Enamel envy

This could be a photo from San Telmo market in Buenos Aires, but it was taken in Jew Town, Cochin. Enamel pots and utensils always show up in flea markets and junk shops around the world. They're still manufactured en masse in Albania though, so aren't that unique. Plus they're dangerous (especially for kids) if chipped. I do like the cute colours in this collection though.

Seth's quite into enamel too...here's what he picked out:

Restaurant tour: Caza Maria

Caza Maria is the best restaurant on offer in Jew Town. It's also owned by Kumar of Sui House! We had a delicious Kochi Fish Curry with Coconut Rice there on our first evening. It's airy, and has a shabby colonial feel. Lunchtimes are best, in the evening most of Jew Town is closed down.
Caza Maria, 6/125 Jew Town, Mattancherry (00 91) 484 222 5678

Seth's mobile phone drama

 

Seth: my new haircut, my new garden

Culture shock

Post, the old fashioned way

Our new address, until at least mid March is:

Sui House
8/2010 Maulana Azad Road
Near Westside Hospital
Chakkamadom, Mattancherry
Cochin 682002
Kerala
INDIA

Sui House: our new home, for a while

We're staying, hopefully until mid March, at a Homestay in Mattancherry beside Fort Cochin. Homestays are very popular in India, and this area is teeming with them. In some cases it's just like a bed and breakfast and in others guests are really part of family life.

Ours is called Sui House and our hosts are Kumar and Pauline, Ann (16yrs) and Nicholas (20yrs). It's an old merchant house which Kumar rented and renovated. He's leased the top floor and terrace to a German architect responsible for three of the most beautiful colonial style boutique hotels in the area, and the ground floor is their home and guest rooms. We have the turquoise suite, one big room which can be closed off into two, and a bathroom + small private garden and entrance.

There's also a spacious sitting area filled with Indian antique wooden furniture, and a big dining table in an airy courtyard where we have breakfast with the other guests. Pauline's breakfasts are legendary and a mix of 'continental' (cereal, toast, eggs, fruit) and Indian specialities. Delicious! and it fills us up until late afternoon.

I am mostly pleased we chose here because Kumar and Pauline are delightful. We feel so safe and at home here and they couldn't have been more accommodating of us.

Kumar has a thriving antiques business in Jew Town (more to follow in another post) and they kindly let me pick out two wooden cradles for the boys. The photo below shows the ladies in Kumar's workshop polishing up Bo's cradle. I hope he sleeps well in it as we're severely sleep deprived...

Our Indian adventure begins!

So, we're here. In India. For one year.

It's been a bit of a shock. Everything so alien. But we're adapting, and trying to catch up with sleep.

Seth and Bo were stars on the plane. Second long haul flight in three weeks and both times they slept, played and ate. If only things were so great on land... 

We flew into Mumbai airport, arriving around midnight, and left for Cochin on a 5.40am flight. Both were with Jet Airways who were super helpful, and they even gave us a seat between us for Seth. A £400 worth upgrade for the little man!

Reading... 'Tales from Firozsha Baag', by Rohinton Mistry

With a little help from our friend Woo at Canongate, our desk here is piled high with some great books on India. Mostly fiction (Aravind Adiga, Rohinton Mistry, Manu Kapur, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Chandra, Amit Chaudhuri and so on) + the classic 'India File' by Trevor Fishlock, a pile of William Dalrymple including his latest, 'Nine Lives'.

Ollie is steadily working his way through, soaking up as much as possible before he starts research for his own book on contemporary India. I've previously read plenty of Indian fiction, indeed we named our eldest Seth after one our favourite authors, Vikram Seth (we've since discovered his name is pronounced 'Sait', not dissimilar to how Argentines pronounce Sethie's name), but there are so many more I can't wait to get into. I hope the boys give me some time to do so. They're still very jetlagged and I was up until 4am today playing with Bo. When I find a quiet moment though, I have a date with Rohinton Mistry's 'Tales from Firozsha Baag'.

Kerala: 'God's Own Country'

"We had been walking for about an hour when the countryside opened up. On every side stretched plantations of cashew and cucalyptus, groves of coconut-palms and plantains, low green scrub, stands of bamboo, patches of tapioca and the remnants of primeval forest where the black pepper vine thrives. One is overwhelmed her by the sheer abundance - the boundless exhuberance - of Kerala's fertility.  It is as though the Lord of Creation had given way, at this point, to the promptings of a wild and joyous extravagance...'  Dervla Murphy, in On a Shoestring to Coorg

India bound

Flights are booked. We leave Argentina on Boxing Day (December 26th), have a short stay at home in England, and fly directly to Kochi on January 18. I intend to keep up on the Argentine design scene and write on my Argentina blog doble M design but here I'll blog through a year in India with my husband Oliver, our two small boys Seth and Bo Benji, on setting up home in Kochi, Kerala, and recording in photos and words the beautiful, interesting and quirky things I find along the way.