Hi
everyone, hope you enjoy the blog.
Cold
nights, we were pleased we had our wood burner which kept out the chills, but
as Chris is an Engineer he wanted to stop wasting so much heat from the chimney
so project box started.
Chris
designed a box to fit around the chimney fitted with fans and ventilation and
hey presto we have significantly more heat and we can even direct it to any
part of the room.
I have been
writing again! Having a little girl in
the house changes your life. I know that is obvious but what ‘s NOT so obvious is the many ways this happens.
One of the ways
she has got to me is through my writing.
I have
begun a book for Geeta. “Tales from the Forest”. It tells the stories of the different animals
that live there and what they are doing.
So far:
1 The
Squirrel p1
2 The Fish
who live in the pond p5
3 The
Badgers p9
4 The Snails
p13
5 The
Mosquitos p17
6 The Ducks
who live on the pond p22
7 The
Rabbits p26
8 The Dogs p30
9 Hawks; The
hunter Birds p35
10 The
Spotted Deer p49
11 The Woodpecker p43
12 The windy
day p49
13 Little
Two Legs p53
14 The
Elephants p59
15 Pari and
Dog, the birthday p63
16 The
forest Monkeys p67
17 Pari and the Goats p71
18 Dog’s day
out
p75
19 Dog’s day out part two p80
20 The tooth
Fairy P84
Some of the stories feature a little girl called
Pari and her best friend Dog. It will continue until I run out of ideas!
She loves it when Kris reads a story to her at
bedtime. They are deliberately not very long so they are easy to comprehend and
keep her attention.
Another project has been with the
fire. The chimney pipe gets very hot, a lot of heat going to waste. So, this
heat exchanger was constructed. The pipe was wrapped with a piece of corrugated
tin to increase the surface area giving off heat that would be in the
exchanger, similar principle to a multi tube boiler. Coarse wire wool
was also added to slow the air flow past the collector to gain maximum time for
it to heat. On the back at the bottom are Pc cooling fan (2) to push the heat
out of a slot at the top. Normally we only run it on the slower fan and it
works great. If we use both fans it really pumps out the heat.
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| The corrugated tin wrapped tightly around the chimney pipe. Before the wire wool was added. |
The finished project. It can rotate to cover the whole room
. The other noticeable difference
has been in ‘comfort’. The room doesn’t have cold spots anymore as hot air is
constantly kept moving throughout the room.
 |
| Note the temporary power supply for the fans |
Winter this
year was soooo much warmer. Kris suffered a lot less from joint pain and the
whole house was warm.
A visitor
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| A little lizard visiting on the floor mop. |
Warm Aid
Warm Aid
was wound up in January till next winter, we rounded off with another visit to
a nearby village next to Buddha College where we used to work. We parked the
jeep in the college grounds and we were assisted by Mansin Ji who had arranged
for the local people to meet us there. Mansin Ji mentioned there was another
village nearby where we could distribute more blankets. At first we didn’t
think anyone was coming but as the message got out more and more arrived. We
gave out over a hundred blankets to the needy. The locals were very friendly
and we accepted a drink of water as it was very hot. Alas I got worms and food
poisoning so was quite unwell for several days. But would I do it again, the
answer is a resounding Yes as they were offering me of the little they had and
it would have been very rude to refuse. All in all we have given out over a
thousand blankets since this project began four years ago, thank you to all our
supporters past present and future.
Garden
The garden,
is in a constant state of change and evolution as we continue to put our own
unique stamp on it. We have planted more leeks, cropped the English carrots and
resewn them. Geeta has a tub of carrots all for herself as she loves watching
them grow then eating them raw.
Our first
tomato plants have yielded some lovely juicy tomatoes, but are suffering from
being in direct sun so now they are shaded to protect them, and we have further
tomato plants in the flower border which are doing well too. As an experiment we
also planted some tomatoes in tubs which are in the garden on the marble
chippings. We are getting a really good variety of fruit and vegetables, which
taste so much nicer than anything you can buy in the market.
