A recipe for a pick-me-up!!!

One would have thought that it would be the English weather (Kindly explain to me again why they call this a "summer"??) that would have dampened my spirits but let me tell you from first hand experience that dull grey skies, cold winds accompanied by sudden drizzles and capricious weather are simply no match for trying to manage for 3 weeks without a bank account, a credit card, a Wi-Fi connection, a TV connection, a post paid connection, being stuck with a pre paid scheme that has been demanding top ups like some insatiable black hole and on top of it all, finding out that there is no 24/7 repair service for a refrigerator that decides to conk off on a Saturday when it is full of baby food!!!

So, what do you do when you discover that life in the First World is more like being teleported back into the Stone Age instead of living in the midst of an Inception meets Matrix vision that you had created in your head? 

1- You bloody well feel low. Understandably so. You yell at the husband off and on. After all he is the one who got the transfer and put you through this misery in the first place! 

2-You live on Maggi for days at a stretch and ensure Nestle profit margins register a dramatic upswing! At the same time you cross your fingers and secretly hope that the mutual funds you have invested in have atleast a teeny tiny finger in the Nestle pie, so you are atleast sure you are making some profit out of your own misery!

3- If its Les Paul's b'dy, you use the Google doodle guitar to strum "Beta sabun ki shakal mein, tu to nikla sirf jhaag.... Bhag bhag D.K.Bose, D.K.Bose.... bhaag" to capture the mismatch between your expectations and your current reality...

4- Alternately, if you are vocal and unafraid to share what you feel, you rant and vent all your frustrations on the medium that makes every other agony aunt pale in comparison - I am referring to the mother of all agony aunt columns - Facebook of course!

And so I did, all of the above. But before I could perfect point No. 4 into an art form, concerned friends started sending email links about the guy who got sued by Vodafone for doing the same, i.e. using Facebook to vent his frustrations with Vodafone. 

WTH!!! 
What is this world coming to?? 
Ghor Kalyug I tell you!!! These days you can't even say what you feel without worrying about someone suing your a@#e!!! 
Now how the hell do you pull yourself out of the gutter of despair that you have landed in if you aren't allowed to spread a bit of the despondence and misery you are currently wallowing in??

So, after a bit of trial and error (the process is always a work in progress) I did come upon an almost perfect pick-me-upper that comes without the risk of getting sued. It is somewhat time intensive, labour intensive but the brilliant thing is, unlike hitting a shopping mall and regretting it when you get your credit card bill next month, this one isn't too heavy on the pocket either. How much more perfect can it get??? 

So the next time you are wallowing in the depths of despair, shedding large tears online about your state of life, this is what you could do instead! (Applicable for anyone who has recently relocated to England!)

1- You walk to a park nearby. (Pl try this at your own risk if you don't live in the UK) Anyone will do, chances are there are at least 3 within a mile's radius of where you live. Choose the one least crowded with screaming kids on the loose. Now lie on the grass and admire random dandelions and daisies in bloom while reciting Wordsworth in your head. Imagine yourself transported back into Victorian England with dashing gentlemen on horses and graceful ladies carrying parasols passing you by.

Hang on to this prim and proper mental image for dear life. Remember, the next time you get mad about the infrastructure, the response time, the works; this vision will help you bite back all the swear words forming in your head! And it will help you remember that as far as keeping pace with technology is concerned, UK, atleast the 'not MI5/6' and 'not 10, Downing Street' part of it, is still stuck in the Victorian era!!! (Although I am no more sure any longer about the MI5/6 part of it! If you did notice, James Bond has started using his fists these days instead of all those fancy gadgets. Now what does that tell you? Cost cutting or aversion to all things hi-tech??)

