The elder son and family were down for 5 weeks from the UK. This is one son who loves India and will come whenever possible. This time he was able to combine a work visit and so was able to spend a whole week with us in Bangalore. Lucky for us his wife comes from Bangalore too and so they come straight here, to her Mums and our house, to enjoy their entire holiday.

This time it was lovely to have a little more time with the new baby. Definitely the old adage that the second child is less troublesome than the first, was pretty obvious. As long as his tummy was full the five month old sweetie just lay back in his bouncer and bounced himself up and down entertaining himself, looking out at the rustling leaves and the calling birds. The little girl was even more enjoyable, as she chats and interacts with her perfectly clipped British accent.

However food is a huge problem, as there is nothing that she likes of our Indian cuisine. “ Ooh, hot, too spicy!” she would say to everything, literally starving herself. Then suddenly a plain dosa or a plain Malabar parotha would catch her fancy and would go down. I remembered my mum making noodles for my aunts kids when they were small and visited from Germany.

Now Maggi noodles make the job almost instantaneous and she would polish those off without a problem. Pasta boiled with butter and sprinkled with ketchup was another favourite and ofcourse she loved fried eggs. I am a ketchup monster she would say much to her parents disgust.

Her mother organised a lot of different programmes everyday for her. Visiting the Planetarium, Going to the Lalbagh Flower Show, going swimming every morning with her Dad, she really had a lot of fun. I had fun looking after the little guy who is only five months old and a real doll. No trouble at all.

Ofcourse we went to stand in the local darshini and eat idli vadas and drink filter coffee. The darshini supplies much better quality vadas and idlis than the expensive sit down Konarak. So after the first visit we would take the tiffin carrier and collect the idli vadas and khara baath for everyone and then sit down to a really wonderful breakfast together, at home. Lucky I was off college for the week as the kids surendepitously had exams.

The little girl loved walking around the garden admiring the flowers and the plants. Sadly she could not collect tamarind and bimblis like she used to earlier, as the new residents since she last visited - have dogs that pee on the lawns where the tamarind fall and the bimbli tree is dead. Dead because of ignorance,as a manager of the building allowed a poison to be applied, to get rid of an ant nest and he killed a perfectly healthy Bimbli and custard apple tree.

Then ofcourse the wonderful meals doled out by all the clubs they belong to. Was another plus that we enjoyed during the week. The Cricket Association offers a wonderful set of kebabs and Indian spicy food which I don’t enjoy. So I stuck to my chaat while the others ate the rest.

Sadly our trip to Konarak to have a channa Batura was wasted as their North Indian cook only comes after 7pm they said.So again we just feasted on Papri chaat and came home.

But the best meal of all was the lunch at Nossa Goa where we ate a variety of spicy squid and prawns made in goan style and for the first time I enjoyed a typical goan sunna for a change. Otherwise I was unaware, that we have been eating only mangy sunnas which have no taste in comparison. Their pork vindaloo, sorpotel, and beef xacuti too were delicious and we enjoyed them all,cooked with the typical goan vinegar.