Long gap but I am still here…

In November last year my normal sequence of blogs was disturbed as I went home for a 6 week holiday. Since then I don't seem to have been able to get back in to the habit of writing my blog. I could make excuses, I have been to Geneva and South Africa in the intervening period, but all this would be nonsense and, as my daughter pointed out , this would not be allowed in the holiday diary tyranny that I used to impose on her when she was little.
Here it is mango season again and I occasionally ask myself whether there is any other fruit, as at this time of year we don't buy anything else. Goodness knows how many kilos we get through in a week! The perfect breakfast- mangoes, home made muesli (with lots of nuts) and yoghurt!
It is hot here at the moment and we are waiting for the monsoon with bated breath but the news reports tell me that the rain bearing clouds are stuck, motionless, in the Bay of Bengal. It has been a dry winter here so we need both the rain and the cool. The well in our garden is about 7 feet down on the same time last year; not good.
We are in the middle of having the outside of the house painted because there is to be a wedding in the house at the end of the month. The painters have been around for most of the week and I have made a startling discovery… workmen are the same the world over! They used my bucket because it happened to be handy, I cleaned off the paint. They have managed to splatter my garden table and chairs with a nice fine spray of brown paint. You ask them to clear up at the end of the day and a) they look at you as if you are slightly deranged and b) they simply pile the grubby newspapers in a corner. All I can say is that I am glad they are not painting inside!
Work continues at the usual, slow, pace. While I was away in December the office moved right to the other side of town so I now have a half hour tempo ride every morning and a slightly longer bus journey home. There are still lots on my work plan to do before I leave Nepal in November but I am making slow progress ticking things off the list.