This one is super special!!! This shall be my very first post from the Queen's own land!
A lot has happened in these 10 days!
First yours truly, totally carried away by all the stories of the "glorious summer we have been having", landed in the Old Blighty, carrying shorts and not even a single piece of anything remotely warm, only to find her arse freezing at 10 degrees C, inspite of the layers of adipose !! Which obviously led to a shopping trip before self and the arse suffered from frostbite!
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| That's me running with the Vs in our garden |
And then came the "landing into trouble" bit. In the beginning, everything seemed to go smoothly as we breezed through the stern and dour countenances that inhabit immigration and health control, thanks to the Vs who went about blowing kisses and going wow at everyone who had an English accent. And then our luck ran into some speedbumps.... Nanny in all her "wisdom" decided to put some jackets in the balcony which then were promptly blown away by the strong winds. Now true blue desis that we are, we promptly got some chairs, a mop stick and tried to pry the jacket from the roof below us. Which prompted some utter imbecile with nothing better to do in life and not enough brains to understand that one can't commit suicide by jumping off the 2nd floor balcony, to call for help to complain about the mass suicide attempt happening on our balcony!!
And then the honeymoon only got more interesting as I came in contact with the technological advancement of the First World! Get this, it has taken me 10 days (10 bloody long days!!!) to get a Wi-fi connection running and that too I am connected through some mobile Wi-fi connection which would make a sloth seem like Usain Bolt!!! Just for fun, let me offer a contrast; it took me a day to get a Starhub connection in Singapore and just a couple of hrs to get connected in Mumbai!
I could go on and on about many more such stories about my interaction with all things tech in the developed world!
For instance, Vodafone took 4 days to get me a micro sim. Meanwhile in less developed parts of the world, you can expect to just walk in and get a mirco sim the minute your number comes up in the queue!!
And yes, we need to apply for a licence to get a TV connection! Where I come from, one would assume I was intending to get married to the TV!
But the award has to go to Sky, who will give us a Wi-fi connection 15 days AFTER the TV connection is set up!! What will they do in 15 days, any sensible person may ask! I can only assume they start tunneling their way in to your home the day they set up your TV to set up some state of the art Wi-Fi connection that's available only in the First world, and that we, the poor country cousins from the wrong side of the G8 summit, have no inkling about!
And so I endure .... the boys running amok out of boredom, the freezing cold winds, the technological bottlenecks and all the walking and stair climbing!!! At this juncture, before I venture further, I need to put in this theory I have been working on about the constant walking and climbing stairs that the Brits seem to be so fond of...
My first day in the overground and there was not a single escalator in sight! 2yrs in Singapore and I had forgotten how to climb stairs!!! As I huffed and puffed up in the most undignified fashion, I wondered, "What is this obsession with physical activity"? A few days in the freezing winds and I understood!! The running around is crucial; the running around is what keeps the arse from freezing! 2 days in here and hell, even I was running around! Me, who was used to ordering cabs to go even to the nearest mall which was a mere 5 mins walk away, was walking as if there was a dog with rabies giving me chase!!!
And then came the biggest shock of them all.... and for the Bong, could it be anything else but food? Craving for some Oriental cuisine, ordered Pad Thai from the nearby Thai restaurant and carried it back bravely at 10 in the night on a dark street, all empty save for a couple of foxes. We were terrified the foxes would smell our beef Pad Thai and attack us, but they seemed to be intent on avoiding us, preferring to look in people's garbage instead! One bite of the Pad Thai and we knew why the foxes preferred the garbage over our take away. If I were a fox, I would avoid the beef Pad Thai too! It was overflowing with tomato ketchup!! (Note to self: Could it be that the English foxes have a palate, far more discerning than their human counterparts?)
Thus began my introduction to tomato ketchup as the foundation on which every cuisine was created...
Pad Thai - with tomato ketchup!
Prawn biryani -with tomato ketchup
Beef with basil - with what else but tomato ketchup!
We have come to a stage where even I have been inspired to add tomato ketchup to my masala sausage fry!!! Soon I shall be cooking chicken tikka masala with, you guessed it, tomato ketchup!!
Sigh!!!! And so I endure..... And grit my teeth and stiffen up the upper lip and go on....
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| The huge roses in a park near our home |
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| White flowers in a hedge that I cross every day |
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| Some more strange lovely purple flowers growing in our hedge |
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| Peonies in abundance in people's gardens. |
....till I come across a lush abundance of peonies growing in a garden I pass by, till I see the giant roses the size of cauliflowers everywhere, till I see the rhododendron in bloom in the hedges, till I see the lush green grass in the gardens spattered with tiny smidges of white and yellow flowers and roll on them with my sons....
... till I take in the beautiful house we live in, with its huge rooms that the boys love playing hide and seek in, the stairs that are so steep they seem to be created with the sole intent of training people in a basic mountaineering course, the eccentric heating system that goes on strike every 2nd day, the huge garden with its camellia and the rose bushes and the apple trees or the patch of strawberries in a corner and the fox that slinks in every evening like clockwork looking for food.....
Moreover, in these last couple of weeks, I have been addressed as "love" about a zillion times more than I have been by the husband in all the years I have known him; plumbers, delivery men, taxi drivers, bus conductors, shop keepers, random strangers I have stopped to ask for directions, and even by the teenager who sold me tickets for a ride at the fair !!!
Suddenly life doesn't seem so bad after all....
After all, once the sun comes out, everything does becomes all right with the world.... Now all I need to do is pray hard for it come out a little more than it normally does! ;)
