So there I was on December the 10th waiting at the gate to fly to Delhi. I was full of nervous excitement, this was my first trip to India, the first time I'd done a long haul trip on my own and the first time I was going to see Hilary for nearly five months. We've known each other for nearly thirty two years and we speak nearly every day but the prospect of seeing her again had me feeling like a teenager on a first date.
I had some time to wait though, no instant gratification for me. A nine and half hour flight to Delhi, a few hours in the transfer and domestic departure lounges at Delhi, a flight to Bhubaneswar, a wait at the station and the overnight train to Koraput were what I had to look forward to. Nearly three days of travelling.
At around 1015 on Saturday the 12th of December I stepped off the overnight sleeper onto Koraput station to be met by Hilary with one of the best hugs I've ever had. It's always nice to have a hug but when the person hugging you looks as stunning as Hilary did in her blue salwar kameez it does add to the pleasure.
Now I was going to have to get used to living in India for a few weeks and my introduction was a ride in an auto-rickshaw (auto) which seemed to need refuelling as it kept stopping and just about made it to the filling station. It's about then that a haze begins to set in as I'm overwhelmed by the noise, heat and unfamiliarity of where I am. We do eventually reach Hilary's house and I'm pleasantly surprised by how spacious and cool it is. The cool bit was a definite bonus.
The next few days pass in a haze of jet lag and introductions. I'm taken to the Sunday market and overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and the people and the motorbikes and the trucks and the buses and the autos and the people and the colours and the vegetables and the spices and the fabric and the sheer difference. I'm also impressed by the way Hilary navigates her way through this chatting to people as she does and helping a newly arrived couple (G & C) find various things they need for their house.
Monday and having barely recovered I'm taken to the SPREAD office to meet her colleagues and have a look at their website. Somehow I'd been allocated a job to do while I was in India. Fortunately I had a good assistant in Ajaya who quickly recognised that I made a lot of mistakes and had to be told about them as I didn't notice them on my own. I had been warned and come suitably armed with a laptop.
Now a real haze descends firstly the jet lag catches up with me and I spend half a day sleeping and then I succumb to the inevitable gastroenteritis that so many first time visitors experience. So that's 3 days in bed feeling sorry for myself on the sub-continental rapid weight loss diet.
Having recovered from my illness I resume my household duties of washing, cooking and sweeping. There is no washing machine and no hoover: everything has to be done by hand. It's hard work and my admiration for Hilary is growing daily because she does all this and a full time job. At some point we get an email from Sam telling us he will arrive on the 23rd to spend Christmas with us. On the 23rd we wait at the station and I spot the tall white person wearing a scarf and backpack walking down the platform. Despite having spent the best part of two days on trains Sam seems remarkably alert and less bleary eyed than me. An auto takes us back to the house and the afternoon is taken up with introducing Sam to Koraput and Koraput to Sam.
Christmas day is quiet with an exchange of family gifts and then a walk out from Koraput and through the nearest village. The evening spent with G & C and M & J along with Sam for freshly baked cookies (yes really) and deep fried cornflake coated chicken (yes really) preceded by tomato soup. Sam was persuaded to drink mothball scotch and declared practically undrinkable Royal Challenge beer to be no worse than the cheap lager he used to drink as a teenager!
Boxing Day was a bit different, a trip out into one of the tribal areas to visit a Women's convention. Hilary takes this all in her stride and seems to know and be able to communicate with a lot of people. For me and Sam it is a truly disorientating experience and we are happy when the planned overnight stay is abandoned and we get to go home to comfortable beds. Sam begins to plan his escape from Koraput to Kolkata.
Sam leaves on the 28th leaving me and Hilary alone with a Christmas cake we purchased before Christmas. Here's a photo of Hilary posing with the tin. 
The cake tasted different from any Christmas cake I've had before and the cashew topping was not something I'd experienced before. It was sweet and we decided it tasted best covered in the yellowest package custard I've ever seen. This is the dish now known as Chemical Cake and Chemical Custard. Sadly no photos of this concoction but we did manage to eat the cake in about a week this way.
A couple of mornings out at seminars which were both interesting despite my inability to learn Oriya. Bidyut's (SPREADs Secretary) talk on Forced migration was especially interesting and I must remember to ask him for a copy of the complete paper. An afternoon out with Bidyut to the Kolab Dam and wonderful evening as guest's of Dusmant (SPREAD Accountant) and his wife precedes the event of my Christmas - the SPREAD Picnic.
This was a picnic like no other I have ever attended and there is a wonderful description of it with photos in Hilary's blog.
Hilary has however not mentioned one of the more exciting parts of the day. Locating the picnic site. So the story goes something like this. Bidyut starts to turn off the tarmac road at an entrance marked by two painted lions. The driver of a jeep carrying other SPREAD personnel informs him that is not the best way so we proceed to follow them into and through the next village where we are directed down to the river by locals. It appears that the bridge that should be here is under construction and we have two choices. Retrace our steps back to the lions (this was my choice) or ford the river and drive over a just discernible track over harvested paddies. We didn't take my choice; turning back just didn't seem to be an option! The track turned out to be interesting and just passable once passengers disembarked to stop the vehicles grounding as they climbed slopes from one paddy to the next.
I will say no more about the picnic here as Hilary has covered it so well but I do want to include one picture - yes it's of Hilary who as you can see did not seem exactly happy that I had my hands on her camera. 
Arrived back to message from Sam that he's in hospital in Varanasi and while checking flights to see if Hilary could visit him discover my flight has been rescheduled ... minor panic ensues but a phone call to Dusmant resolves the taxi problem and I'm set to leave a 0630 the net day to fly from Vizag to Delhi. The taxi arrives at 0710 but I make my flight with time to spare. I have a night of luxury in the Delhi Raddison being chauffeured to and from the airport and finally arrive at Heathrow around 1700, my baggage takes nearly an hour to appear but by 1800 I'm in the car and on my way home.
I knew it was going to be cold in the UK but not how cold ... brrrrr and nobody told me I was going to have to drive home through a snow storm! Anyway two and a half hours after leaving Heathrow I was home to be welcomed by my neighbour Tom who had thoughtfully advanced my central heating. I spent the night under two duvets with the heating on and was still cold!
Now all I need to do is plan my next visit to India as a follow up to one of the best Christmases ever!
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