The Mission

It has been a busy couple of days in here in Goa.

I was asked to help relocate a British elderly couple as their so called 5 star accommodation in Panjim was effectively kicking them out ! The hotel is called The Crown Goa..... Please never stay here as they offered no help at all in finding alternative accommodation and also refused to offer transportation even though they have three cars sitting in the entrance. Shame on you The Crown.... In these difficult times you could not even help the elderly....shame on you.

Most hotels are closed here in Goa but one hotel, Planet Hollywood, is still taking guests and are offering a very affordable rate to stranded tourists.

This is boring... Suffice to say that despite the police and army being deployed in force to enforce the strict lock down we were able to get permission for them to travel from Panjim to Majorda which is about a 35 minute drive. Without this permission there is no way that this couple would have been able to get to Planet Hollywood. Also ... getting a taxi driver to risk the journey was a challenge. Thanks to the help of lots of people we somehow managed what looked like an impossible task.

India needs to sort out its system and way of doing things. There is an online portal to apply for travel permission but firstly you have to be an Indian citizen and secondly they messed up the date of birth window. One cannot type into it you have to scroll back month by month I am nearly 52 so would have had to click back 600 times before I would have reached my month of birth. Again total lack of thinking/ineptitude.

I know ... I know the world is a mess but if you are gonna set something up just test it and fix it.....Peoples lives are depending on this. Instead you are forced to go out in a strict lock down to the nearest police station to get the permission... it is totally counter intuitive.

Oh and for the first day in 7 days a couple of stores opened up .... Thank goodness.... The problem of course is that there are thousands of people without much food left so chaos at the stores.

Not much humor today I'm afraid....

We are fine. Roochi, Natasha and I together. We have food and shelter. Much more than the thousands of poor labourors who are walking to their villages from the big cities because the government is so stupid it did not predict this when it announced the national shutdown. It beggers belief it really does.

Peace and Love

Parallel Dimensions

That is what it feels like right now.
We are all either living in the Matrix or some higher being has transported us to a parallel dimension!

I am sitting in my kitchen having cooked an absolutely superb sausage and tomato farfalle which I sprinkled with some parmesan that I smuggled in from London and the Indian prime minister Modi has just announced a solid 3 week lockdown ! NO LEAVING HOME. Not even to walk the dog or go for exercise! So very different from the UK for example where you can walk the dog and go out for execise etc.

I do understand the need for this, don't get me wrong, but there has been no indication how we can even get food !

We are waiting for further instructions. Luckily we have enough food for at least 1 week but I doubt we can last 3 weeks !

Looks like I am gonna be losing weight !

Sooo many exclamation marks in this one !!!

Like I said at the beginning of this post ... it is difficult to understand how things can change in 2 weeks. I was in London on the 9th of march and although we knew covid was coming life was relatively normal.

Now look at where we are.

Stay safe
Peace and Love

6 Years later.......

Not quite like the film "28 days later" but not too far off either.

I have re-awoken this blog in the midst of mayhem hitherto to be shortened to MOM.
It crept up on us and then grabbed us by the throat and said "if you don't sort this mess out I am gonna come and kill you"......
All of a sudden within 2 weeks the whole world has gone from a relative state of normality to being in the MOM.
Very few people in their lifetimes have seen anything like this. They say that even in the great wars it was not this bad.
Toilet paper of all things is what is in demand. People desperately grabbing at the last remaining stocks.
Empty pasta shelves
Lockdowns all over the globe.
Infection spreading unabbaited.
In some areas of Italy the whole of the elderly have been killed by this!

But... you know what...I had a great game of poker last night online with a couple of fellas from London and a few from Delhi and me here in Goa. :))) we also logged onto zoom so that we could talk and see each other. Drinks were abound so were snacks! So many snacks that we had to tell one fella to stop eating so close to the microphone. He had been constantly eating crisps for about 2 hours and the noise was grating on us.

But back to being serious.
To all my friends....
Stay safe !

Peace and Much Much Love