Merry X-mas & Happy New Year

Dear friends,
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

I'll be away till the end of next week and so I thought of posting it well in advance. Have been pretty busy lately and so am not finding enough time to my liking to be with DG. I hope things will be easier at the start of 2005 and will find time to follow threads and take part in them. Have some left over leave that I'm going to take next week to be able to spend time with the family.

The last quarter has been especially hectic, with my cricket that took me to Dhanbad and to Bangalore and in the meantime, I had to do other domestic duties as well, what with maintaining the garden. I posted in another thread recently, the theft of my mature Sandal Wood Tree early morning on 6th. So, there was some tension by the time I returned from Bangalore - the police and the forest dept. officials had to be drawn in, as this is a protected tree in our part of the country. My DW handled the situation most admirably in my absence - I was in touch over telephone every day till I returned. So now everything is back to normal, but the fear of thieves hiding in my garden still looms. It will take some time to get over this. I have also pruned some of the shrubs so as to make hiding there without being seen, difficult. Those thieves might have been hiding amongst the lush growth that night, or they might have come to the scene just 30 minutes before we heard the tree being felled at 4 a.m. All of us heard the noise and I knew it was that tree as it had been working at the back of my mind. Within minutes of our call, the police arrived, but by then they had fled, probably with the trunk of the tree [most valuable part] measuring about 4 ft or so. But my shouting prevented them from cutting away with more pieces. The top portion of the tree is not useful for anything as it does not contain the oil. In a way, it was good, but from other angles, I felt bad for the tree. The cuckoos [koel] are the worst hit - the tree was their favourite rendezvous - for its shade and its fruit. The forest dept. is supposed to give the grower of the tree some compensation depending upon the value of the wood they were able to recover. For this we have to wait long.

The climate here is pleasantly cool.... 28C to 13C. Foggy mornings, warmish sun, cool evenings and chill nights.. the chill varies. Those who have dry skin will have problems as our winters are dry - cracked lips, feet and hands. Vaseline becomes handy.

Bye for now.
Dinu from half way round the earth.

Season's Greetings to you also!!!

Your post was very interesting!

Judy

Greetings of the Season, to you and your family, Dinu!

See you next year...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanks a lot, friends.

dinu, i am glad to see you posting. I've been wondering if you were ok and somewhat worried.

edit to say " ok, not somewhat, but really worried"

This message was edited Dec 31, 2004 8:13 AM

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU.
DINU