We had a good weekend with Bishop Jeyapaul and his wife Violet staying with us, very easy guests and happy to be able to take things at a slower pace than back home in India I think. I think too that they enjoyed being able to relax and be 'ordinary' people - well ordinary but wearing a purple clerical shirt and large Iona Cross. He bought the cross while here in the '70's studying at St John's College in Nottingham. He spent a week on Iona and got the cross then never dreaming it would be worn as a pectoral cross and that he would be a Bishop.
Saturday morning the Moderator came for coffee - after making scones though I abandoned them for the questionable pleasure of forking out £95 to the dentist to put a temporary filling in my tooth where my gold inlay had decided to part company from the rest of my tooth. Admittedly he did come to the surgery especially to treat me but even so! By the way, how come gold inlays cost a fortune but you never get a refund when they break and can't be used again?
We had a quiet day on Saturday afternoon, avoiding the rain, a little shopping but other wise stayed around home and an early night to catch up on their time change a little. Church on Sunday morning when the Bishop preached, followed by  a fellowship lunch - we have one every month but changed the date to suit their visit - simple fare, very sociable and relaxed. Later on in the afternoon, we went to Holyrood Palace, they have a serious problem at their entrance desk, there were only about 20 folks queuing to get in but it took almost 30 minutes to get to the desk to pay, a very slow system and one which will be a real problem once they get summer numbers of tourists in.

On Monday a tour of North and South Queensferry seeing the Bridges and crossing the Road one. Took lots of pics of flowers and plants... reminded me of when I was in India and taking pics. We went to Craigie Farm for coffee and picked some strawberries and raspberries which we then had for lunch at home. Monday evening, our guests moved to the Rectory as planned.

Initially we had intended that I would go up to Aberdeen for my birthday, but we have realised that in fact I needed time at home to pack and organise for the forthcoming holidays.
Yesterday was my birthday, we took a trip down into East Lothian, then had lunch at Craigie again before taking Ali to work in South Queensferry. In the evening, Colin and I had dinner in the Tower.
On our way home we played at tourists in the shops at the top of the Royal Mile to round off a nice day.

So today, after 3 days in school catching up, the holidays start in earnest, I'm off to the hairdressers first thing, well 11.00am! My hair needs a good tidy up, there appear to be some hairs form someone else's head there, can't be mine they are the wrong colour, my hair is brown not grey! After that it's down towards North Berwick to visit a friend and see the extension which was finished a couple of years ago and I still haven't seen.
On the way back I need to pick up some flowers for church and if I leave it any later than today they won't have opened properly by Sunday. Think I'll probably go for some lilies as the main focus as they are so striking just now, we don't go over the top though, a vase not a huge display thank goodness.
Tomorrow I have to finish getting things sorted for the arrival of the Bishop of Tirunelvelli and his wife for their pre-pre-Lambeth week! I've got various things planned but would also like to take them out on the Maid of the Forth to Inchcolm weather permitting. They are with us till Monday when they go to the rectory for a few days. I'm off to look them out some warm jackets for their first couple of days till they become acclimatised!

Still waiting for warm weather so I can sit out in the mornings in comfort having my morning coffee before starting the day... I continue to wait!

Well today was the first day of my school holidays... and where was I...? in school. Long gone are the days when teachers shut the door on the last day of term and spent the next x weeks relaxing. I can see me being in school for at least another 2 days this week before I have to start getting ready for the arrival of the Bishop of Tirunelvelli and his wife on their weeks visit to Edinburgh pre-pre-Lambeth! they are spending 4 days with me and 4 with our rector and his wife, which means they won't be with me on my birthday. Not that they aren't very nice but i would prefer to relax on my birthday and have a day with family.
I've been busy arranging things for them to do, so far they are meeting with the Bishop here, with the moderator, Colin was able to oil the wheels on that one, going to bible World, I thought I'd take them on either the Forth cruise or the trip to InchColm, weather permitting too. Sadly they leave the day before our Ultreya at St C's with the Bishop of Texas.
I'm starting to get the packing organised now, I seem to have a day between times away and weddings so not much time to get ourselves organised for being away. This summer will disappear in no time, I think every minute of it is accounted for and that starts with Reunion this evening.
Ali has managed to land herself a job she loves at the Orocco pier in S Queensferry, she's just finished her first week and apart from sair feet just loves it. Good pay and tips as well as posh food for her lunch break what more could she want!

The garden is looking good just now, we've finally had our fence replaced after our neighbours roof blew off during the gales in January and demolished it. Apparently it was an act of God though and so has to come off our insurance and not theirs... seems a bit unfair, just as well there was no old testament prophet about or he might have got the blame for the whole event. Wonder whose insurance that would have been? Still the fence looks good and we just have to encourage the plants to grow again now! all this rain helps though, I'm saving hours each evening NOT watering the garden!

Well tomorrow is the longest day and I have to say that these late light nights are beautiful, if only they were warm as well. One of the things I noticed in India was the lack of twilight, there it changes from light to dark in a measurably short period. My friends there cannot understand the idea of light nights... How do you get the children (and you) to sleep? they ask. How indeed! Hard to believe though that after tomorrow we begin the countdown to Winter though.

