Night out in Delhi

So the dress I wrote about last was for the British High Commission ball, which was on last Saturday night at the Taj Mansingh hotel in central Delhi; we were invited by a friend who works there. Immediately my Antipodean inferiority complex took hold and for the preceding week, feeling all Eliza Doolittle, I practiced walking gracefully, eating daintily and rounding my vowels.

I needn't have worried.

It's not that British HC types are a bunch of lushes, but they're terribly jolly, like a drink and a tango and one to drink and tango with, and don't seem to worry which fork one is using.

Seated next to me at our table - which was at least fifty percent Australian anyway - was the wife of a diplomat. She was already quite squiffy and in a confessional mood (but not embarrassingly so). I thought, I quite like you, especially as she poured me another glass of valpolicella, and forgot to be intimidated.

Later, I met another American, this time a Marine in full regalia. He started telling me about some of his tours of duty to 27 countries and I could have kept talking to him except that the cars had arrived and we had to go.

All up, a wonderful night, one of those nights when you pinch yourself and feel blessed to be there.

And the dress? The dress turned out magnif, so much so I'm very much regretting divulging the name of the tailor in my previous post.