Canal boats mating

Canal boats mating
Originally uploaded by Mistress B.

Boxing Day saw us cruising down the gentle waters of Lincoln canal in the Good Ship Hayes in the delightful company of the Hayes family and my sister, and being spoilt rotten with home-made mince pies, delicious mulled wine, turkey, baked spuds and trifle. Ahhhh, Christmas! We stopped off for some liquid refreshment at a local pub where Dave's shocking new Christmas present had us all in stitches (see below video). Luvly.

Shocking Boxing Day Fun

What better thing to do on Boxing Day than go down to a country pub and play traditoinal family bar games...

Cheese cake scrapes

Well you have seen Bianca's eating problems before...and here you go again. We are preparing for christmas eve dinner and B just loves the cheese cake mix. Poor underfeed puppy =)

Nepali picnic dance

The quality of the video is bad, just done with my little stills camera, but it gives you a good impression of a Nepali picnic dance and bianca's dancing prowess. We have treated ourselves to a small Sony video camera so we can do more professional productions in future =)

Elephant Drive By

Bianca has control of the reins of the horse drawn carriage as we drive by an elephant and mahout.

Phil in his native environment

Phil in his native environment
Originally uploaded by Mistress B.

I have been enjoying a very informative and illuminating tour of the Life of Phil, which has seen us exploring his old stomping grounds in Sheffield and Doncaster, renewing friendships with old mates and taking rambles down Memory Lane. I have observed a certain theme emerging from Phil's memories; see if you can spot it: "Oh, there used to be a great cake shop here" ... "I remember this street, there was a great chippy" ... "there were two chippies opposite each other on this street" ... "this cafe used to do great coffee, lets try it out".
Thankfully, we've balanced out all this gastronomic remembering with a bit of walking. This photo was taken looking out over Sheffield from the Round Walk, which travels out into the woods and towards the moors. We were blessed with a gorgeous sunny day, although the mercury barely crawled above zero, and we had to watch our step on the pavements which were slick with ice.
And a big hello to all the lovely friends (and family) who have taken us in, fed us and made us feel so welcome on our UK excursions so far: Sara, Pat and Bob, Pat and Vics, Roger and Sarah, Dave and Debbie, Flea and Dave, Pam and Keith, and Sam and Ants.

Sausage Lust

So there we were in Lincoln Christmas Market when Bianca smelt the sausage stall. She hasn't had much dead animal on our trip and India was mostly vegi for Bianca (poor thing) by her own choice I must add. I thought I would capture Bianca’s meat cravings for prosperity. She didn't know I was taking pictures so she wasn't hamming it up (so to speak).

Please note in these photos now the sausage never leaves her sight and what is happening with her mouth/tongue.

That night she also had a cow roast!!

Go West (life is bloody freezing there)

Us in Lincoln (photo by Dave)
Originally uploaded by Mistress B.

After 3.5 months in Asia, we've now moved on to the United Kingdom - land of unintelligible accents, weather that strips the skin off your cheeks, the miracle meat substitute 'quorn', damn good sausage and filled with so many of our family and friends. Feels great to be in such familiar surroundings. This photo of my sister, me and Phil (who is not in fact pregnant, but protecting camera under his raincoat) was taken by Lucy's partner Dave, who was taking us around his home town of Lincoln. The famous Lincoln Christmas markets were on, but the weather was so revolting we came, we saw, we imbibed mulled wine and sausage, then retreated back to Dave's parents' house PDQ!
Sorry about absence of bloggage but it's hard to take photos of cathedrals when freezing rain is blowing horizontally into your face. Hope you are all disgracing yourselves spectacularly at christmas parties.

Last day!

We splashed out and stayed in the JW Marriot Mumbai for the last night in India. Bianca was a bit doubtful at first "hotels are just a place to sleep" but after a swim, a go in the sauna with hot and cold dip pools, champagne and choc cake delivered to the room, cable tv, kingsize soft bed with 8 pillows and visit to in house Italian restaurant she changed her mind.
There is the best buffet breakfast that I have ever had and I have stayed in many hotels in my time. They had people making to order eggs, muffins, pancakes, waffles, juice, Indian bread etc. Great bread, cheese, coffee etc were on offer. I thought Bianca would go wild and be eating everything in sight but I was very disappointed. She had cereal, grapes and a fig! Phah.

Dhobi Ghat

Second to last day in India we spent in Ahmedabad in Gujarat. There weren’t many tourists and so lots of friendly staring and ‘Hello!”, “Welcome to India!” shouted at us as people whizzed by on their 125 motorbikes. One place that was photogenic was the Dhobi Ghat (wash area) by the big river in the centre of Ahmedabad.
We were on the bridge over looking the Ghat and the kids around the Ghat were waving and shouting for us to take their picture which I obliged in doing.
Otherwise we were holding out for our flight to the UK and starting our next leg of our trip.

Jamie Oliver, Indian style

Jamie Oliver, Indian style
Originally uploaded by Mistress B.

Our last three days in Rajasthan we spent in the delightful town of Udaipur, where we undertook three cooking classes with the talented Sushma. It was one of the best things we did on this trip - as we learned how to make all the wonderful Indian foods we've been getting fat on, like masala dosa, paneer butter masala, aloo gobi, mulligatawny soup, naan bread, uttapam, chapatti and stuffed paratha (to name just a few dishes). Be warned, dear friends, an Indian food cooking challenge will be issued when we return, and we're going to need guinea pigs! In this shot, Phil is demonstrating his dab hand at making the lentil/rice pancakes for masala dosa (also happens to be one of his favourite meals). Note Sushma's smile of approval. Tough togas, lady, he's mine.

Squared Circles

For those of you who like my squared circles here are some from india. For those of you who dont like my squared circles well...tough titty here are some squared circles from india anyway!
BTW if you want to see all mine in a great little slideshow go here.