Fifty Four Today!

It's my birthday. Happy Birthday me! They've called a national holiday but I can't claim the two are connected. It is Republic Day which is when the new constitution came into effect (1950-01-26), two and a half years after independence (1947-08-15).

Anyway, back to me. FIFTY Bloody FOUR! I'm trying not to think about it. I wish there was a brake somewhere I could apply but the years just keep on slipping by. I really dislike getting old, but I guess you'd have to be pretty weird to actually like it! Hey, I'm not THAT weird! It's one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing here in India - having fun while I'm still able!

I could have spent today in front of my laptop but I thought 'sod it', let's go to the beach! And that's what I did. I put on some swimming shorts and Tee-shirt and took off. My face and feet are fairly brown but the rest of me is lily-white which only encourages me even more to keep my trousers and shirt on! But today I decided to throw caution to the wind. It helped that it was overcast so the power of the sun was a little reduced. It actually rained later on - the first rain we've had for two months.

At the beach I met up with Jelle the surfer dude from Belgium, with his little entourage of 12 or 14 kids from SISP. His friends from home had donated old boards which he'd somehow got through customs by paying a bit of baksheesh so most of the kids had a board and could get on the water. They were having a whale of a time!

I bobbed about in the waves, some of which were very powerful, and fell over a few times but it was good fun. The kids loved showing off their prowess. I noticed some of the older ones using their new-found cool to chat up the girls! Jelle and I were getting along nicely and the thought that there was a generation between us hadn't crossed my mind until he told me his father and I were born the same year. Sobering, but not getting me down.