A pleasant enough affair. It was hosted by friends, a French couple with a large garden, of whom the husband was particularly friendly, though both were nice. Met a few old acquaintances, and chatted to a few newer ones, and then wisely left around 11 pleading jetlag but actually just glad to leave when I was still enjoying it and before I had overstayed.
Before the dholki there was a bit of panic on my side. I had borrowed a dress from a New Zealand aunt as I didn’t have suitable clothes, and had planned to defer to Islamabad’s cold and Pakistan’s social mores by wearing off-white cigarette pants underneath. None were to be found, so I decided to compromise on mores by wearing stockings instead. The only stockings available that were not in a jaundiced yellow-beige turned out be half-stockings. When I was getting dressed I discovere they were the wrong half, ie they started at the waist and finished at the ankle. So I had to accept the cold as well, and just go bare-legged.
This morning I left for Lahore accompanying my brother, his wife and son. The son, I was appalled to learn, has as his favourite fairy tale a story my sister devised about how I went to New Zealand, encountered a rainbox sheep and somehow got stuck inside it. The rest of the story was about efforts by various farm animals trying to pull me out, until my nephew finally managed it.