Spent half hr gazing at these pretty lavender 

blossoms in bloom in the park

Tip : If you are a mother of 2 brats, make sure you send the kid(s) off to chase some random birds and dogs so you can gaze at the D&D (dandelions and daisies) in peace. 
Alternately if you are more likely to fall under the social creature rather than the flower gazer segment, you could spend your time gawking at the hot men jogging in the park (Why should men have all the fun, I say! After all, living in the 21st century should have some perks!). On days you feel particularly adventurous, you could even strike up a conversation with one, something you unfortunately can't do with the D & Ds.

The Vs are chasing the pigeons in the park while I lie admiring the Ds and Ds

2. You drop the kids off at play school and take a nice looong walk all by yourself. Make sure you don't wander aimlessly but head purposefully towards the nearest flower shop. There, buy yourself a nice bunch of exotic English flowers that you have so far managed to see only in your online Farmville England farm!!!

I bought myself some nice bright blue cornflowers which till now I had seen only on my FV farm!

3. At the flower shop, also buy yourself some nice flowering plants. And then plant them in your pretty English garden and admire your handiwork every single day. 

Remember, give a woman a bunch of flowers, make her happy for a day. Teach her to grow her own, and make her happy and the husband relieved for a lifetime! (Okay I just made that up, but doesn't that make infinite sense?)

Tip : Buy something nice and hardy like geraniums which won't die even if you exhaust your newly developed enthusiasm for gardening and forget to water them. And if you are the kinds who gets mad a little too often like me, you could do well to invest in a couple of lavender bushes for some free de-stress aromatherapy benefits in the future!

Sensible moi bought some pink and red geraniums, some pink and white calla lilies & some lavender.

4. You sit in your patio, sip a lemonade (diet) and make sure you take enough pictures to post with the sole objective of making your friends envious. But ensure that you don't dilly dally and finish this task quickly as the patio chairs are still wet from the rains and the cold breeze is freezing your a#$e every minute you stay outdoors! But don't be stupid enough to tell your friends that! Just focus on getting the "I am lazing outdoors in my own garden while you poor sods are working your a@#es off" part right!

See how cleverly I have edited this picture to brighten
up the dull grey skies and have cropped out the wet chairs!

5. If you are really lucky, then you may get your very British neighbour to give you an orientation course on the neighbourhood and the way of life! I am extremely lucky to have such a neighbour so I got mine!

So, now I know that my bread has to be from Warburtons, my cucumbers from Kent, my ham from Wiltshire and my eggs have to be bought at the butcher and not the supermarket shelf! I've also been fortunate enough to have been introduced to a real English butcher, who talks in monosyllables, who scoffs at you for missing the heat of Singapore & for eating store bought sausages that he calls "American trash", and whose sausages are so bloody amazing that once you've had them, even you start referring to every other sausage you have ever eaten as "American trash"!

Remember if all this doesn't work for you, all you have got to do is walk to the nearest shopping center; and you might just stumble into a 50% off sale at Gap or Debenhams! 

WORD OF CAUTION: 

No matter what you do,

1. Do NOT re-read this post. You will realise just how many times you have mentioned the term "walk". Then all this carefully nurtured sang-froid will get shattered into smithereens by memories of the good old days when you texted for a cab to drive you to the mall which was a mere 7minute walk away! And then, you will definitely need to hit Gap, sale or no sale!!!

2. And most definitely do NOT go tinting your meagre & almost invisible eyebrows jet black! Not only will you end up looking like a grotesque and grossly untalented version of Frida Kahlo, with new facial hair now visible from outer space; you will also have to suffer the additional humiliation of having it go unnoticed by the husband. 

And make sure unlike me, you are not beset by the urge to commit harakiri by proceeding to mention the coloring of your eyebrows to the unobservant husband of yours & then asking him for his opinion. If you do, then you bloody well deserve to hear him ask you this priceless gem of a question, "So if you coloured your brows black, then what colour were they all these years?"!!! 

Yes, I was asked this little priceless gem of a question; and that too by the man I have known for 15yrs and have been married to for almost 11!!! 

You know what? To hell with the pick me up!!! Situations like these call for more intense measures! Maybe its time to take the credit card and hit the shopping center after all!!!