Senior Prank Week
Today they decided to block all the room doors and corridors with locker barricades. Oh I laughed until ... well I slightly smiled, next year I'll run a short course in "pranks which are funny".
Ray Husthwaite // I work in a school atop a small Himalaya in northern India. I'm married to Julie and I lived on the island of Islay for 19 years - sometimes I quite miss it especially the ocean.
The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Woodstock School's positions, strategies or opinions.
Today they decided to block all the room doors and corridors with locker barricades. Oh I laughed until ... well I slightly smiled, next year I'll run a short course in "pranks which are funny".
I was saying to my friend Ruth that we had heard the call of the Eurasian Cuckoo last week, now however the Indian Cuckoo is calling frequently and much of the day is filled with its song. It's a sound that will always bring the Himalayas to my mind. Here's its picture and call.
The picture can be found by searching the orientalbirdimages dot org site
The picture is fromand the sound clip is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C-micropterus.ogg
Since I came here, every year I've told and episode of the 'Last Story of Finn McCool' at the Staff Talent Show. This year however the committee decided that it would require talent and to ensure talent they would hold auditions. Also since so much talent was to be included they would run it over two evenings. I was reluctant to submit to selection for something I was doing for fun and also I could not afford the time or energy that two shows would require so I bowed out gracefully but this left the story unfinshed so ... in the odd corners of my time I wrote up the whole story, here it is with its proper ending, if you are an alumnus or current student I hope you enjoy the resolution of the tale as much as this old storyteller enjoyed telling it.
OK - determined to have a night's sleep without a caterpillar trying to crawl up my nostril, got a sheet - got some duct tape, taped the sheet to the posts of the bed frame and made a cosy little tent over the bed to keep them offof me, the dog was a bit puzzed about what he was expected to do but finally solved the issue that he was supposed to be UNDER the sheet.
Snuggled under - but then ... instead of the steady plop .... plop ... of caterpillars dropping from the ceiling, we got boing, boing, boing boing boing as they trampolined across the taught sheet - *sigh* tonight - plan B!
Oh the woes - the good points first, slightly sad but a nice barbeque on Saturday evening to say goodbye to Jay and Rose as they go off to be hoteliers, Saturday morning I walked around the Chukka by myself and failed to get breakfast at Char Dukhan – too busy – and also failed to get some nice bread at Sisters Bazaar – full of basket-ballers – about 30 of them buying snacks. Went home to a quiet house since Julie was having breakfast at Doma’s with some of our advisees and got onto caterpillar cleaning.
The plague continues – they drop from the trees onto the roof – make their way through the loft space and drop from the ceiling into open mouths of snoring teachers. I moved every bit of furniture, brushed every rug but still they come. Last night there was a gentle rain onto the bed; makes sleeping tricky when a caterpillar is trying to crawl up your nostril for uniquely caterpillar reasons. The photo is Hamish’s bowl this morning, poor fellow – we do give him fresh water every day but the blessed caterpillars take advantage of a suicide spot.
Whoever’s in charge = for heavens sake let Moses and his people GO!!!
Well I like Rishikesh, the food is good, there's some light shopping to be done, there are quiet retreats - there are disasters. We planned to go with Dana and Judy, the hotel mucked up the booking even though we checked with them twice - so Dana and Judy went back. All three ATMs ran out of money, one of them just before I got to it, the crowd had begun to look ugly and I suspect it went badly for the guard immediately after I left; that made a mess of the light shopping. Finally we were reminded that taxi drivers are always on the lookout for an extra buck and ours charged us 2000 rupees for taking Judy and Dana home, even though he was going anyway – Julie was very hurt but I’d been expecting it.
However the sun was warm, the food was good, the room was nice, we had some very pleasant time together with a book and Judy discovered the joys of the hammock. The bird is a Himalayan bulbul, I’m not too sure about the black and white fellah.
The vehicle amused us – there was the truck, there were the people bulging out of the truck, there were the two rafts, there were the children packed into the rafts – it’s no wonder there’s accidents but – “What to do?”
Bear Hill Walk
On Saturday Gordon Berry - who's been volunteering in the Science Department, in his real life he's Professor Berry of Notre Dame - and Sue Long walked with us up to Bear Hill. After a serious fire a few years ago the old rhododenon on top of Bear Hill was badly scorched and I've been observing its recovery (going well) - the day was lovely though the scenery was a bit washed out with the haze. Hamish enjoyed it and the sanwices weren't too stale. Of coure the Rhododendrons were lovely but does anyone know the little pink flower?
