Scottish Summertime

We took a very rare visit to the homeland this summer.  Leaving just as the monsoon broke over Mumbai and arriving in Scotland on a day so hot and still that we were able to sit comfortably in pavement cafes and marvel at the weather.

It wasn't to last, every day since has been cold, or wet, and more often cold and wet. However, it does make for a lot of fresh looking greenery.

The ducks like it.

But really, summer?

3:30 pm, June, Princes Street, Edinburgh

It's been great catching up with people we haven't seen for years and stuffing ourselves with food we can't get in India but I'm looking forward to getting back to warm rain and not having to dress in multiple layers to cope with the weather.

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.

The party's over; bring on the rains

"That'll be the holidays done then" as we Scots say. I start back to work next week and will be in India until at least Christmas. There's no hardship in that except that this year most of the national holidays fall midweek and there's only one long weekend between now and Diwali so travel will have to take a back seat. There's still plenty to do and see though, I live in Mumbai after all and I've barely started to scrape the surface.

Back in India the monsoon is well underway and it feels and looks good:

No moaning about grey skies this year, mind you, I say that every wet season.

It rained

After days, weeks of waiting the wind picked up the skies grew dark and our little bit of Mumbai got truly drenched. Down it came, soaking the ground and shining up the leaves and giving everyone a little taste of what's to come. It was bloody lovely!

Rain falls in Saigon

On Friday I stopped work for two weeks. On Friday the rain started. Huge dark clouds and the odd clap of thunder followed by a short but heavy downpour. It rained on Saturday too for longer and more dramatically but by then we were safely tucked away in a restaurant having lunch and could indulge in one of the great pleasures of wet season - having one more drink while you wait for the rain to ease off.

It seems that nearly everyone with a blog in Vietnam's been going on about the oppresively hot weather, I'm no exception and I welcome the rain along with everyone else, at least for the time being.

I'm absolutely gutted that I didn't have my camera with me to capture the two boys in matching polka dot pink ponchos though. Still that's another joy of the wet season to look forward to.

Polka Dot rainwear

The Saigon equivalent of a dreich day, it was overcast and cloudy all day with near constant drizzle gave me lots of time to mull over the rainwear solution.

I've more or less given up on working out how to get the plastic poncho to keep anything other than my shoulders slightly dry. They flap around and leak and whatever I'm wearing on my legs wicks up water to waist height. I put it on when I'm on the bike but it's more a case of fitting in that providing any practical wet weather protection. How two Vietnamese manage to stay snug and dry under one of them is beyond my comprehension.

I like the look of the clear plastic polka dot poncho draped over the blue and white Attila but know that on me It'd look like I've been shrink wrapped so mine is dark blue, anonymous and a waste of space in the boot box.

Cyclo Challenge 2009 and the Stealth Samba Band

This year the weather was terrible for the Cyclo Challenge, see earlier post for how lovely it was last year and this post for how awful it was in 209.

I was otherwise engaged so didn't take the pictures showing here but it was my camera so I guess I have ownership:



Muddy and churned up but people waited patiently to go strut their stuff.



This bunch of chancers turned up without a gold sponsor and still managed to blag their way into the opening parade.



Stealth Samba, like Banksy with drums.

Atlas didn't have any supporters so were weirdly happy to have the random samba band.



It was bloody muddy and ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Strange Rains

The wet season should have stopped by now but it's making a return visit. We've had rain midafternoon almost every day since Christmas. On the upside it cools things down a bit and usually doesn't last long.