The best half term ever

 I remember writing this ages ago! It was my very first term break with Chiyaa and tiny Pumpki. Now both are in school, Chiyaa in high school! And I just enjoyed my February half term with them. I must confess it was my best half term everrrrrrr!! 

With Chiyaa in high school, our wake up times have moved to an earlier time since she needs to be out of the door somewhere around 740. Pumpki still has an 40 more mins before her school start. So while I need to wake up around 0630 on a school day, with the school holidays I could wake up at 0800. It was full 90 minutes of extra sleep! OMG that itself is enough to close the case as the best half term ever ever ever. 

I let the girls be by themselves for the first 3 days. Since they are at an age where they have similar interests, they get along well - well most of the time. Their plan was lego for this time. So though the living room was an utter mess, there was some solid play time invested there. It was wonderful to see them creatively weave their way around the different creations of theirs. After some lunch it was time for another shared interest of theirs - video games. Pumpki doesnt quite have the dexterity to play some of the tougher games, but she does a swell job watching Chiyaa play and cheering her on. It was amazing to see them enjoy those sessions as well. I mandated some time for reading and practicing their musical instruments. Those boxes ticked, with an intermittent reminder to drink water and have some fruits - that was pretty much my job done for taking care of them 😂

3 days flew and the next 2 days I was on leave. Thursday we went to the city centre. The idea was to meet K and have a quick meal some where. But we chanced to meet a family friend as well and she joined us! More the merrier! We had some amazing pizza and then said our good byes. We went to shop for some mats for the girl's new room and a couple of plant pots as well. That done, we trekked to visit my sister who lives in city centre. The idea was to surprise her, but it ended up being a flop since she was not at home and we had to ring to find where she was and how long she might take 😝 The kids love visiting their aunty anytime and they had a good time stretching their legs. My sis had to get on with her work and we bid our second set of good byes before making our way back home 😊 It was a lovely day but the next day our plans were even bigger.

As a treat for Chiyaa's birthday I had booked in a nails pamper session with the girls. We had some manicure and pedicure done and our nails painted as well. It was the first for the girls and they hugely enjoyed it! By the time we were out, we were starving and rushed to the nearest cafe to get some food. We got some flowers and some grocery cos why not and marched home. The girls just loved showing off their newly painted nails. 

On Sunday I had to visit another town to see off a friend. She was my room mate in Hyderabad in India. She had been in the UK for the past 5 years. And if one stays in a place for 5 years, one tends to accumulate stuff. Some stuff one doesn't feel like throwing away. She had tried to get rid of most of her belongings that she couldn't carry, sell or donate locally. But some she wanted me to take for safe keeping. Either she would make a trip back and collect them God willing, or she rather I use it instead of someone else. Since she has a 16 months old baby, my kids really enjoy going to her place. It was an amazing day with her kids and helping her wrap up stuff. It was an emotional experience saying that good bye for sure because one has no idea where life will take us and where we might meet again. We have somehow managed to meet once every 5-6 years by the twists and turns of fate which is not true for so many lovely people who have come through in my life 😕 It also made me nostalgic of all the house moves we had done in the UK. Approximately 5 in 7. years before we finally settled in this house. I remembered us leaving Ipswich where we were quite unplanned and had to leave a ton of stuff with a family friend. It has been 7 years since we saw them *sigh* One day ours paths will cross again, till then we have Whatsapp 😌

Since we had this trip on Sunday, and the next day was the start of the new school session, we were more or less sorted ahead of schedule. Chiyaa and Pumpki took their time in the evening for some more uninhibited telly time before hitting the bed for the next school session on Monday. I must say it was the most amazing half term I have ever had. It was full of so much activity, so many emotions and so many experiences that it was the most whole some block of days. Touchwood, heres to many more 🙏

And then came the New Year

 On our penultimate day which was the New Year we ticked off the Secret Garden which was historically rich along with being a beautiful garden. The evening was spent riding camels in a palm oasis near Marrakech. This was a bit of an underwhelming experience because the oasis wasn't very well maintained. The trees seemed to be lacking the love and attention that the gardens in the city were getting. But the kids had a lot of fun and that was very satisfying.  That was one good New Year spent.

That evening marked packing up. Packing up lovely memories. Packing up being pampered by the facilities in the hotel. Packing up the experience of the most wide variety of breakfast every single day which ranged from European fares to traditional Moroccon ones which included the freshest cheeses, dips and breads. Packing up a really wonderful holiday at the end of year which was quite tied down and sedate. Shoukran Marrakech!

