Only from Pumpki

 Pumpki is the fire brand of the house. She will easily call me Miss Bossy or K Grumpy Man. Her quips make our day.

Yesterday Chiyaa was doing some online assessment and was worked up because of it. K mentioned that "Shes tensed just like her mom" Pumpki asked "What does tensed mean?" I told, "You have to reach school at 9 AM and its 2 minutes to 9. It takes 10 mins to drive from home to school and you haven't started from home yet. How would you feel?" 

She said "Nothing, chill". I said "Why?" She said " Because school is boring life is better." 

We were all flabbergasted at her reply. Also the fact that she said life instead of home, made us drop our jaws! Unknowingly she gave a big piece of advice to all of us. Be the firebrand that you are forever!

The cleanse post

 The spring half term gets over today. And I can look back at a wonderful 2 weeks of  this year. The first week was occupied by a trip to Jersey. It was a fabulous time away. Though we would have liked the weather to be a bit warmer, it was still a very lovely time. A trip we would definitely want to make again. 

Once we were back from Jersey, K felt a bit poorly. We blamed it on the travel stress. But something struck him as odd and he decided to take a Covid test. It came out positive and he happily retired to the bedroom with his stack of anime to watch :) I took a test too though I felt absolutely fine. It was just so that I did not come in too close a contact with the kids. I came out positive too :( I did not feel unwell at all. But to avoid the sickness from spreading to the kids, I decided to curtail hugging or kissing them, atleast for the first 5 days of recommended isolation. 

It was hard to stay away from the kids. But they managed themselves fabulously. As soon as they had 2 positive cases in the house, they started performing tests on their toys. Some toys tested positive while the others negative. The ones which tested positive were immediately sent for bed rest while the healthy ones started making cards and reading books (from a distance) to the ill ones. It was amazing to see the girls play into the late afternoon with this unique scenario. 

Since we could'nt step out, the girls were pretty much home bound too. But it was amazing to see them play and engage with each other. With some guidance, they had their food, took their shower and generally minded themselves. I could not hug them or kiss them till the 5 days of recommended quarantine and they kept asking every day, if it was 5 days yet :) 

At the end of 5 days, boy did we give them a squeeze!! It is amazing to see how self reliant my little girls are. They manage a ton of stuff by themselves. As the Easter long weekend kicked in, we were thankfully out to roam the world. There were a lot of walks with the kids, tasks in the garden and general enjoyment of sunshine. As the kids go back to school today I yearn for the lovely time with them again.

A lot of little steps

 The adults kept looking at the weather app like mad people. After the soaking of the previous evening we were very wary of getting drenched again. But it was supposed to be a super duper sunny day and we decided to make the most of it. 

The first visit was to Gorey Castle which was a splendid monument. It was a beautiful and picturesque structure with some breath taking views. The star of the tour was a cat called Maggie who loved being cuddled by all of us :) 

 

The next stop was for food and this time we decided to take the bus to get to the restaurant. K and I always like to travel and soak in the life of the locals. And taking public transport to get from one point to another is our preferred way to do so. The interactions we can have with the local people and the time spent just marvelling at how local life moves on is best accomplished by travelling like the natives and dining like them too. It was quaint to see the main roads being so narrow, for Jersey is a small island after all. And the people were so friendly. The  bus driver gave us detailed instructions on how to get to a certain point, they would offer to let us know when our destination was reached. One time while waiting for the bus, we forgot to raise our hand to haul it(its standard practice here, if you dont raise your hand the bus doesnt stop. How would the driver know whether you are waiting for a ride or just hanging around in a bus stop :D) When I glanced at the bus a millisecond later I was aghast. A passerby raised his hand and the bus stopped a few metres away. This would have been an unheard of incident in Leeds :)

Our next stop was the Elizabeth Castle. This castle is set near the sea, and one of the ways to get to it, is via walking on the sea bed in low tide! It was the most amazing experience I have ever had. Walking the super long stretch with the kids towards the towering castle on the sea bed felt unreal. End of the day we checked our phones and had walked a whooping 12kms! Even the tiny feet of the kids. 

 

The next day was a bit relaxed since the first stop was an old barn depicting the rural life of Jersey. For me it was a bit underwhelming because I felt my grandma's house which is atleast a 100 years old now holds way more history. From history it was unto to realm of science with the Jersey Maritime Museum. This highly interactive museum was such a delight! I do not enjoy museums a lot, I get bored. But in this place I was reading everything and soaking up the science, the geography, the history, the people who pioneered the maritime relationships. It was just super duper amazing. It was like three subjects from year7-10 back in school in a two storey building :)

 

Penultimate day we made our first visit to an  old Celtic site. Which was followed by a unique trip to the Jersey War Tunnels which gave a view of life under Nazi occupation in the island. It was a very different experience where the trials and tribulations of the local people was superbly depicted. It was again a museum which had me enthralled. 

 

Jersey was one of a kind trip. For a small island it did pack a punch. There was still so much more to see, so much more to do. We walked a ton through the roads and hope that one day we can go back and recreate it all again. 

Crossing a body of water

 The pandemic is over. Atleast for most governments :) So we planned a holiday :) 

This was to take care of the Easter break from school. My holidays are planned way in advance. Atleast 2-3 months in advance because I am a very jittery traveller. I need a lot of preparation before I get going. And this is true for any travel, even travel to work etc. I need a lot of prep. Anyways, so we had the tickets booked somewhere around February. We had no idea what the rules would  be like by early April, but since we were fully vaccinated, we reckoned it would be fairly easy sailing.

Our trip was to the island of Jersey which is crown dependency of the UK. It is not a part of the UK but the UK is "responsible" for it. Funny political stuff. K and I both have an affinity towards beaches and beach side holidays. I infact hate mountains with a passion. So going for an island was an obvious choice. The island weather looked promising as well since it was closer to France which is lucky to have better weather than England. 2 weeks prior to the holidays it was "scorching" in the UK with temperatures around 17 degree Celsius. We were looking forward to amazing weather! But as luck would have it, around 8 days before the slated vacation, the weather started taking a turn for the worse with 17 loosing 10 degrees. Wish I lost weight at such alarming rate.The dipping temps created a wardrobe chaos. We had been geared with floral dresses and skirts. And now, it would  be jumpers and cardigans and jeans and boots and gloves and all sorts of paraphernalia :( . Such was the mayhem that 2 days before the journey we were shopping for appropriate clothes. Not too hot not too cold, just right for layering. We were proper Cinderellas. :D

All wasnt smooth sailing from here either. News channels were flooded with news of murder and mayhem in the airports. Seemed like since a lot of ground staff were calling in sick with Covid, there was a scarcity of them. This was causing delays in flights and people were kept waiting fro 2-3 hours. I do not follow the news much, but K was super impacted by all this. He is an even more jittery traveller than I am. He was insistent we start earlier etc. But the taxi driver who is an acquaintance now assured us that all would be well if we start as the usual time. We reached the airport nearly on time. There were long queues, but then check in glided in smoothly too. 

The flight was fairly smooth. Jersey weather was fabulous. It was to get worse over the next few days. Check in to the hotel done, we set off in search of food and found a lovely place serving paninis, sandwiches and wraps. The name of the place was The Taste and indeed everything was very very tasty. :) Lunch done, we took a stroll and were utterly properly drenched in a downpour! We crossed a body of water from the UK to land in a place to get doused by water from the heavens! God knows what the future days had in store for us :|