Thursday, January 6

Two samosas on a plate. One and a half, actually, because one of them has several bites taken out of it.

Why have I photographed these? More to the point: where have I photographed these?

This morning a doctor and nurse turned up at the house and administered two “final” PCR tests; one up the nose and one down the throat. At 16:00 we learned, to nobody’s surprise, that the results had proved negative and so, with one bound, we leapt into a car on our way to freedom.

We drove directly to the Mall of Travancore and went straight up to Chai Chai, where we both had samosas and Nimbu Fresh.

We have finally arrived in India!

We then spent an hour or so in HyMart, the mall’s supermarket, buying household materials from mops to plates, and food items too specific to order online. By the time we drove home we felt as though we could now regard meeting other people as a normal activity again.

The samosas tasted a bit dry but who cares. We know where we can get better ones within walking distance of the house and, now that we can walk where we want, we will!