Everything has gone wrong since my last blog! Problems have been coming thick and fast culminating in my very own Basil Fawlty impression on Thursday, where instead of beating my car with a tree branch, I used my forehead!
No lies,it started brewing earlier in the week with the dreaded call centre and believe me, the irony was not lost on me when 'A' and I in Delhi are berating the standard of English call centres. There is a time delay; You can hardly hear what they are saying; You can never get straight through to them. All the common complaints were coming out that are usually associated with here. The culprit this time was Ikea in London and a kitchen that has gone wrong from start to finish.
Poor 'A' had to go all the way to Jaipur for 3 days on business. while trying to resolve problems with the Ikea call centre and a Polish kitchen fitter. I could not help due to losing my mobile phone chip, so felt a small amount of guilt but some relief that it was not me dealing with it. Little did I know what was to come!
I stayed up till 3.30am Thursday morning to watch the England game and was woken at 6.30am by a culmination of thunder,lightning and Rafa. Feeling slightly hungover, I drew the curtains to reveal the last of the monsoon rains battering Delhi. Everywhere was flooded and my normal 20 min return on the school run became nearly 2 hours!
I decided to head to the local market to resolve the 'lost chip' issue and while I was at it, fill my face with Ronald McDonald's hangover deterrent! Big mistake, the last of the monsoon rains have caused huge traffic problems and I ended up sat in a non moving jam for 2 hours! Tired, hungover and hungry I eventually staggered from the car, preferring to get wet than sweat in a steamed up Ambassador. I felt like an urban Bear Grylls, staggering around looking for sustenance and it was at this point that the Basil incident occurred.
To the huge amusement of the surrounding commuters and rick wallahs (not to be mistaken for rotund pop idol contestant), I buried my head in my hands and pounded it against the window.I had dropped Rafa off at school and was now getting close to being late for collecting him again and had achieved absolutely nowt! Suddenly the traffic moved slightly and seeing my chance, dived back into the car and hurtled across 4 lanes to u-turn into the oncoming traffic on the opposite side.
At last I was free! soaked with sweat, rain and blood from my head but free nevertheless. Free to head back to where I had just started from to come back and do it all again!
This I duly did and arrived late to collect Rafa before heading back home but not without more incident. Stopping to get petrol, the attendant filling up the car - yes you don't even have to pump your own petrol here, there will soon be bum wipers I am convinced - stopped pumping and shouted that petrol was leaking from the bottom of the car. On inspection there was indeed petrol everywhere and not only that, everything in the boot was sodden with it as well. Rafa and I left the garage to rejoin the traffic only now things were even worse, due to the green spots in front of our eyes and the nausea from the smell!
I eventually arrived home to an exploded water heater and a flooded kitchen and Indu complaining that her water supply had again cut off. I had left the house at 7.30am and got home at 2.30pm. I had covered about 8 km's, had a bleeding head,double vision,acute nausea,hunger pains,dehydration,a knackered car,a knackered water heater and an unhappy house keeper!
Not one of my better days but I wouldn't swap it for the world. Come rain or shine, blood or vomit there really is no place like Delhi and nothing could spoil the sight of Rafa loking forward to his first games lesson!
No comments:
Post a Comment