Stranger and stranger…

Things got very strange last week. There was a storm on Monday night and lots of trees fell down in the British embassy compound. When Marc got into work on Tuesday he was called to help rescue some falcons that were bedraggled on the ground and being circled by cats. So he spent the rest of the day with 6 falcons drying out in boxes in his office. One escaped from the box and spent the morning sitting on top of it watching him at his desk!

I went to help buy the computer equipment for the herbarium here and didn’t have to help carry them as the porter did that:

On Saturday we were invited to lunch with the British Ambassador and his wife. It was ‘casual’.  Obviously, not NZ casual though. We started with drinks in the garden, and when I was asked what I would like to drink, I showed my lack of poshness by asking what the choices were.  Of course the choice was anything I wanted! Then we had lunch on the terrace with white table cloths and napkins and plates with a gold crown on them…  It all felt quite royal and not very casual at all, lucky I didn’t turn up in shorts and jandals.  After lunch it got a bit more ‘normal’ as the Ambassador’s wife showed me her vege garden and chicken coop.

Yesterday we saw rhododendrons growing in the wild in the hills behind the botanic gardens. You can just see Marc in the bottom right corner. The photo doesn’t really show how beautiful they were.

We also had excellent views of the Himalayas: