Ralph the Wonder Llama

Last Thursday Narendra, Im, Im’s mum Penny and I went to Nainital for an overnight visit. Nainital is one of those old British Hill Stations, this one built around a rather pretty lake (tal meaning lake – this being Naini Tal):

The lake itself is kept pretty by relatively recent rules against dumping all sorts into it, and by a system of compressed air forced down from a station by the lakeside into vented rings at the bottom of the lake. This produces large circles of bubbles on the surface dotted around the lake, and serves, in the manner of fish tank apparatus, to aerate the water. Gosh.
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Actually, there isn’t really an awful lot to tell you about: since I arrived in the Himalayan foothills of the Utturakhand, life has settled into a bit of a routine which is very pleasant to actually live, but probably not terribly exciting to read about. That and the terrible unreliability of internet connections hereabouts has left me not updating things as often as I might. My routine generally has consisted of a fair amount of sleeping, a regular amount of tai chi, a bit of writing, a lot of reading (21 books and counting thus far), a bit of walking around the hills, developing a habit for watching Spooks, good food and lots of chai. Trust me, it’s a good way to live.

So, in the absence of much actual news (beyond the fact that my roti making has come along very nicely), and to make up for the shortage of words per se, I thought I’d share with you some random pictures from my holiday. Enjoy.

PS – actually in the past few days, in which time I’ve had to fix my blog and do battle with random internet connections and electricity supplies, I’ve decided to stay on a while. Until my visa runs out, in fact, in June. I see no reason why, just as I’ve got warm, I should subject myself to the ongoing winter in the UK. More soon – it’s lunch time and I need to go and order up my thali