Whirlwind Buying Trip

Finally. I'm sitting on the verandah, overlooking the green lawns and flower garden of my hotel, enjoying a lovely scalding-hot pot of fresh darjeeling and a slice of home made chocolate cake - Bliss!

It's been a bit of a trek to get here, mostly because of awful roadworks on the highway from Delhi to Jaipur, but, I left London at 9pm on Saturday and here I am at barely 5pm (local time) Sunday, well and truly ensconced.

Rather lucky I didn't risk a BA flight this time. We come here 2 or 3 times a year and always fly BA, but this time I decided to try Jet Airways, and it was wonderful. I shall be saying goodbye to my BA executive club card and airmiles, the service on JA is fantastic, the plane was a 777, the newest around with state of the art in flight media (and this was in economy!). The food was really good - vegetarian Indian to a very acceptable standard, good fresh fruit salads ...... I could go on, but you get the idea. BA has, sadly, definitely lost our custom.

At least the road trip to Jaipur gave me a chance to submerge myself in the latest Vogue, Marie Claire, Red and Elle - something I NEVER get time to do - to see what the Summer trends might be and, I hope, use this trip to bring a flavour of these to you. There are lots of long chains about, silver bangles piled up tanned arms, and strings of large, brightly coloured beads, as well as tons of black & white - the perennial classsic for summer. So, fingers crossed, I'll let you know what I find in the few days I am here. Watch this space!

Anyway, I also bought a little 'flip' camera before flying, so I'm hoping to be able to take some interesting short videos which we will post online for you all to see.