I've been taking some lovely shots of skies and views in SE Scotland recently. The first is North Berwick on a school outing last week, it was not as warm as it looks!,
 
The second lot, Colin and I took when driving back last weekend via Silverknowes, a fab rainbow if you can spot it over Portie! The clouds were just amazing.

The next  was taken at 11.30pm driving through Edinburgh tonight after picking up daughter #2. What a kind mummy I am!
We couldn't believe the colours, we got some really surreal shots of car lights too. Some of them had us wondering if we had drink taken when we looked at them!

The last is a skyline last week from our back garden at 11.45pm.

We're off down to North Berwick again tomorrow for a Cursillo event including a soup lunch, thanks to George and those at St Baldred's for that! There are fab charity shops in North Berwick so we're going down early.

It's been a while and I guess you could say I've settled back in now to my life at RBS and in Edinburgh! School is into its last two weeks now and you can feel the buzz of excitement. End of term concerts, outings and just general summer time joys. Only hitch is the weather which seems to think that April temperatures are ok for June... NOT! We had an outing to North Berwick last week which was a lot of fun but the wind blew. We visited the local fish and chip shop and were glad to be indoors.
Ali is now home for the summer which is nice and frantically searching for a job, so if anyone out there has a vacancy for an able 18 year old, do get in touch.
My eyes were playing up this week, since Saturday, by the time evening comes around I've felt as if I had a rock in my right one so today visited the GP who sent me to the eye pavilion who had a vacant slot so long as I made it within 30 minutes... I did. It looks as if it is just dry eyes though so I've some lubricant drops to try and see if they fix it. In the process though, as well as having my eye lid rolled out the way over a swab, ouch!, I had some drops put in which react and turn the eye fluid bright yellow... it is not recommended that one visit the supermarket on the way home unless one wishes to be mistaken for Hannibal!
Noticed that my local petrol station, not Shel but Ess, has run out of all fuel! Thought Shel was the problem and that they were back to work. Colin has realised that it is costing him less than half the cost of driving to get a train down at the weekends just now so has booked things up for the next few weeks and will leave the car in Aberdeen.

Glad to report that my Dad who has been back in hospital after a suspected stroke, is well on the mend. Turns out to have been a drug mis-match which floored him and once that was sorted out, he has made a good recovery. He is due out of the local hospital in Hampshire on Tuesday. That is rather good timing as daughter #1 and I are off down to see him this weekend. I haven't seen him since I got back from India and am looking forward to seeing him. he'll be less stressed if we go to the hospital rather than at their house.
I'm looking forward to spending time with Katy and catching up on all her news. Here in school, I've been given some extra admin work and am out of class for that which has been a mixed time. I love being with the pupils, but enjoy some of the admin stuff too.
I don't know if I said but I got a lovely welcome back to school, a banner my class had made to welcome me back, some great socially appropriate hugs and smiles from my class and team too.
Now I've been back for almost 4 weeks and in some ways it feels as if I have never been away. I've had some nice compliments on the newer shape I managed to bring home from India which is very flattering though. Only 4 weeks left till we break for summer hols - being away for 6 months certainly makes time fly I can tell you. I remember when 6 months took at least half a year to go by and this last period has just flown by! Or am I getting older?

Colin and I went to the Moderator's Reception last night at Parliament Hall, 11 Parliament Square in Edinburgh. His cousin David has just been installed as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
We started the evening in the Tower Restaurant on top of the Royal Scottish Museum in Chamber Street. They do a very nice two course pre-theatre supper for £12.95. Wine is fairly hefty addition, but if like me you don't drink it... no problem! The view, if you have never been there, is fantastic. What other city can match this! these pics were taken on my phone so the quality is perhaps not as good, but you get the idea!

From there we walked down George the IVth Bridge as a child along with many other Edinburgh weans, I could never understand why the bridge was called George! part of the confusion I suppose was because just outside Edinburgh there are two more Forth Bridges which don't have names... except what drivers call them during the rush hour which is largely unprintable!
Here are pics of Colin's mum and David with Colin at the reception. Colin's mum is the only one of her generation left and David's aunt, so felt very proud of her nephew! There is also a pic of the amazing stained glass window.

What amused me was that when I walked in, the first people I met were two Pisky Bishops St A, D & D and G,one with accompanying wife and a synod office staff member. It was also nice to see wine at a C of S function!
Apparently the hall is open to the public, it is round the back of St Giles, and there is a cafe down the stairs too. You have to pass along the Advocates corridor, where their boxes are kept. In Scotland Advocates don't as in England, have 'chambers' but have to manage with these boxes. They don't appear to be in any particular order, but no doubt there is a special significance and prime positions known only to those who need to know!

Well I've been back a week now and in work since Monday well except for a training course yesterday, but in paid employment again which is nice. Everyone has been very welcoming and kind and allowed me to fill their ears with travellers tales! Please don't think I shall run out very quickly, do be patient with me, 6 months is a lot of stories!

