All agog

 I intended to write this yesterday as a final adieu to the long drawn March :) Though I had the time, I did not have the mental state to pen my thoughts. So anyways March is done and though it took its own sweet time, I felt I had a lot going on and I appreciate all the things that happened to me ( the anarchy in the wider world is something that is so messed up, no single month can make or mar it)

Since I last wrote things have definitely happened. I cleared the exam I was intending to write. We were getting some bathroom renovation we had undertaken and it was all wrapped up. It was in full usage till one day I went in and flushed the toilet. There was a loud noise of water flowing. We panicked and called the builders. The plumber told he would come in immediately. While he was on his way, there was a leakage in the kitchen. It was pure madness. But once our plumber came in, he was able to fix it in 15 minutes or so. He gave an explanation for the occurrence, and it made sense. :) I will leave the technical details from this post, but as a developer my kudos to him for having fixed a bug in production!

My close friend from Nigeria was making a trip to surprise her dad on his 80th birthday. Her brother and her had an elaborate ruse planned. I go on a weekly walk with her and used to swap notes about our upcoming trips. We were both super excited for each other and for our respective trips. It was amazing to have one final walk with her before she started on her journey.

As our trip to India loomed over, packing started getting real. I had to start cooking less amount of food so that there was absolutely no leftovers :D It was difficult because I am a fan of meal prep. So my natural instinct is to cook a bit more so that there is always some spare for any mid schedule eating. So curbing my natural way was hard. Plus I like coming back to a clean place so there was a lot of cleaning and scouring, ironing and additional tasks which made the run up to the holidays a bit harder.

After a couple of cancellations we are finally making a trip tomorrow. A trip to Bhubaneswar after 8 years. The girls remember nothing , they don’t remember the house , they don’t remember the layout . They have no idea what to expect and are filled with excitement and anxiousness. I am sure my parents back home are on the edge of their seats. There will be a lot of meeting of extended families and second cousins and a lot of eating and a lot of experiences which will be enriching for a lifetime. I am super excited. Sometimes to the extent of being overwhelmed. Its not a bad kind of overwhelming feeling, but a good kind, a pleasant kind :) 

What a March

 This March has been a bit of a tizz. There was just so much happening. Yeah there are a million memes regarding this on social media. But really there was so much happening in the month of March, that it seemed like a year to me :) 

My company prides on being a tech for good company. As a result social values are highly ingrained into our ethos, being something that is encouraged from everyone. In the beginning of the month there was a chance to volunteer in a school to give a presentation about careers in tech. I love teaching and engaging with young minds. It is something I have been naturally drawn towards, perhaps given the huge number of teachers in my family. So I was not going to miss this opportunity. And the cherry on the cake, it was in Chiyaa's school. Of course! I was going to go for it. It was a wonderful presentation which made me feel quite fulfilled at the end of it.

With our imminent travel to Bhubaneswar in April, it was finally all feeling real. The suitcases were brought down from the attic, the clothes were collected, lists were made and last minute shopping commenced. In the midst of all this anxious excitement, what we did not need was the world leaders to start a new war. With the war came flight reschedules! I did mention that it had been rescheduled once and it was cause of much panic. Fortunately deferring a January problem to April was a good thing. Cos this time the rescheduling has given us much more time to make our transit. K definitely heaved a huge sigh of relief. So did I but let me paint him as the more panic stricken one :) 

Work was pure madness with some tricky bits being implemented by me not getting the adequate support. But we eventually made it after what seemed like a nightmare of changes and reviews and changes and reviews :) While all this was going on, I decided to add extra pressure on myself by signing up for an AWS certification. I was working towards it and somehow in spite of breakneck work had managed to get some momentum. I did not want this to break with our trip to India and me having to start it all over again. So I booked my exam which meant my evening were full of stress going through the study material and giving tests while thinking about packing and flights and work and kids and what not. You get the drift :D While my mind was going through all this, my body decided to throw in the towel as well. So I have an auto-immune condition called uveitis which results in me getting a redness in one eye. Its essentially my body attacking the outer white layer of my eye (very specific taste I know!) This can become serious if not treated quickly. I had a bad episode in 2021 and I thought it had been laid to rest. But then last Thursday it seemed to be back. Again with all the juggling balls up in the air, I did not want to loose sight (haha seems like a joke when I read) . So a call to the doctors and I was urgently seen by the Ophthalmologist.   It was diagnosed as another episode of the same and I was put on steroids for the next week. I was satisfied with an early diagnosis and remedy and hopefully should be all good by the time India comes calling :) 

