The view from our window....

Instead of starting with Paul's mouse statistics I thought I'd begin with a photo of Paul holding the closest thing you'd find to a mouse trap in Bhutan. It's a sticky pad that the mouse gets stuck on, enabling you to resettle the mouse outside. We found it in a supermarket in the capital.

The view from our living room window is of a road leading to a monastery up on the hill behind our place. As we sit eating breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea, there is always someone walking up the hill. They usually have a look in while we look out and give them a wave. 

Sometimes it's like living in a fish bowl, when the younger students choose to stand on the hill's great vantage point and call out Sir, Madam, Thomas, Amelie, Lois, repeatedly until someone goes out onto the balcony!

We see some wonderful sights such as a boy in Paul's class running down the hill the other day with his friend, leading a pack of horses. They were taking them to a village up another hill 30 minutes walk away. It's amazing to think these boys are only eight years old with such a responsibility. A sight that sticks in my mind is little Pema Choki from Class 2 leading her goat up the hill in her high heels. This is the same little girl we often see walking around with her little baby sister strapped to her back. The baby is half the size of Pema Choki but she will walk around with her for hours, looking after her with such care.

A friendly wave

These little monks stopped for a drink

There was much fun to be had between these little monks and our kids

Some monks walking along the road at the front of our place. This is the main road across the country!

The workers (mainly women), carrying rocks to pave the driveway in front of our place

The kids have fun with the prehistoric trolley for carting rocks and the smasher

Take me for a ride!

The cutest little monk off to visit his Grandma.

Our Local Tshechu

We went to the Domkhar Tshechu, which is the local festival for our area. This was back in May but still worth posting the photos of our colourful day.

The beautifully charming Ugyen Tobgay

Thomas tried his hand at darts and doubled his money!

The lovely Thinley and her Mum

The walk home

The Sunday Times

We had our first Skype call with the cousins a few Saturday afternoons ago. The opening line from cousin Ruben was, “Vinnie farted”. We were happy to see cousin Vinnie’s toothless grin and even happier that Skype hasn’t invented smell technology yet. It was an interesting Skype call with four of us on this end (Paul was off welcoming the new school statues), and four plus a dog’s rear-end on the other end. In between the cousins virtually high fiving each other, my brother Marcus asked me how we would be spending our Sunday. Hence the inspiration for this blog post via photos of our Sunday.......

A spot of reading

A play with the dollies

Thomas's growing fascination with geography, he checks out google maps and streetview

Lois dressing up and designing her own traditional dress

More dressing up which led to the 'Underpants Dance'

Lois helping Paul in the kitchen peeling garlic, the once-a-week-meat-dish has an early blast in the pressure cooker so it is tender enough to eat

A visit from some of the girls who had been busy making this clover wreath

A walk up the hill behind our place to the monastery with some wild strawberry picking along the way

 

....and finally, Thomas's great invention