Richard Wright

Some things that have happened.

Elvis Presley has applied for a job as our driver.  I am not kidding.  Unfortunately, he is unlikely to get the position.  Having googled for character references, he is apparently nothing but a hound dog.

The weather here in Delhi has made another sharp change, and is closing fast on a British summertime.  It’s gorgeous today, clear skies and temperatures in the mid-twenties.  By next weekend it should be hovering near thirty, and it’s not yet March.

Next weekend, however, is a holiday weekend, with Monday being Holi.  People throw paint over each other enthusiastically, so I believe.  We will be spending a couple of nights in the city of Jaipur, poking around and generally exploring.  It’s known as the pink city, which I suspect refers to the stonework more than a subculture, and we’re taking a slow train there and back.  Looking forward to seeing some of the India between the cities, even if it’s only in passing.

Various bits of television are being watched at the moment, on iTunes or DVD.  Season one of Babylon 5 is for the most part comically bad, but extremely watchable.  The last season of Lost is so far daring and baffling, with concurrently running parallel universes in which the characters are living different versions of their own lives being one of the most daring ways to run a narrative I’ve seen (yet to confirm whether it’s going to actually work in drawing the series to a close).  24 is as brilliant and unlikely as ever.  The second series of Being Human is lovely, compelling, and beautifully written.  The first season and a bit of The Wire have convinced me that all of the ‘greatest television series ever made’ reviews may not actually be hyperbole.  There’s more, but I shan’t bore you with it just now.

I now have a lovely Rorschach print above my desk in my study.  I see a praying child, Kirsty sees Kenny from South Park lying on his back, Eva sees a monster.  Your mileage may vary.

Hiram Grange continues to pick up excellent reviews.  The third book should be along shortly, and I’m just about to start work with the editor on my own tome.  Exciting times.  Final edits have also been received and returned for the Apex Books anthology Dark Faith, which is going to be quite a book.

And now it is the weekend, and slumping can happen, with some slouching thrown in for good measure.

Finally, after four months of taxis and tuk-tuks around Delhi, we’ve order a new car.  It looks very much like the above, except it doesn’t have fancy script over the licence plate.  We’ve a short period of waiting to undertake, as various forms get filed at various departments, us being furriners and all, and then we can take to the road proper.

Well our driver will, anyway.  We’ll be in the back, taking in the sights.

It’s a big motor, at least bigger than anything we would have considered buying in the UK, but height is a definite bonus on Indian roads, as is power.  Eight seats, 2.5 litre engine, and in ours anyway, tuk-tuk-intimidating front bull bars.  After that, the traffic can come and have a go, if it thinks its hard enough.

Valentine’s Day has largely involved varying degrees of suffering in this house, but only because we went out yesterday instead (no school run to get up for this morning).  There was beer.  There was bollinger.  There was wine.

There was, today, a great deal of lying still and groaning.

The meal was good though, partaken of at a nearby Lebanese place called Mashrabiya.  We were seated in a tent, with various cushions to become recumbent on, and had a comedy waiter who threw beer around, fell over himself while trying to light our cigarettes, and attempted to set fire to our tent with a brazier of hot coals.

Most entertaining, though unfortunately not the sort of regularly scheduled performance you can call up and book.

So, I was in the study, headphones in, enjoying an atmospheric audio play involving Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and friends.  It was a dark and stormy night.  There was thunder crashing and lightning flashing.  I thought the audio mixing was a little off, because I couldn’t really make out what the actors were saying beneath the storm effects.

Except, of course, the audio was enhanced by the actual storm that had sprung up outside.  Crashing, bashing thunder, a brutal downpour, lightning, flooding – even hail, and not measly flecks of it either, but big, bouncing chunks of ice.

As is our way, we stood in it for a bit, and breathed it all in.  We like storms, and we really like being surprised by them.

Last year, I embarked on both getting fit, and getting very unfit.  The fitness bit lasted until around about June, and was going quite well.  Alas, it hit the brick wall of packing up, getting married, and emigrating to India, followed by prolonged stress while we worked out whether Eva’s schooling was going to let us stay here.  During this period, I embarked on becoming very unfit indeed.

It was, I’m delighted to tell you, a resounding success.  My grandad is fitter than me, and, not to be too crass about it, he’s been dead longer than I’ve been a grown-up.

However, with Eva in school since Monday, and settling in pretty well all things considered, all that stress has vanished.  Suddenly, I feel quite comfortable here, and ready to get on with the new normality.  This involves getting back on the fitness train.

Having had a couple of practise work-outs this week, running about a bit and doing some light upper body stuff, I can confirm that I’m right back to where I started last year.  Possibly further back, if that’s possible.  Truthfully, I may not even be on the train.  I may in fact be on the fitness donkey, and it’s slow, bumpy, and bloody painful.

I feel like a walking* bruise.

Still, at least I remember from last time that this is a good thing, and means things have started.  It’s even a satisfying sort of pain, while also being incredibly inconvenient in almost all circumstances.  Roll on next month, when I should be working out how far I can ‘push it’, rather than worrying whether I’m going to incapacitate myself even ‘leaning against it’.

* Or possibly a hobbling one.