The tours and the trips and bye to a year

 The second day in Marrakech was a trip to the high Atlas mountains. It is populated by the native Berber people who still keep a lot of their traditional lifestyle. It was a very interesting trip with lot of beautiful places to stop by. We were taken through a lot of traditions that people still follow such as the importance of the village elder and how they determine a lot of the happenings in the 11 or so villages, the tradition of many generations living under the same roof and so on. It was a very nice tour and the cherry on the cake was a camel ride through the outskirts of Agafay desert. We got dressed in traditional Berber clothes and rode the camels. It wasn't a real desert and more like the outskirts of it. So the adults felt a bit duped. But the kids just lovedddddd it! Once the ride was over, they spent some time petting the camels and taking pictures. The girls kept clamouring for more camel rides and I booked in the last day to spend one evening riding camels 😊

The second day we went to the Le Jardin Majorelle or Majorelle Garden. It is a beautiful garden by French artist Jacques Majorelle which was revived by Yves Saint Laurent. It was a beautiful garden in the most vibrant blue and yellow colors and the most majestic cactii. The blue and yellow colors are trademarked and hence for sale in the gift shop. But since we did not have any check in luggage we were not sure if we would be allowed to bring the color cans in our hand bags. We had to give them a miss but one day we intend to go back and get those out of the world colors. 

Once back, the kids and K took to the swimming pool. Once they had burnt some calories doing that, we went to ingest some. 😆 We made our next attempt to reach the historic quarters of the Medina. It was to be a nearly 30 mins walk in a straight line. But we got side tracked, got lost, asked a bunch of people and finally landed in the hustle and bustle that is the Medina. The Medina is not for the faint hearted. I am from India and have seen crowds. But they dont have crowds here. Its a bee hive as has been quoted in many sites. There is utter order in the comings and goings but the busy-ness is something one has to see to believe. There are souks which are the traditional shops which sell a variety of stuff from carpets to bags to spices and garments. We had food in a small shop and made our way to the main square called Jama-el-Fna. This place was an assault on the senses. There was just so much going on from street vendors to street performers to post hotels. There were all sorts of aromas and it was being in a live museum. We went to have some refreshments in a roof top hotel and enjoy the sights from there. As dusk fell and the lights got switched on, the atmosphere turned electric. There was music, dancing, hawkers asking to try their wares. We bought a few souvenirs and took a few pictures and tried to capture this novel experience. We took a  horse drawn carriage to our hotel. It felt like home being in the modern part of the town to be honest. The Medina was a bit over whelming for our mild senses 😀

The next day was spent mostly sight seeing in the Medina. It was amazing to see the architecture in Bahia palace, be wide eyed at the beauty of Badi palace and savour the work in Madrasa Ben Yousouf. It was a tiring day. So much so we still had Le Jardin Secret or the Secret Garden remaining for the last day. It was also New Year's Eve. I have never been away from home on 31st December. It was a novel and unique experience for me at least. I loved to see how a different city decked up for New Year. There were people walking with little children around 2230 which is not a sight I get to see in the UK. I did not see any fireworks etc either which is more of the UK tradition. It was amazing to do nothing but stroll around an unknown city, discovering little bits of it, unmindful of a man made construct such as a New Year.

It has made me think if going away and doing something non New Yearly for New Year. Takes the pressure of doing something special. But then its a bit of a landmark to celebrate as well. The calendar itself is changed and not just a page turned. I am not sure which is better. But I certainly enjoyed ignoring it last year. 

The next day was to be our last day of tours in Marrakech.

Land and reset

 The day we took off to Marrakech was also a Pumpki's birthday. It was an amazing experience for her to get to travel on her birthday. The flight took off and since we had spent a rather sleepless night, we did nothing but drift off to sleep. 4 hours later we woke to the views of sunny Marrakech. We had booked a cab from the hotel. So our transfer was very seamless. The hotel was real posh! We had porters to carry our luggage, very friendly staff welcoming us and we were given a lot of love and attention. This sort of service is not present in the UK and we enjoyed it a lot! 

After we had admired our lovely room and marvelled at how beautiful and spacious it was, we ventured out to get some food. Since the hotel was in the modern part of the city we had lot of restaurants within easy access. We stopped at a place called Vert Midi. We were famished. But the food was delectable too! We had a scrumptious lunch and then proceeded towards the historic quarters of the city. 

