Christmas Day
It was an early start today to get to the White Church for the Christmas service at 8.30am.
We arrived just in time, only to find the carpark empty and about 6 people in the church. Did we have the wrong 8.30?? Should it be PM? The inside of the church had been beautifully decorated with Christmas trees, coloured hanging decorations and tinsel.
We sat and waited. Slowly more people arrived. Around 9am the priest started the service and gradually the church filled up to the point where more chairs had to be found. We sang a couple of carols and the choir sang a couple of songs. Unfortunately the priest taking the service had quite a unique Indian-English accent which we found rather difficult to understand.
People were coming and going throughout the service, so when all the general announcements started we made a quick exit. Outside a table was being laid out with plates of snacks and we were invited to join, once the service was finished. We chatted to various people whilst we waited. One man was called Darryl, quite an unusual name for an Indian man.
Once the service was over and the priest had blessed the food, a man who we had chatted to earlier came over and encouraged us to help ourselves. Each plate had a samosa, a slice of fruit cake and some crisps, all served with a very nice coffee.
The man introduced his son. They actually live in Perth and were home for a while for the Christmas holiday. We chatted with them whilst we ate and then his wife came over too. She was very bubbly and asked what our plans were for the rest of the day. We told her we were going to do some sightseeing . She invited us to go back to their house for Christmas lunch with them and some of their friends. How could we refuse! it was starting to feel like Christmas.
After meeting some of their friends and having our photos taken we all got into a taxi - we didn't actually know where we were going! We ended up on the opposite side if the city to where we are staying.
On arrival we were first taken to meet the neighbours as it was their son's birthday. Mum is a neurologist and dad a neuro-psychatrist. They were very friendly.
Back at the house Christine helped with some of the food prep whilst Darryl chatted to her husband. Lunch was mutton curry, curried chicken, curried aubergine, chapati, rice, raita and salad.
Gradually friends started arriving. We found out in the group there was an engineer, a lawyer, a judge, 2 doctors (of which one was also a Reverend) plus some of their children.
After prayers and a carol, we ate the delicious food, followed by ginger cake and coffee. We sat chatting and before we knew it, it was getting dark. As we were quite a way from our accommodation, with no idea how we were going to get back, we said our thank yous and went in search of a bus stop.
A short walk up the road, whilst talking to our family on video call, we found a bus. It wasn't the ibus which has it's own lane across the city, however it was going to the right place, albeit on a rather convoluted route around the town.
About an hour later we arrived at our stop. We drank some rose chai and then had a short walk to look around a shopping cente.
Back at our accommodation we chatted with the family whilst having some morhinga soup, 'indian pizza', laddu sweets (all homemade) and some chai. Then it was time for bed as tomorrow is an even earlier start than today.