Well after this proper madness of a month I am really looking forward to the 2 weeks of rest in India. I know it will not be a rest, there will be meeting family and lots of eating and chatting and the weather will be a test in its own. But I am so looking forward to it finally and hope that it all goes well. 

Some planned some unplanned

The kids are back in school after the half term holiday and it definitely feels very weird. I have come a long way from dreading these half terms to being in a state where I love, enjoy and look forward to them. Working from home and growing up kids do take the edge off a lot of things. 

Rewinding to the day Pumpki came back from her residential, we had quite a bit upheavals. We are getting a bathroom renovated in our house. This means, a lot of mess, a lot of people coming and going, things being noisy and everything topsy turvy. Pumpki missed 2 days of all this since she was away. The day she came back, she was drenched and in need of a good clean. She went to take a shower and there was no hot water! After 2.5 days of messing about in mud and generally having unsupervised standards of hygiene I wanted to reinstate my authority. That started with a bath. But no hot water meant not a good bath. We called the plumber and he said he was  bit tied up and would be able to come in the morning. So there was no other go but go old school. Out came a bucket, 2 big kettles of boiling water and the frigid water from the taps. It was not a bath worthy of my exacting standards, but well! Something we had not anticipated, but had to deal with.

There were 2 more days of torrential rain before we could  forget school runs. Saturday evening I got a message out of the blue from an old family friend. We were quite close while starting out our UK journey. Since then life happened and we moved on. We have managed to keep in touch. The usual wishes over birthdays and New Years. They were in the vicinity and said would pop over in the evening the next day. It was something we had not planned for, and we definitely do not host people often in our house. I invited them over for dinner. It was quite a different experience planning and hosting a family over. There was a lot of work, cooking, cleaning, ferrying Pumpki for swimming and getting her back and ready. But once they arrived it was pure joy having them over. We reminisced the days past and it was a veritable trip down the memory lane. The evening had seemed daunting at first, but it was such a pleasant end to a Sunday and what a way to kick start the one week of holidays. Since there was food leftover, the load of cooking was way reduced. Kids enjoyed their time on video games and I was busy tackling some code bugs which was not fun :( 

Tuesday K had plans to get some Chinese takeaway and we had a blast gorging on some delicious food. It was pure coincidence that it happened to be the start of Chinese New year! There were no plans for Wednesday but Thursday Chiyaa had some outing plans to the city centre with her friends. All grown up in making those plans but still a baby when  it comes to executing them :D Since the weather was going to be a bit rubbish K decided to provide taxi service. Because they were going all the way to city centre, I decided to take the afternoon off and take Pumpki to my sister's house which is in the area. This was a sudden plan but it was a lovely plan. I was going mad with all sorts of issues in code and was finding it very difficult to switch off. Many evenings I would be up staring at the code and trying to get to the bottom of an issue. But taking that half day off and having the Friday  off was a real boost to my happiness. I felt glad just hanging out with the kids in the living room not thinking about failing tests.

February is Chiyaa's birth month. So we spend quite some time and effort scouring for gifts for her. Chiyaa is also a pasta fanatic. So Friday we had the day off to enjoy a pre-birthday lunch at an Italian restaurant. The lunch was a huge success with everyone enjoying their meals. After having the lunch we strolled around the city centre, notched a few steps in our kitty and made out home. When we reached home there was an unwanted surprise :( As I had mentioned we have the renovation work going on. The tiler was in and he was working when we left home. He would lock the house and go once he was done since we had another set of keys with us. But on reaching home we realised that we had forgotten to grab the keys! It was the worst possible outcome at the end of a fruitful but tiring day. We called the plumber and asked if he had the tiler's contact to give the keys. Luckily he mentioned that he was home and gave us the address. After a few fumbles with the address we reached the right home and collected the keys. Phew! 

