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Snow peaks - honestly, they are there if you look carefully! |
Quarter break
Quarter break. 3 days off for Dot, Monday to Wednesday; two days off for me, although I'm actually not taking any leave. Dot's working on her course, so I'm keeping going in the office. I keep threatening to talk about work, so here goes.
My official title is "Development Associate" - very American! What it means is that I'm part of a team of six full-time staff in the development office who do everything to do with publications, PR and communications, keeping in touch with alumni and, in particular at the moment, a big fundraising drive linked to the school's 150th anniversary in 2004. My main bit is producing newsletters for staff and fundraisers, writing fundraising brochures and school publications (prospectus, parents' handbook, curriculum guide), working with designers to get them published, helping with internal magazines and newsletters, and - new bit - facilitating the school's strategic planning for the next seven years. As time goes on I'll take over more responsibility for the internally-produced materials, and I need to develop the whole media side of things - building relationships with editors, getting them interested in doing articles about the school. There's a lot to learn, and it's good that there are a couple of the team, including the director of the department, Sharon, who know the school inside out and have a clear knowledge of what needs to be done and how.
Right. What else is new. We've got our scooter. I spent ages looking at the Bajaj web site and weighing up the pros and cons, finally settling on a model - which is now discontinued. So basically you buy what they've got to sell. It's a fairly typical-looking old style scooter with a tiny 102cc engine. Fast enough on the flat, and just about gets up the steep hills with two of us on board. Very little ability to go fast - but there's very little temptation to go fast. Up on the roads around the school the surface is a bit iffy, with lots of loose gravel, and you're never quite sure what's round the next bend. Learning to ride again in these conditions is exciting enough without travelling at more than about 20 mph. A misjudgment or a skid won't necessarily involve just a scraped elbow and a dented side panel - there's some very sheer and very long drops. Yes, I'm being VERY careful.
Mind you, the solo run up the hill from Dehra Dun the day I bought the scooter was brilliant! Although it's high and precipitous, the road is pretty good and the edge is mostly lined with big concrete blocks, so you feel as if you're not likely to skid over the cliff face, and you can relax a bit. You can also look quite a bit ahead and do all sorts of silly things like overtaking buses on blind bends with a reasonable confidence that there's nothing coming the other way. I did come head to head with an Ambassador at one point, but nobody's going very fast, so you just politely work your way round each other. I got over-confident by the end of the run and skidded on a patch of gravel when I got onto the Tehri road near the school, so that should slow me down nicely.
We bought the scooter on Saturday, and celebrated by not touching it on Sunday, but going for a good local walk up and around the hill. There was no chapel this week because the kids are all on their break, so we had a day off. The weather was hot and clear, so after a lie-in we sat on our terrace reading and sunbathing until Louise next door got around to making breakfast (about 11.30). We had pancakes (with sweetened condensed milk for me - interesting new discovery!), cinnamon bread and coffee. Then a bit more reading and sunbathing until about 1.30, when we went to pay a visit to Swami Sunder Singh, who runs a local mission into the hills, and is someone we've been in touch with since our first visit in 1998. He was having a very sensible siesta, but there was a prayer meeting going on which we joined in for an hour before we had to leave to meet up with Kathy who was going to share our walk.
We walked up to the top of the hill, past Char Dukan (Tip Top cafe etc.) and then around the hill to Lal Tibba - never been there before. It's a viewpoint for Nag Tibba, the local big hill (just under 10,000') and the snow peaks, when you can see them. It was too hazy at this stage, so we carried on past the English cemetery, through Sisters' Bazaar to Mount Hermon, the furthest point of the Woodstock campus. The school has just acquired this hill-top house as a temporary dorm for senior girls while various residences are refurbished. It's a really nice place with stunning views to both sides of the hill and.. the haze cleared to allow us our first sight since we came of the snow peaks. Yippee! Down to the eyebrow path and we walked home for about 6.15 to cook a nice fried chicken dinner for tea. Not a bad day, all in all.