This weekend we celebrated Alba’s rice ceremony! In India, it’s a party where the baby has their first taste of rice, gets blessings from family and friends, and the most fun bit, picks out their future from a tray with symbolic objects. Alba’s tray had the traditional pen, indicating she’d be a writer, mud for a farmer and money for £££, and then Mum included some surprise non-canonical additions - a whisk for a cook, a stethoscope for a doctor and a science book (as Tim is a physicist/lawyer. Although she didn’t add any law related objects...!) Alba enthusiastically picked out the stethoscope, playing to the house of Mum & Dad’s current and retired NHS doctor friends. (We decided not to include a tennis ball for a future athlete so Pepper wouldn’t disrupt the ceremony by stealing it.) Mum made an absolute feast, including saffron pulao rice, chickpea curry, parathas, aubergine with tomatoes & nigella seeds, malai kofta, with vadas made by my aunt which I couldn’t take photos of, as they disappeared too quickly. Lovely catching up with Tim’s family and all our home friends ✨