So we had quite a happening half term. The coming term is a shorter one. And at the end of it we have the trip to India!

Away from home

 So the little one has gone on a field trip . She went yesterday and will be back tomorrow.

It was super exciting packing her stuff. In fact she handled most of it herself - my super independent 10 year old ❤️

There were some last minute packing and we sent her off yesterday morning. As she was wearing her shoes she was a bit teary eyed. I am sure she felt some degree of homesickness. Strangely I did not feel anything but was super proud that she was going on this amazing experience.

The work day passed as any other in the midst of calls and code and routine mundane stuff. When Chiyaa came back it was strange to just have her in the house. There was a lot less work with only one child to chase around ☺️But there was something lacking - a certain spark. Pumpki is not noisy or demanding . But she’s a little thing around who makes our lives so much fuller . 

Since there seemed to be way less stuff to do Chiyaa and I watched some documentary which Pumpki would not be interested in. We wrapped everything quite soon and moved to bed. I slept with Chiyaa in Pumpki ‘s place. Most evenings she’s there with her laptop working on some story. As I sat in her place K went all emotional missing her.

Today again only one child to drop off so we were able to hit work way sooner. Evening it has been the same saga with us waiting for her to be back tomorrow with all her stories. 

Up and down and up and down

It’s the last week of the dreaded January. It seems never ending for many but somehow for me it seems to be flying by. Yes it’s been a while since last salary day in December 😂but January payment is round the corner. The bank account may not have seen much activity but there has been a whole torrent of activities in life. 

Last week was our anniversary week. K and I have this tradition of taking a long walk to the city centre , gorging on food and then taking a long walk back home( I might have mentioned this but forgive me for repeating. I never possessed a good memory anyways 😁) That was one day of leave from work and it could not have come at a better time. It was mad busy week for me with a bunch of fixes to be done for a previous project. In the midst of it , a day of leave did seem like a disturbance to the flow of work. It would have been better to get things done and dusted. But on the day I quite welcomed the relaxed feel. The days are very busy and one day of not sitting and working was more rejuvenating than I had anticipated. With a slow start to the day we set off to enjoy the walk followed by some amazing Japanese food.

After that quaint day it was break neck work. So much so that I quite forgot the advent of gorgeous Friday. My sis and I had booked tickets for the movie Border2. It was also the day when the final cut of our code would be handed over. After a demonstration in the morning where most stakeholders were quite pleased we looked forward to a relatively relaxed afternoon. But then some weird issues started popping during peer testing and it was again panic stricken coding 😣Alls well that ends well and I ended Friday with a high and one mighty code deployment. But it wasn’t time to rest on my laurels . I had to get stuff sorted at home- get the kids fed, give instructions for the next set of action for the evening and having bitten more than I could chew I had picked the day to change bedsheets across the rooms. This is a mega boring and Herculean task. And with added pressure of the movie in the evening there was extra zing to the activity. Somehow got it done and whizzed out of the door to enjoy 3.5 hours of patriotic fervour. It was an great experience for me stirring nostalgia and emotions. 

The weekend was a doozy with television and chilling and good food. 

And we kicked off a new week with lots more work. It was to be a super busy week again. But one never knows what around the corner. The kids were full of sniffles and cold. And today the heavens had opened up pouring cats, dogs and piglets. K and I took the executive decision that it would be better to give them a break and decided to keep them from school. Chiyaa is generally the one who wants to keep her attendance on point. But today she was willing to sacrifice it. The kids slept till 10. Parents worked. And around 11 am K was notified of an offer on a food delivery app. Well all that he needed was that nudge and we had noodles for lunch. It was therapeutic to forget the madness of work and just relax with kids for 30 mins during lunch break while the skies poured down. A busy afternoon for K and I while the girls rested and we called it a day.

Tomorrow routine.

Fielding set for January

 And just like that it's half of the first month of the new year done. In a matter of few days here we are in the full swing of things. A far cry from somewhere the same time in December when we were winding down. There were lots of card games, lots of TV shows, lots of food and lots of lazy mornings and days. We have still carried forward the card games, the TV shows, the food. The lazy mornings have of course been replaced by break neck school runs and the days have gathered their routine.

