We knew that our social activities would likely decrease when we moved to Bangalore. For starters, there are no Senators games to attend, no hockey or baseball to play, no weekly #ThursPintsW tweetup, and we really didn’t know anyone to visit when we moved here. One of the biggest hurdles though, is the loss of our babysitting safety net. We no longer have family and friends that we can call on mind the lils, and there is no pool of teenaged children like we had at home. There are a number of nannies available for hire, but we don’t want a nanny, just an occasional babysitter. To prepare myself for this reality, I spent the weeks leading up to the move telling myself that we would not be going out at all while we were here. Just in case.

We haven’t gone out at all in the six weeks since we arrived when I got an email that made me pause. It was from an ex-pat group that I joined and it spoke of a Christmas dinner, the clincher for both of us was that it included the line “there will also be greatly discounted imported wines for purchase on the night” Sold. It was time to find a babysitter.

We briefly joked about asking our friend Carpet, who is staying with us this right now as part of his 8-week world tour, to mind the lils. We really wanted him to come with us, so we talked to our maid. Sheela is great with the lils, and had minded them for short periods while I was setting up the house. It had been our plan to try her out as a regular sitter and this was the perfect opportunity. She said yes, the lils were excited, and we were off!

The evening got off to a rocky start, with it taking Carpet and I almost two hours to get from our house to the restaurant, picking Willy up on the way. It was two hours to travel a distance of nineteen kilometres! Picking Willy up did not add to that time, he met us at the side of the road on the route we had to take. It was all Bangalore traffic! We arrived at the restaurant ready for a glass of wine. We were handed that wine as we walked in, and spent the rest of the evening meeting a few new people, eating delicious food and indulging in copious amounts of the wine. Carpet even won the door prize, a GC for a local restaurant, which he handed to me. We left pretty happy, albeit wineless (their supplier backed out). This needs to happen again, and soon.

I think I like this wine club.