A tribute to Austin Woulfe

I dedicate this blog to my good friend Austin Woulfe. You may be scratching your head at this stage but I can tell you that one thing we needed out here was a beach ball to play with in the pool, so I asked Austin to bring one when he comes to Mumbai. To show what a nice person he is, he spent a whole morning going up and down Erdington High Street to try and find this ball without success (why he did'nt pop down to Argos beats me but its the thought that counts). Anway not to be beaten, he asked his daughter to go and find one and she went out and found the ball you see in the picture. So I dedicate this blog to Austin, long may he live and be remembered I shall not forget your kindness (until someone punches a hole in the ball that is), but I can assure you, we will play with this ball in the pool, even in the monsoon, so his time has not been wasted.

The real first day at work

Well everyone, this is how I intend to start each day of my working life out here in Mumbai, a spot of Yoga taught by Yoga teacher Nilesh. By the time I get back to UK, my legs should be as flexible as Gemma's. This is all to prepare me for whats to come.

After yoga, its champaign breakfast, how else can any self respecting person start the day, you tell me.

Well everyone after fun and games I now have to knuckle down to some hard work. After been shown round the office, I met the team and here they are, these lovely young ladies are the ones I have the duty to train, let me introduce you to them from left to right, Monisha, Linthoi, Kriselle and Seema. So the question is how am I going to transfer 21 years of experience to these ladies by 15th August 2008, well this is the plan, there will be plenty of group sessions, followed by one to ones. No doubt there will also be plenty of late nights in the office to provide extra training. As you can image, I have my work cut out and after all that I'm going to be positively exhausted. Somehow I think I'm going to need more than a few months to train these girls, what do you think? I may have to speak to my mananger about extending my stay!!!!!!!! The sacrifices I have to make for my company I just wish they were grateful to me and understand my predicament. I guess my only consolation is that I get paid for this. Well everyone, I have to go now and get back to work, there's just no rest for the wicked. Please spare a thought for me!!!!!!!!!! Stay tuned for my next blog and I'll tell you how I'm progressing.

jp

ps Thanks Linthoi for helping me correct some spelling mistakes, much appreciated.

The first week at work!!!!!!!!!!!

Well you know the old saying, all work and no play is not good for the soul. Mumbai is truely cosmopolitan, a city full of friendly people.

Very nice people at this hotel, these lovely ladies Prianka on the left and Nazia on the right are the girls who work at the fitness centre with the job of getting me ship shape during my stay. Will they succeed? Well we shall see. Theres far too many distractions here.

Got to make sure that my skin does not burn in this weather, my hands arnt that flexible so I cant put sun tan lotion on my back, luckily I have help.
Thats Gemma P on the left and Gemma W on the right, we were in Bandra that day.

One day I may go to work!!!!!!

Mumbai here I come

After a really good time in Bardolio, Surat and Navsari, I made my way to Mumbai to meet up with the team. This time I caught the train on time. The coolie at the train station sorted all my lugage out and he too promised me a job after i become redundant, so things are looking up for me. Anyway, arrived in Mumbai on Friday 13th June. it seems that this unlucky number has turned out to be a lucky number for me. So look above an meet the team, we are all staying at the ITC Maratha, a 5* hotel by the airport. Got their late at night so had some drinks and something to eat & went to bed

Good morning everyone, weather is georgeous, and this is how I intend to send the mornings since we do not start work until 1.00pm India time, a spot of swimming, yog, jacusi, steam room, sauna and gym.

Since it was the weekend, all we did was a spot of shopping during the day at Infinity mall and in the evening we thought we'd try out one of the 6 restaurants, here we are with our bibs and yes we have table nans here as well

More of week 1

Well everyone what can i say, redundancy is looming and its only right that I look for an alternative career. I may even buy one of these contaptions and enter myself in Dragons Den what would their response be.???? My uncle Amrat mama took me to few shops so that I could do a bit of shopping, afterwards I told him to go back home and I will follow him later since I wanted to look around the shops. But the real reason was so that I could get him out the way so that I could grab hold of a rickshaw driver and get him to allow me to drive it. This was the result, a competent

driver (me that is) who can get you from A to B, you may not reach there in one piece but I reckon I could get you there.

What do you think do I make a good taxi driver? Give me a few more goes and I'll be an expert.

Mumbai Week 1

Arrived in Mumbai and met taxi driver who was arranging for me to go to Surat by train. The booking was for Rajdhani express direct from Mumbai central to Surat 3 hours non stop, Unfortunately I missed the train and ended up going to Surat on a 2nd class non A/C sleeper coach and it took twice as long to get to the destination. Thats my taxi driver getting a bit to clever for his own good.

Trip was exhausting, but the people of the coach were nice. The most eventful moment was during the trip i needed to go to the loo but i did not want the driver to stop cause that would only delay the trip, so i ended up weeing in a water bottle and pouring it out of the window. The only problem was that i was on the upper tier and the person on the lower tier had his window open and so of my wee ended up in his face, since he opened my curtain 3 mins later to ak if there was a leak to which i replied no quite innocently.

Anyway I arrived in surat safely where i was met by a friend Girish at 12.30 pm were he took me to a hotel for the night. Hotel was fine, nice and clean except no toilet paper.

Next day we met up and Girish took me to his health & fitness club, check these shots above, not bad hey, well you wait until you see me when i get back to the UK.