In all honesty it has not been as bad as we had anticipated. We did imagine things to be very murky but K, the girls and I have all felt that things have not been too bad. It was fairly ok to settle down. Personally I was dreading work since I had lots of dependencies in a new project.  I prefer working in an independent way without much hand holding from others. But somehow the timing of my joining a new project and the resource structure was such that there was a lot of inter dependent work. With that my progress with deliverables was slow which was a bit annoying for me. I spent a good week fretting and fuming. There was one small silver lining when I was needed for another task with a previous project. I felt valued and was looking forward to contributing in right earnest towards it. As they say when it rains it pours. Coincidentally on my current project at the same time there was some rejig of resources which led to much better synergies. So January was ironing itself out.

There was yet another curve ball in the shadows. I am making a trip to my home town Bhubaneswar. For the first time ever we could book a flight with Indigo which would taks us to our destination in quite a small duration. But then, the Indigo Gods acted up. Our flight has been rescheduled. This means our domestic leg from Delhi will be from a different terminal. Terminal change means more hassle and potentially delays. We went berserk. I literally bombarded everyone on my contacts list if they had any idea about changes in Delhi and if 2.5 hours would be enough to make it. There were some positive votes ( yeah you can do it!). Majority vote  were for its possible but with a lot of speed and stress. It was a lot of cognitive load looking through discussion forums, askind the all knowing (for now) AI platforms, going through different help desks and the lot. Finally we have given up to the best power in the universe. Dear God. He has brought us to it, he will take us through. With this another hurdle of January deferred to April 😂

So things have come out way and we have dodged some, deflected some and deferred some. Looks like an exciting year ahead! 

Wishing you a hopeful new year

 As the year draws to a close today I mostly think of it as a wasteful year. Through out the world there were wasteful wars where thousands of lives were lost for no good reason. We came so close to peace so many times but there wasn't anything decisive. There were numerous air accidents involving civilian and military aircrafts. Each time it made me feel awful for the parties involved. It was such a sad waste of life. They scarred me so much that I nearly had a morbid fear of flying - for myself as well as of anytime anyone from my family travelled. Luckily we made our journeys in safety and I pray the skies are safe for everyone. 

I went through a redundancy cycle. I have 4 close friends. Each one of us went through a redundancy cycle in their respective jobs. Everyone ended up having a different outcome. But it was tenure of stress and unwanted friction in  our lives which I felt  was unnecessary and wasteful. We all believe we have come out stronger, more fulfilled and better off on the other side. And there is perhaps only one way to get from one point to another, to get from one job to another.

My sister battled health issues for close to 4 months because of a misdiagnosed condition which was such a strain mentally and physically.

As a family I felt we lost quite a bit of money. Some were for random reasons like a bad purchase here or being overcharged for a home improvement there. But the worst was being charged a fine of £100 for overstaying  a parking by 35 seconds. It was just the most outrageous and horrible of them all.

But it was not all gloom and doom. Chiyaa turned 13 and we made a  trip to Norway. It was a surreal and out of the world experience. It was the stuff of dreams to be in the culturally thriving city of Oslo and then make our way into the Arctic circle and be in Tromsø. The holiday planner in me loved the planning and execution of the whole trip.

In May my parents came over. We celebrated their stay assuming it to be the last time they would be in the UK. We planned a trip to Canterbury which for me was lovely and rare one. Once they went back we settled into the usual routine. I was in my new job with a new projects and I loved every bit of it. It was the most fulfilling work experience in a long long time.

The project winded down and I am on my next long term project. I think I feel settled there too. There hasn't been a dull moment at my new work place. And thankfully in December we had a quick holiday to Berlin when we built a number of amazing wonderful memories.

We have looked after a lot of puppies and gained so much experience. We have read so many books and I love how the girls are hooked as readers. We have laughed and cried and grown and lived. 

In the coming year I hope to grow roots and stabilise in life, work and relationships. I hope we all recover from whatever scars we have been dealt this year. I hope for peace, stability and enriching experiences for everyone. Wishing anyone coming by a very happy new year!