Sometimes it takes being able to look back on an event or set of circumstances before the truth becomes clear - looking back on 2010 it strikes me now just how uncomfortable and niggly I had become by the year end, and how pleased I am to have left it behind. I was tired by the end of the Christmas show, and I think I had been tired for quite some time before that. Not necessarily the tired-after-hard-physical-work tired, more a weariness and dis-satisfaction which eats away at the edges, and leaves everything a little fraught and tattered. I needed a rest, and the holiday provided that. We did a whole lot of sitting, reading, walking about, more sitting, and sleeping. It was lovely to return to a place we know well, and to see people we know and appreciate. The four days adventuring we spent in Alleppey and Cochin were also laid back and restful - even the journey too and from Fort Cochi on local buses and rickshaws was an adventure and fun. The dash through a traffic jam to bang on the doors of an already packed bus, to be squeezed inside and stand amidst many others, was an experience!
And we caught up with Sam again. We had a quiet dinner at the Rockholm, and, on the Sunday, he borrowed a friends car and showed us around Trivandrum before driving up into the national park, the Western Ghats, to a small hill station called Ponmudi. 22 hairpin bends and no houses. A couple of hill tribe shrines were glowing by the roadside, their bells and cymbals sounding strongly in the clear, still air. There was a parking place, and a short walk to the top of a small rocky mound - then all around, for a full 360 degrees, was forest clad hill top upon forest clad hilltop upon further hilltop. The landscape of fairytale and fantasy, blue peak behind blue peak, the shades of colour varying slightly with the cloud shadow and the angle of the sun. It really was like being on the top of the world. The name, Ponmudi, means golden peak - the angle of the suns rays at sunset fall upon the long stems of the dry glasses and turn them to burnished gold. Earlier in the day we had visited the Kallar Waterfall, a kilometre walk along a hilly, rock path right into the forest - opening out into a clearing into which a powerful wall of water thunders. To get there, the slip on leather sandals we were wearing were not ideal, but we did it. Boardman had a crisis of confidence crossing the broad steam which led away from the waterfall. A simple paddle really, not needing anything more than basic care and attention - and I sat down in the middle. Heigh ho - it was warm and I dried out in no time.
Since coming home - the journey was longer than ideal, as there were some 17 hours in Dubai - we have installed the new exhibition and are now getting used to the realities of a tory/lib-dem UK once again! Elisabet is suffering from the 'flu, or a bad cold, and feels that life could be better, and I am trying to reconcile myself to the length of time it takes the OU to mark a 2200 word submission. Currently we are approaching the 500 words a week mark, and I am about to give up. Patience may be a virtue, but it is one that can be taken advantage of!
