Happy Birthday!

On Morgan's birthday we went to Trivandrum for Keith's jacket fitting at Duron tailors which coincidentally was his late birthday present from me. Its going to be really lovely and should last him years, if not forever. We'll pick it up on Tuesday.

We thought we would have a bit more of a look around the town and decided to head out to the Botanical Gardens which are on the other side of town from the tailors. There was gridlock on the MG Road (Mahatma Gandhi Road) around The Secretariat, the rather swish 1930s government offices, as there were several demonstrations, most seemed to be for better pay and conditions.

St. Josephs Cathedral looked very sparkling white and very big. We didn't stop to investigate if it was painted white or was made out of a white stone, either way it seems sensible to try and reflect as much heat off the buildings as poss. to keep it cooler inside. On past the University brick buildings in a green leafy setting, they reminded us of Harvard a bit.

Finally we reached the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful. Set in the centre was The Art Museum - formerly the Napier Museum built in the 1880s. Inside there was a stunning collection of Buddha carvings, metalwork, exquisite ivory carvings, Thai shadow puppets, Balinese masks, old coins and so on. I was fairly gobsmacked to realise that Greek classical art had extended its influence as far as India as early as the second century BC and here were fine examples of Greco Buddhist art, Buddhas with beautifully draped costumes and cherubs with parrots adorned a later Royal carriage in the Sree Chitra Enclave. Came away enthralled.









Time for a quick egg biriani in the gardens before finding a quiet shady spot to phone Morgan and wish her a happy birthday before she goes to school - this involves both of us singing down the phone. We had just punched in the numbers when what seemed like an entire school, all super smart in their brown and white uniforms, thought our shady spot looked like a good place for their picnic! We managed - goodness knows what they thought of these two sweaty old codgers singing into a phone!