The place was wondrous and I just marvelled at the cactii growing to ridiculous heights! They were  just magnificent. But while we were nearly at our destination the dead birthday girl needed the toilet and we had rush back 😂

In the hotel room the girls wanted some well deserved rest. They drifted off to sleep while we adults caught up with family and took showers etc. Around 7 in the evening we decided to walk the girls up and grab some dinner. We had it at a place called Pasta Kech. As the name suggests the pasta there was amahzingggg! The girls had no idea about time and thought they had been woken up the next day. They were shocked to learn that they had just slept for a few hours and not the night. We had one helova hearty laugh at the silliness of the kids 😂All stuffed we made our way back to call it a day since our actual touring was to kick off the next day 😀

No start without a hiccup

 As I said in my last post, we were making our first trip to the airport in our car to catch the flight to Marrakech. The flight was at 630 in the morning, which meant a 0300 check in. Which meant at least a 0130 start from home to reach airport within the time. Which in turn meant a funny night of trying to sleep but not sleeping actually. 😉

We had an early dinner. Around 1830 in the evening everything was wrapped up, kitchen cleaned up, dishwasher loaded and run. 1900 I asked the girls to brush their teeth and get into bed to get some 4ish hours of sleep atleast. They did so with amazing enthusiasm. There were no complains. They wrapped up like little kittens and tried to sleep earnestly instead of fooling around with art and craft or books as they generally tend to do. I still had some chores in and around with packing food for the flight etc. I went up to have a look at them an hour later and they were really asleep! That was something indeed! 

I tried to get some rest as well. There was a raging storm outside. As Storm Gerrit raged, K and I worried about our travel. The rain was relentless. When it reduced a teeny tiny bit, we rushed with all the luggage and packed the car so that we didn't get drenched at the last moment. 

We tried to get some rest. But there was nagging thought or other at the back of our heads. Finally it was 0100 and we could rouse the girls to make our way. It was very exciting and novel for them to scamper around the house in the middle of the night. More than the real thing it is these small experiences I feel that make up life 😊0130 and like thieves we got into our car and off we went!

The rain was pure madness. Visibility was poor and it was tremendous effort to drive. But the lack of traffic post Christmas made for some solace. We finally made it at 0245ish to the airport. It was just as quiet at the airport. The staff were immensely helpful. Our checkins were done fluidly and off we went to wait :) 

Pending Post

 In the mayhem of all the refurb work that was going on in our house I did not mention the holiday we had in December last year. After our Iceland trip in 2022, we were keen on some place warm for our next holiday. K had seen the ice and now was in for some desert. Somehow Morocco in general and Marrakech in particular dawned upon us. In late 2022 itself we started thinking about it( Yes we are avid mad planners, especially me 😁) We would go sparse most of the year and then undertake the holiday to Marrakech God willing in December. 2023 mid year was filled with concerted effort towards looking at ticket and hotel prices, zeroing in on things to do, places to see. We soon realised that it was a big country and Marrakech itself would take up a good 5 days. Also since it wasn't a European country, we couldn't be sure of some of the amenities. It would be a good idea to be cautious and keep our touring plans a bit conservative. This was an a excellent cry from the madness of break neck planning for Iceland. Some where in the month of June we booked our flight tickets and the hotel. There was a good 6 months to our upcoming vacation and we weren't even excited about it. It was just something we had talked about and just went ahead and did it. Something like buying a packed of butter biscuits 😐

We did not want to hype the kids too much either. Hence it was quite late in the game around a month later that we divulged the upcoming plan to them. The months rolled by with the usual house work, work to earn the salary and school stuff. Finally around December when the holiday stood like a reality, we put our foot on the gas. The locations and tours we wanted to go on were booked. We decided clothes and things to pack. We had also decided to drive to the airport instead of taking a cab. That would be a first for us after nearly 13 years of existence in the UK. A thing to be excited about. 

Christmas holidays started and the trip to Marrakech was upon us!

Curtains drawn

 Finally it’s February and finally a few things are falling into place. As I had said in my last post, this year is going to be a supremely unplanned year for me. The construction work is finally drawing to an end. Our driveway is cleared and we can finally park both our cars instead of scouting for and stealing places on the road. We started moving stuff in to the new room which is to be the ‘girls’ room going forward. Things were a bit unclean with still some smell of plaster and paint remaining. We cleaned to the best possible extent and after a couple of days it was more habitable. The girls were ecstatic to be in their new room. As part of regular maintenance work we got the fuse box of the house upgraded. It wasn’t of aesthetic value and not a visible change. But we added in some changes to the electrical fixture which gave the feel-good effect. We have to get the carpets done all over the house as well. At the moment it is done in three rooms and we are loving the feel of the new carpets. We have some more work in the living room and the stairways before we can jump on it. The  curtains are also going to be redone all over the house which will again add to the overall overhaul of the house :) 

Its will be 6 years in this little place we call home on 26th of this month. Doing these small changes feels like giving some tlc to this home which has given us so much. As the tasks slowly draw to a close we hope for another 6 years of pleasant moments.