Since I came back I have been going through my pictures and the memories have just flooded in. Although I am so happy to be back home with Colin and Ali and Kathryn and Jon, I often think of my friends and the children who I had the privilege of working with in Tirunelvelli.
I need to be careful to sing my RBS songs in the mornings and afternoons and not my Tamil ones! Yesterday I found myself singing the same songs that I sang with Mariam, with one of my girls here which made me (and her) smile.

I went out to see Penny in Lanarkshire yesterday, she has her lambs arriving daily, here are two which arrived yesterday with their proud mum!

As you can see too, the sunsets in Scotland are pretty good at the moment too. The thermometer on Kwik Fit read 25degrees as I came home yesterday.

A wee parting pic from Kovalum all over India people either played or watched cricket or did both, this was on Kovalum beach at around 5.0pm on Monday. The other pic is of the men who sit all day every day rain or shine painting the pictures you see behind them with incredible detail. I have bought a number of small paintings on silk back with me which I shall frame up and sell to raise money for the Trust and my return visit!!!

Well I'm safely back home after the experience of a life time. If you are unfortunate enough to know me, you may wish to leave the country for a while until I stop talking. All went well on the flights home, the only delay was on the Edinburgh London leg which was 20 minutes late leaving Heathrow, but made good time on the actual flight. Quite a nice wee ploughman's cheddar salad on the flight too... I turned down the smoked mackerel option which has never been a favourite of mine. I have to say though that the BA meal did not quite match up to the 'tasty tantaliser' served an hour before landing by Qatar. We had had two other meals, this was just a wee snack... see pic.

I thought you might like to see the pic from Doha airport, of the parking area, where else but the middle east would you find a lane purely for limousines. It was so hot there though (outside not indoors A/C). Much hotter and drier than India and much less green, everything seemed to be very dusty too as you can see on the car in the lower left corner of one pic. I had a wonderful HOT shower in Qatar, I think they thought I had taken up residence I was in for so long.I slept most of the way back to the UK. I had not really slept since Sunday night in Kovalum. Monday night although I went to bed around 10.00am I only had short naps as I had to be up at 1.30am for my 2.00am taxi to the airport. my flight was at 5.00am and lasted around 4 hours, but including take off, landing and being fed breakfast, there was only a couple of hours sleeping time available. I then had 5 hours in Qatar which was nice and relaxing, a lovely restaurant with free food and drink, showers as mentioned, internet access and comfortable seating/sleeping space too. From Qatar, the flight was around 7 hours to London, again very comfortable and I just ate and slept, there was no view from the windows until over Europe, as there was a lot of cloud below us. It was raining in London and in spite of concerns they managed to transfer my bags from the Qatar flight to terminal 5 and my Edinburgh flight on time, I had just around 2 hours at Heathrow. Couldn't bring myself to buy a £2 cup of coffee and made do with a£1.30 bottle of water although that about broke my heart. Don't expect to be fed Chez Mair until I get to grips with these prices a bit.
I got to Edinburgh and picked up my bags and then had to run the gamut of about 10 customs officers, a lady beckoned me to the side and my heart sank as she looked at my 3 bags and hand luggage, 'Are these all your bags?' she said! 'Can you step over here for a moment please? Where did your journey start?'. I replied India and explained my 6 month stay and what I had been doing trembling all the while, I had nothing I shouldn't just couldn't face unpacking everything! 'Do you have ID' she asked. I produced my passport. 'Have you any alcohol or tobacco?' When I said no, she smiled and said, 'Is someone picking you up? Welcome home!' I made my way to the exit as sedately as I could with an overloaded wobbly wheeled trolley and met Jon who had just arrived. He brought me home, we had a quick cup of tea and then I was back in my own house.
Big adventure over...... for now!
I will continue over the next while, to put up some of my favourite pictures which never made it to the blog before, along with some short (perhaps) anecdotes, this will probably gradually tail off, but allows me to keep up the nostalgia for the time being!

The weather here has been quite cool... 30'ish, and cloudy as if preparing me for my return!
I've done all I can today to prepare for today and my flight, including having a massage tonight. Now I have to go back to the hotel and wash off the ayurvedic oils or I'll be coming home yellow and no one will want to sit near me on the plane! I have a wake up call, assuming I've been to sleep that is at 1.30am, my flight is at 5.05am so 3 hour check in time. I get back v. late Tuesday and for a couple of days will only be contactable from around 10am - 9pm as I try to bring my body clock back 4.5 hours, at least I'll be awake in the mornings!
My India mobile is receiving calls and texts, but not sending them, so if I don't respond, please forgive me, thanks Freddie and Joyce! My UK mobile is also receiving texts.
I am flying from Trivandrum airport in Kerala and if you want to see the hotel I am in currently go to www. then rockholm.com (I have not typed the address correctly as if I put it as a link then my viewing figures are all messed up.)
Looking forward to seeing everyone soon, especially Jon as he meets me off the plane tomorrow evening! Goodbye from India. & Namdri! (Thank you in Tamil)for all your support.