2nd stop - Kolkata

We were halfway through the following day before the train stopped at Howrah. I got my luggage out and started walking towards the platform when I was greeting by a pink umbrella and my sister. I quickly realised that the pink umbrella WAS my mother :-)

It was just so good to see them again. Dad, Mum, Jen and I went out that evening and took a ferry across the Hooghly River and looked at the Millennium Park before going to Flurry's for dinner. The amount of couples in the park was staggering. Everywhere you looked!! I guess it was a romantic place to be ;-)

It was certainly a treat being back at Flurry's. I think we only went there once last time I was here at the end of the Bible week. Most of the waiters have changed, though there were only 2 or 3 that recognised me!!

Brother Milton Richardson is here from Victoria with Mum and Dad, and Jen's been up here for while now, so there's been quite a crew.
Saturday night we were all invited to the Rajput's for dinner and it was so hilarious. On the way we visited Kamalesh at his house, had refreshments there and met his parents. Both are quite old, in Australia to be in nursing homes. Anyway we're just about to leave there and the monsoon rain buckets down. After about 20 mins Jen had had enough, she didn't want to be late to Erina's so Mum, Jen and I bundle ourselves up and take the one umbrella to face the rains. We got quite wet even using an auto and rickshaw to get us there, but what we hadn't bargained on was the flood that we had to wade through when we finally arrived at their house. To get inside their house we had to pass through just past ankle deep water. Which really wasn't a problem, we've done it before, and it was quite an adventure. The first rla we had in the season.

David works on Sundays so we'd left early to have a memorial with him before dinner and that all went according to plan :-) It was what followed that suprised us all!

Brother Milt hadn't been feeling too well during the day but he decided he'd go ahead and eat the curry anyway. He dealt with that but when he started his first mouthful of Appy fizz, his stomach exploded all over the table!! I ran. Dad ran. We could smell it and our own stomachs were reeling. Everyone headed in different directions and there was general confusion.

So all in all it was quite an interesting day!!

Sunday memorial had the house nearly full, and there are so many attendee's now the room has been rearranged to fit everyone in.