We are all of a pickle!!

To end another busy day....each evening Sibu [one of ous staff- I'll introduce you later] scatters sweetly scented red rose petals around, lights incence - with a jasmine note to it and candles to invite the beneficance of Laxmi the Goddess of Abundance...

Here are our wonderful staff, Sibu at the back- he looks after rooms and reception, smiling at the right is Rabi- we are blessed with a great sense of humor and wonderful cooking skills in Rabi and on the left Kunal, he has helped us in our Delhi office for a few years now and come to Pushkar as our Hotel manager and our personal assistant- organizing flights, some office work for Creative Arts Safaris and lots of things!

All great guys, Sibu and Rabi were very shy with me at first, still are in some ways -a loud Australian woman seems out of their experience. They are very kind to me, always offering a cups of tea, trying to carry things for me and rousing if I try to wash anything in the kitchen.

Rabi came with me into Ajmer one day to buy spice...usually he is very yes ma'am, no ma'am...I tried to carry some of the shopping- he already had huge bags! and he was so upset and kept trying to grab the bags off me.

I had to say I would call the police and tell them he was stealing my bags if he did not stop!! I still could not put them down or he would try and grab them.

I love cooking with him- he is a master- each dish he has produced is excellent and he is keen to learn more...when I am making something new he is always watching and askes later was it this or that?

He should have his own cooking show- he could certainly teach a lot and has a great sense of fun as well.

Lime pickle, a lot of pickle is used in the hotel and we are making all our own, this is a recipe I have used for years, we also have green chilli pickle- should blow anyone's socks off!! and a sweet carrot pickle....

local vegie wholesale market

one of my gorgeous nephews, being hooked up with an Indian man you would not believe the number of relatives you have...this is Sunny - his smile lights up a room!

he and I get a long really well, and he has been so looking forward to coming down to us to visit and see me, he arrived and by the end of the day was bored with the country and could not wait to get back to the bright lights of Delhi...where I have been instructed to go to hang out with him! Typical boy!

Services Indian style

Camel taxi service, parked in our car park...

Our bed linen...printed by the hand block print family...

The cable installation man with all his equipment...

Our iron worker man- Ramsingh-ji with one of our lantern stands to go in the garden and one of the lovely dining settings he made us...

A milkman's bike -straight from the farm to you...it tastes lovely although we use pasterised milk for the hotel...



finally rooms are taking shape, although they seemed a little plain for India...so I am working on some smallish quilts to throw on the end of the beds, crushed velvet, recycled sari silk and I think it is going to need a tassle or sparkle border...so it off to the sparkle shop! That is shopping I can cope with...

Our Oukka Place

High tension, yesterday...I had to go shopping for nicknacks for the hotel.
I do not find shopping relaxing at all....and I wanted to find things I thought P would like as well.
I have spent years travelling around not buying things...thinking one day when I have my place I would like that...now I have my place...do you think I can remeber what caught my eye?
Ask my friend Dawn, usually 2 minutes into shopping I am sqirming saying let's have coffee...can we go yet?








Still I found these guys, cute, kitch and sparkly all at the same time! Made by local families they are a good start for our budget- there is onegreat shop in the market with antique type pieces, I love it but am not game to go inside...expensive is written all over it. I want Praveen to come and look in there with me but he always seems busy just at that moment??











We have a tray up in the front tree to feed our Gehlari [chipmunks] they are so cute but rather shy so we are trying to teach them to be more bold so the tourists can feed them as well.
Inside the reception is taking shape, I have this beautiful painting by my friend Julie Stuart- a gift for my new life and so appropriate for Pushkar.
Pushkar was founded arounf 4 springs that sprang up when Brahma was fighting a Demon with a lotus flower and 4 petals fell to Earth.
What better image for our place in Pushkar? thank you so much Jules.


















Anyone who has travelled in India will know every morning, every hotel has this weird red jelly on the table- it is sweet and does NOT taste of any fruit flavour.....well in our hotel we have red fruit jam as well, BUT ours is of discernable fruit and flavour- Pomeganite, Guava and Apple jam, to be exact.
Finding fruit suitable for jam is also a dificulty but mango season is appraching and I am going to get a stock put away. We now have Indian Lime Marmalade and Pomeganite, Guava and Apple Jam as breakfast options.

Through the window and into the courtyard....I have just recovered the lounge and added pillows I made for our house- prototypes for the Shakti Work Project croteched out of sari fabric...

In the garden

Just after we got the OK on our hotel, we were sitting having chai one morning and I said to Praveen I could not wait to get my hands dirty in the garden.
He almost choked on his tea!!
"What - get your hands dirty?? That is the staff's job- you surpervise."
He was quiet definite it was unbecoming to get dirty in the garden...not often my man says no, you can't do something...
Since then he has relaxed and when we had a big gardening day last Sunday I could not get him out of my way....I even had to wrestle the water hose off him yesterday when I was watering our newly planted greenery.

Rabi- one of our staff, he is a lovely young man, keen, funny always wanting to learn something new and very hard working.

Brings to mind things that are unbecoming- I was in the kitchen teaching Rabi and Muna [our cook] how to make marmalade- we had a great time together, got it all into bottles and wiped down then I grabbed the saucepan to wash out and Muna, who is usually very quiet and shy said,"No, no, no..." and indicated he would do the saucepan- I said "no it is OK." and he just shook his head and almost pushed me away from the sink- without touching me of course- that would be too familiar...but it is obviously unbecoming of me to wash up!

Now that is one I can get used to

...they must all think I am a bit funny....I am loud, laugh a lot and make jokes and like TO DO things, rather than supervise...still we are learning to all work well I think.

Praveen and I are enjoying ourselves enormously!

Our Pukka Place, more shopping

More shopping, casual chairs this time.
This pampass grass is transformed into very comfortable Rajasthani Mudda Chairs...and Ajmer has a whole street of the artisans making them.

We wandered up and down comparing work and prices, then serious bargaining time as we need a whole heap for the garden at our place.

Next the pickle shop...I have made an Indian Lime Pickle for years [thank you Julie for the original recepie] and Praveen loves it...we must have it for our hotel restaurant! But it takes 6 weeks for a batch to mature so until then we got a batch from the famous Shickilal's of Ajmer... a chance for me to sample different flavours as well and try out other kinds of recipes...I am going to put all my tried and tested recipes in a cook book one day.

We already do a Cooking tour with Creative Arts Safaris http://www.creative-arts-safaris.com/ICSS.html and I have taught cooking classes here in Pushkar as a fund raiser for Shakti Project. www.shakti-streetkids-pushkar.org

The boys [young men, really but they look so fresh face I tend to call them boys] in our kitchen are good cooks and eager to learn some of my recipes just as I am eager to learn Muna's Eggplant Subji-

anyway I love to cook and learn new flavours and am always giving my recipes out...I can think of a cook book as a relaxing hobby!

Look at the range...yum!

and then marble shopping for table tops...I like the small round table tops but am not allowed to think of them at the moment and look at the range of decoartive borders you could order to insert in your floor....I can't wait to build our own place one day... but not today...

Sunday is supposed to be relax and art day...well as close as I got to that was cutting up fabric for my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6685130 and getting it all neatly stacked...still texture and colour was lovely to fiddle with.

More gardening today.... I love gardening, potting around is relaxing and we now have a garden at our hotel [and all the boys to help me with all the heavy or yuk jobs!- Life in India can be blissful]

so I can fiddle around- we are going to have roses in the courtyrad garden, really richly scented Pushkar roses...won't that be lovely when people arrive?