Osettai again

Today we joined a few other walkers and wandered around our neighbourhood for half an hour or so collecting snacks. As I briefly mentioned last year "Osettai" is a day when different households join together and pay tribute to the priests of the past and provide small packets of snacks to people who come past. I think this is related to the pilgrims in the past who would receive a small amount of food etc. from the locals on their long travels.
It has now turned into a different kind of trek, but basically if you see a red or white flag flying outside some one's house you can go and pray at their house and after leaving a tiny donation you receive a little bag of snacks or in more organised neighbourhoods a plate of rice, pickles etc. I quite like this day as it gives you an opportunity to see inside each person's garden, a little inside their house etc. and is one day where the whole community gets together. We even went as far as to go into someones house this year in a completely different neighbourhood on our way home from a friend's house. I think they were a little surprised to see us, but kindly handed over a nice little bag of snacks which kept the children quiet all the way home!

On a completely different note, I have somehow found myself as the new chairperson of the kindergarten PTA. Apparently while I was away in New Zealand the other PTA members decided that I would be best for the job (in other words no one else would do it) and the head of the kindergarten wasn't really interested in my protests! The price you pay for going away on holiday. It could be a long year.....

On another completely different note. Thank you for all the enquiries about my daughter's arm. The cast was taken off on Thursday and she is on doctor's orders to take care not to bash it around too much and especially not to fall over on it. Hence when I picked her up from school on Thursday I was not so impressed to see that she was trying to ride a unicycle and watching her go crashing down onto the road yesterday when she was racing along in her "high heels" didn't do too much for my heart either! Fortunately only a huge gash in her knee resulted from the fall and the arm is still in 3 pieces not 4!