As Dorothy once said...

... there’s no place like home. You can always trust a girl who has great taste in sparkly shoes and a canine best friend, so wise words from that Kansas girl which I fully agree with.

Joy of joys we finally signed the lease and moved into our flat on Christmas Eve. The trauma of flat hunting finally came to an end. I never thought I would spend my Christmas Eve a) in Delhi b) finally unpacking after what has seemed 3 months of packing up my life to move here. I also never thought I would spend Christmas Eve hanging out with Bobby... now that’s another story.

So yes, our Delhi Des Res search is over. In order to get a pukka pad, we’ve cheated slightly in the sheer frustration of trying to find anywhere safe or decent so we are topping up our VSO allowance to pay the rent. It’s all character building, we are still doing hand washing (it’s a full workout trying to do a pair of jeans by hand believe me), when it gets to 45°c outside I think I’m going to appreciate the option of some air conditioning... so still keeping it real! Our flat is in a great part of town and we’ve nicknamed it the ‘Temple House’ as we are opposite two Hindu temples. The call to prayer and bells are rung twice a day which is very soothing.

The majority of flats come empty so once we had signed the lease we needed to move fast on the furniture front. That’s when we met Bobby. Ikea has not yet invaded India, so on a volunteer allowance it’s back to the old school fun of buying second hand furniture. Luckily there is a big online expat community, so when someone ‘shifts’ (the Hinglish term for moving house) back home there are plenty of house sales. Bobby was selling the contents of his house so off we trotted to his place as soon as the ink was dry on the lease. Bobby has been living between California and Delhi for the last 30 years and is kind of a Hindi Phil Spector (with the big hair, minus the murder rap). His accent is truly mesmerising and was keen to ply us with wine before perusing his furniture. He sorted us out with beds, two sofas and some tables for a not too shabby price and even arranged delivery the next day.

Our furniture arrived on Christmas Eve with Bobby in tow, to pick up the rest of his cash and a dinner invite. I think he got the impression we were two (ahem) young girls in need of a father figure. We politely played along, until we discovered he had a washing machine for sale. It’s truly cheating not to hand wash your clothes during your VSO placement. But, considering you need to shower 2-3 times a day to keep the sweat at bay from April, hand washing loses its novelty petty quickly. All that time you could be helping the fight against global poverty but instead you are scrubbing your smalls. I bet Bono doesn’t dunk his drawers in a bucket. We were putty in his hands. I think we will be going over there with a bottle of wine next week to secure the automatic top loader. It’s all for the cause...

Highlights: So many this week... attending a skills building workshop for blind teenage boys and watching my boss motivate and interact with everyone, home sweet home (a full night’s sleep sans ear plugs I never knew India could be this quiet), cooking my first meal in 7 weeks (Christmas breakfast was the best ever scrambled egg and smoked salmon... woops there goes the budget again), spending Christmas Day with 12 other volunteers and a brave friend visiting from the UK who embraced the VSO madness (the spread was unbelievable, even sprouts taste good in India and I’ve never seen such competitive charades), getting the best ever Christmas parcel from my darling sister (my she shops good – a cashmere jumper, truffles, hand cream and the complete Gavin & Stacey DVD boxset - feel free to send similar donations!), discovering the temple opposite the house does yoga three nights a week and it only costs Rs 200 per month (that would be £2.66) but best of all actually being able to get home from work at 6pm every night to make yoga class... heaven.