Worrying times

Feeling a little down in the dumps. A few things bothering me, the first being Ash's skin which is getting no better. The UV therapy continues, but since Madras is having its best climate - a ghost of a winter - until early February, I cant expect things to improve. And he makes things worse by not sticking to his diet, the latest being a Ferroro Rocher that V's colleague presented him. With the result that he nor us slept until 3 a.m. yesterday.

The second worry is if the maid will return after the Kerala trip. She is setting her sights on the Gulf shores after her sister went there a month back to work as a housemaid. Not that we are very keen on keeping her, but a sudden pull-out would throw things out of gear - managing kids' school, babysitting, my leave and so on. Since she sugars her nanny services with many a lie, we do not know how well she takes care of the kids - whether she feeds them the stuff we entrust her with, whether she beats them etc. There are things that make us suspect - some from what the kids say - on that lines. And now I need to worry about things that she might pilfer when she goes home; we have had to take that risk with most of the maids we had. If we decide to check her bag - so far we havent done that with anyone, though a couple of them offered to show - she might use that as an excuse to not return.

Meanwhile, our best nanny Leelamma is getting more and more ill by the day that I cant think of bringing her back at some point. When I called her yesterday, she said she had almost lost the sight of one eye owing to some nerve damage. To top it, she has diabetes, a liver disease and her hubby has cancer. I guess they are struggling to meet all the medical expenses. We have offered to help out, and this time she took the offer gratefully. We owe her a lot - for taking care of the kids and us very lovingly, of managing the kitchen efficiently and not wasting things the way maids usually do. I could happily leave my guests with her, knowing that she will know how best to serve. I have the best memories of her time here, though initially we had been worried about hiring her - she had been our first recruit from an agency. It makes me feel very sad to think about her now.

Yesterday, me and Mira attended the colony Christmas special meeting and had appam-veg stew after the function. Absolutely delicious, it was. Meanwhile, V took Ash along as he went to meet a friend, who stayed the night at our place before catching an early dawn flight to Delhi. Church was out of yesterday's scheme of things as V had a full-day SAP training programme somewhere in OMR.