Things that go bump in the night

It is occasionally possible to forget that in our relatively civilised house, we are in the middle of Delhi. Unfortunately, those times do not include between dusk and dawn.

On my first trip to India, I travelled without the benefit of ear plugs. The result was that I slept on alternate nights. Every other night, I would lie awake plagued by mosquitoes, heat, the cacophony of rickshaw horns and, most frequently, the howling of stray dogs.

So far, it's been too cold for mosquitoes and heat; we are sufficiently off the main road for the horns to be unremarkable but the dogs are a different story. Everywhere in Delhi, there are mangy, pathetic looking dogs stretched out on pavements napping in the sun who look at you reproachfully but unenergetically if you presume to go near enough to disturb their slumber. At night, fuelled by a long day of inactivity, they all seem to band together to discuss their takeover of the city and the noise is infuriating. Even the earplugs don't entirely drown them out.

When we first moved in, still new to the sounds of the city, I was very puzzled to hear what I was sure was the sound of marching bands. Every morning around 5.30am, I would wake up to the sounds of souza, drummers drumming and pipers piping. Did Delhi really go on the march each morning? I was rather worried I was imaging it and took a few days to pluck up courage to mention it to Jamie who appeared not to have noticed it. It was only when I found out that Republic Day was about to happen that I realised what I could hear was early morning rehearsal. Fortunately, post event, the morning marches have ceased although every now and again, I feel sure I can hear them at it.

Once the morning marching stopped, wedding season began. Periodically, we are roused from our post prandial stupour by the astounding hullabaloo of the ramshackle wedding bands who march up the streets in their once white uniforms and red tinsel lined turbans. I assume they are paid by the bridal party to leave as soon as they arrive at their destination.

The last of the major sleep disturbers (if you leave out the children) are the peacocks who are rapidly losing their charm. The dawn chorus sounds like cats being strangled. They make so much noise that they invariably wake up Toby who can then be heard on the monitor saying "cats say miaow, miaow, Eliot, can you hear the cats?". Poor Eliot, woken up by his brother rather than the peacocks can never resist the opportunity of correcting the offender "No Toby, not cats, peacocks".