By one of those strange quirks of fate India and Australia celebrate their national days on the same day. Because it was Republic Day I was having a great sleep in, when at about 8 o'clock the security guards started singing the national anthem, followed by a 21 gun salute that got me out of bed quick smart. The boys had also decorated the complex with Indian flags (good chance to take a photo showing the power pole that sits in the middle of our driveway which Deepak has almost cleaned up a dozen times on foggy mornings).
We'd planned a combined Australia Day / farewell party at Brad's place at Videk Village. Great location - you may remember we were thinking of living there at one stage, but it was just a bit far out of town. As we got there we saw a great dangerman - I always wondered how they mowed the lawns on the side of the eco-houses - turns out you just need to tie a rope around yourself, and have a strong bloke on the other end to make sure you don't go A over T on the way down.
So anyway, Brads place turned out to be the ideal spot for an old fashioned beer drinking, cricket playing, drunken dancing, aussie day get together. We got stuck into the fosters and the rum, played nothing but aussie music all day, did our best Midnight Oil impressions and generally ran amuck. The highlight was our cricket match. We started with just 6 of us, then a couple of Indians came along and we got them involved. Before we knew it there were 30 odd people playing, multi-lingual sledging going on, spectators on the hill and lots of cheering and laughing.
Not much cheering and laughing today in the office, funnily enough, even though we finished up by midnight. It's very quiet...
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