I think that is the term needed, Having found the product below in a supermarket today, which only cost 32 rupees, I reckon I may be trading in my husband!

Look I can buy 'New Colin', who 'Cleans to a shine'. He is blue and portable and can be replaced when he starts to run out, what more could I want!
I can of course buy this Colin from Spencer's supermarket... no relation to Marks and... I don't think! I use this place fairly frequently and the other day my doorbell rang.. it works when there is not a power cut! I looked out and realised it was not a visitor for me, and was going to let Nancy deal with it, when I heard a giggle and instead of one girl standing there suddenly there were 6, all grinning and pointing and chattering... I often have this effect... Nancy then said they say 'They know you.' I looked and it was a team of girls from Spencer's on a publicity drive giving out one of these fliers like we get in the Uk of weekly special offers. They handed one in and said hallo and gave me a free sample bag of rice. At which point Nancy said she wanted one too as she lived upstairs. I'm really going to miss being such an object of curiosity once I get home. Shopping in Morningside and Blackhall will just not be the same. These are two of the girls from Spencer's making a decorative pattern outside the shop this afternoon. The outline is in salt and is then being filled with flower heads, usually they are more simple and if filled at all they are filled with coloured chalk powders. Colin has a picture on his camera which I took in Kovalum, where they had decorated a table in a restaurant with flowers like this then a family arrived and had a child's birthday tea at the table on top of the flowers. It was amazing and I'll blog the pic if he sends it. I didn't have my camera with me at the time so had to take it on his. The other pic is of some fruit at a stall: Tender coconuts, the stall holder hits the top off with a machete, the stick a straw in and drink the liquid. When you have finished he then hits it again to split it, gives you a bit of the shell and you scoop out the shell lining which is still soft unlike the ripened ones (brown) which we get back home; next come Palmyra fruit, another palm top fruit in a hard outer casing, another machete job, the inside is divided into 3 or 4 sections each of which has a single segment of fruit in it. It is similar in texture to a lychee or jack fruit segment. You either eat these segments with a spoon or they are scooped out and put in a glass with a fruit syrup as a sort of dessert cum drink; the third you will recognise as water melons. You can see empty shells from both palmyra and coconut at the back. the good thing is the empty shells then make animal fodder and coconut shells are also soaked then beaten down into fibres which are made into coir for ropes and mats (doormats and those my generation remember as prickly thick gym mats). The fruit here is out of this world, Nancy brought me in two papaya last night (she actually brought 4 but I said there was no way I could eat 4 ripe papaya in time before they went off)! I had one for breakfast this morning.
Apropos of nothing, the third pic is of 'Hotel Canaan' which I take to be the distant building in the picture. If you click on the picture and get the enlarged version, you will see the graffitti advertising it on the solid wall of rock. I thought my school colleagues would like that one! Maybe a place for our next residential break?

One thing I won't miss it the tendency people have to tell you what they think you want to hear! I appreciate they are trying to please me, but I have been waiting for a bird book I ordered to be delivered since the end of January, there are now only 2 months left here and if it doesn't arrive soon, I shall be preparing to come back to the UK and have no time to study birds! I have been told 3 times that the book has been couriered to my local shop and have made special trips to get it only to find it wasn't there. Today I lost the rag and said that I thought they should contact the police as obviously the item had been stolen in transit. At this point they said it had not actually been sent as it was not yet in stock in the forwarding shop... so why send me a text on Tuesday saying it had been couriered to Tirunelvelli? Why send me to wait in a coffee shop for half an hour while they went to pick it up from the depot? I have now given up and asked Carrie's brother in Chennai to see if he can find it and post it to me here.

Here are some more goats! One on top of a wall across the road from my house tucking in to some flowers and the other tucking into a bin beside the supermarket. Goats here are kept as 'mutton' but also as suppliers of milk. Apparently the milk I buy in the shops is a mix of cow, buffalo and goat milk. I've never actually fancied anything but cow's milk in the UK, so it is interesting that I haven't noticed the difference!
One picture I didn't get was on my way to work yesterday morning, I passed a school bus, a 16 seater holding 30 or so, and obviously out of fuel as it was being pushed by about a dozen 10-12 year old boys who were having a whale of a time. The only adult present, the driver was in the bus steering. Can't see that happening on Morningside Road in the morning somehow.
My lounge gecko is sitting on my desk in front of my computer! I think he is fed up with me as I am keeping the house so mosquito free with my deterrent plug ins. Last time I saw him he had a huge cricket in his jaws and was running up the wall behind the curtain.
Mike I think it probably was a lizard on the wood outside the class, on closer inspection. Doesn't have the spiny crest my chameleons have either. I've also seen some very smooth lizards around the school grounds at times but they move too fast!