to take them to the railroad station, I slipped and fell down the top steps by the gate.  I really whacked my back to the point where I was winded.  I was letting out noises that sounded like a gasping hippo, trying to get air into my lungs.  In the end, it turned out that I had bruised a couple of back ribs.  It has been over a week and I am just now able to bend over.  In the end, Kumari went over to Katugastota (the nearby neighbouring town) to an ayuervdic doctor and got some oil for massaging the area.  She has applied the oil for three days.  It has made a world of difference.  I am hoping that by Saturday I will be able to climb into a tuktuk and go to the bank.

I have rigged up emergency bells for both Tula and I.  They are just wireless doorbells on a lanyard that we wear around our necks or in my case pinned to my dress.  That way if we need Kumari there are doorbells in her bedroom, kitchen and in my main house.  So far it is working out well apart from the odd accidental ring.  At least, I don't have to go around yelling.

Closing with my furry babies:

At long last, Chewy was been fixed.  I had wanted to do it earlier, but she went into heat and you can't do it then.  She was out of the cone of shame as soon as she woke up.  I hate those things almost as much as the animal must.  Instead I bandaged her up with a body bandage.  She did very well and recovered quickly.  However, she is on my shit list at the moment as she broke one of my Herendi porcelain jewelry boxes chasing a moth.

This is Fluffy, a male cat who lives a couple of doors down.  He has almost moved in bringing 2 girls with him.  They are Fatty 1 and Fatty 2.  He is lovely and friendly but he fights with a huge black and white male and pees all over the place.  I want to get him fixed, but I can't make an appointment because I don't know when he will be around.

3 cuddlers

Buddy and Nangi always sleep together.