In February
we had a bumper crop of broccoli from our outside garden, the best we have
grown since being in India, not so lucky with the turnip alas.
Making new propagator
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| Party mode |
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| Tushant making the best outdoor chicken curry ever! |
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| An amazing birthday present from Kris |
Lots of
friends gave me pressies, thank you all,
a lovely day. I now have a jig saw (Power tool) thanks Peter. Candle lamp and
bottles but I am sure nobody will mind if I say my favourite was this.
Hand made
herself for me.
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| Off with her mum for two days. |
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| We found the mute switch |
Chris’s
Pate’
Well for
those that know him well it is no surprise that Chris loves Pate’ and it is not
readily available in the market, you may get it in a posh hotel but not in the
shops.
Fortunately
Chris makes great Pate’ but he is always wanting to experiment and improve his
recipes. So he challenged himself to making not just one new pate’ recipe but
three. Never does things by half my Chris. First was Liver and Onion, then
liver and bacon and lastly liver, garlic and ginger Pate’.
For those
that know me well will know I am not keen on liver Pate’, Salmon yes but liver
no.
We had an
evening with friends where we all tasted the Pate’ with my homemade bread. I
loved both the liver and onion and the liver and bacon was my favourite, not so
keen on the liver, garlic and ginger, although Geeta loved it. A friend took
some to her friends in the city for a taste test and they agreed with me. Well
done Chris I will eat your Pate’ again, the taste was sublime and very moreish.
Luckily I can get good quality chicken liver so Chris is happy.
Lately we have been cooking more and more western foods just for a change.
Lamb Shank
in red wine sauce was awesome. Again I made my herby liver which goes down very
well every time, Geeta is a big fan. I made peppermint creams dipped in dark
chocolate with Geeta, which she enjoyed doing. Both Chris and I are teaching
Geeta to cook and she is very keen.
Trouble in
the Wash room
A few weeks
ago I went outside to my washroom to put clothes in the washer and couldn’t get
the door open. Chris and I tried pushing and prising but to no avail. So Chris
gets his power cutter out and cuts a hole in the metal door.
Lo and
behold our washing machine was tipped on its side and wedged hard against the
door. Action stations with the help of stepladders I climbed in over the
machine and managed to right it, slight damage which the service man repaired.
Solution to stop it moving whilst on a very large block of wood between the
wall and the middle of the machine and a metal brace to keep it in place. The
problem occurred when we had to put the machine in what was the Asian bathroom
and we covered the toilet after cleaning it with a very heavy wood board, which
is why the machine vibrates and moves. We have nowhere suitable inside the
house and this is the best place for it, and our solution appears to have
worked. We have yet to weld the metal back in the hole!
Geeta
Well she
had a great Christmas and the hospital consultant is pleased with her progress,
she is due for more surgery hopefully this month. The operation is very complex
and just the first of many to release the contractures in her arm and hand.
Geeta knows what to expect and she is very positive about it. We have told her
if she does all her exercised to get the arm and hand moving we’ll get her a
bike and she and I will cycle around the colony. She is very excited about
this. She is continuing with her exercises and her studies. As Geeta was so far
behind we have been giving her home tuition, and introduced her to learning
through Biju’s. She is excited as this gives her a computer tablet on which to
work. We still hope to get her into school soon but we have to complete
kindergarten first with the help of Mrs Joseph she has made great progress.
Her English
is fluent but sometimes she goes off into Hindi or Mawari in the same sentence
when she’s excited. Geeta continues to charm everyone she meets; I have never
known a child so happy from morning till night. This weekend she lost her very
first tooth so we told her about the tooth fairy. Chris wrote her a story about
this and she is over the moon with the five rupees she got for her tooth.
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| New hairband |
Well that's all from us in sunny Udaipur (85degrees Spring time)
Take care and God Bless
Kris, Chris and Geeta
