Fish

I recently took a trip to Kerala to enjoy the Monsoon.  I like the rains anywhere but it's true, they are more beautiful in Kerala.  Also, the fish is excellent.  So here, fish in the rain;



More to come as I sort through my holiday pictures and maybe another holiday to come too but that's another story involving painters and tradesmen and a flat move.

A quick peek at Kochi

As the monsoon sets in we headed off to Kerala where, I've been reliably informed by Keralans, the best of the rains are to be found.  There was just time for a whistlestop tour of Fort Kochi when we arrived for our one night stay and pictures were duly snapped from under my umbrella.  Truth be told I didn't take many but I've made up for it on the rest of the journey, however, for your delectation, here are a few windows in Kochi:

 A Christian window.

a Jewish window,

and a Hindu window.

...and a bonus picture of a cafe I saw.

More pictures to come of lovely, lovely rains.

Gothic corners

The weather is changing now but,we've had three weeks or more of too hot weather.  Relentlessly still, humid and sunny.  Fantastic for sitting in a cool cafe with an equally cool drink but exhausting for anything else.

Wandering around Mumbai with my camera, a target for every tout and taxi driver in the city, I found myself seeking out leafy and shaded streets and enjoying the gothic side of the city.

Like all Colonial architecture there is an incongruity to it that can make it seem out of place yet, in the use of local materials and some adaptation of ornamentation it leans towards local traditions too.  At least that how it seems to me.  Here are some pictures of what I've been looking at:

Rajbai Clock Tower, the Mumbai cousin of Big Ben

 Gated gardens with lovely wrought iron work. 

 Guarding the Garden

 More elaborate architecture in Fort with a "raven" for added effect

In the last week the breezes have started blowing, the clouds billowing and as I wrote this one of our first sprinkles of rain fell.  Things are cooling down just as work winds down for the summer and my thoughts are on monsoon travels.

Indian Teaching resources

As a teacher on the international scene I have all the same needs as any other teacher but sometimes amplified.  It isn't unusual to have to put together courses from scratch, once without any text books from August to December.  I've fallen back on the Times Educational Supplement site - TES for resources, lesson plans, schemes of work and general chit chat time and again. It's also been fantastic for job searching and researching new schools and locations.

I was recently contacted by TES to let me know that there is now a dedicated TES India  and asked if I minded promoting it a little. I have absolutely no qualms in doing that, it's free, spam free and if the Indian version is even half as good as the original site it will be a real boon to teachers.

Besides, if you sign up now you have a chance to win 1 million Rupees for you and the same for your school!

If you're an Indian teacher I highly recommend it, you really have nothing to lose.