The lovely thing about travelling is meeting and talking to other, like minded, people. But the best part is that if you don’t really like them you can just walk away and never see them again! Although we have yet to meet anyone we have not liked, yet, as everyone we have been lucky enough to meet has been so interesting. When people find out you are travelling for a while, as opposed to being (God forbid) just another holidaymaker, they seem to open up and want to help as much as possible.

Having lived in Kensington for such a long time, I had become used to the usual conversations at various Kensington social gatherings:
“Oh Ranj let me introduce you to James, he’s related to Lord Wiffenpoof, big in cows”
Me proffering hand only to have it crushed in a rather too manly fashion
“Hi I’m Ranj, lovely to meet you” gently rubbing life back into hand
James looks bored already “oh…hi”
James then looks me up and down, and then comes the question I’ve been dreading; ” so what do you do?”

And that’s the problem, you are immediately judged on what you do, and I hate it. The best thing about meeting people here is no one is really very interested in what you do, rather why you are doing whatever you are doing. I’ve had the same thing with our Kiwi and Ozzie mates in London at a barbecue. It was only after the barbecue, as we had said our goodbyes, that I realised that for the whole afternoon not one person had asked the dreaded question, not one! Wonderful!

So now I am learning not to judge a book by its cover, and assume that everyone here is after my money, although most of them are and I appear to be losing the battle. But recently I have become more savvy, and so I let Claude deal with them, and I sit and scowl at them letting them know subconsciously that I’m onto them.

In my typically English way I asked politely if I could borrow a seat to watch the Brasil Germany game “5 Reais” without blinking, or laughing! I felt somewhere better when Germany beat Brasil 7-1 as was hoping this man may be blaming his Karma for the result!