I’m writing this from the… prow?… the aft??… the front-pointy bit, upstairs on the good ship Saffron, as it sails along ‘the backwaters’. A concept so odd and bizarre that even though I’m staring at it, live and in ‘real time’, I’m not sure what it is. And best of all? There’s no WiFi on board. So I can’t look up to see whether this raggedy coastline down in the Deep South-west of the Indian mainland, is a bunch of lagoons, rivers, canals, waterways or some wonderfully biryani type combination of the lot. In between the water lie the wetlands where they grow rice. But paddy fields about 5 miles long. It’s about 85 degrees today so as Mel sleeps in the shade, I’m just lovin’ and enjoyin’ the peace and tranquility of the place. I asked to play ‘smells like teen spirit’ through the sound system, at volume 11!, but there are actually laws preventing such things. There are loads of laws in India. It’s very bureaucratic. But then no-one enforces the laws. Except where Nirvana is concerned.

And you do this expedition on a ‘house boat’. There are loads of them. All in a traditional style. When we booked our ‘Kerala Experience 2023/24’, we must have gone through options with our agent. And everyone who’s been within a hundred miles of Kerala has done the ‘house boat on the backwaters’. Cos it’s an overnight gig. You get on the boat for lunch one day, then have dinner, overnight, breakfast and off. So we booked… whatever, yeah, we want a nice one. Won’t sink. Doesn’t stink of fish. And not too many guests because Mel will fall out with at least half by the morning.

We were brought onto the boat by a chap who kept referring to it as ‘your boat’. Because there was no-one else invited. Our boat, rebuild completed just 3 months ago, has but one cabin. A massive fucking room with a four-poster bed, a seating area with couch and tv and an ‘en suite’ the size of a normal hotel room in its entirety with a jacuzzi bath which could hold the entire Indian National cricket team. Or 3 British darts players. Upstairs is a dining room, big enough to seat 14 in easy comfort. Or to seat 2 in fucking acres of space. It’s our boat. For the day. Ok, they won’t let me drive it so we have a skipper and we have a chef. And this was ‘just a little something he threw together’ for lunch. Just for the two of us. Holy shiiiiiiit.

And tonight’s New Year’s party will be in full swing. Mel, me, the bottle of illicit Indian whisky I bought down a back alley from an ‘official government liquor store’ and we can sing auld lang syne without a kilt in sight. Livin the dream.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

A xxxx