A different summer

 Sitting on the 21 of July I was a bundle of emotions. Things have changed so much over the past few days. I intended to write this post earlier but then....

Well so this is how the story goes. I submitted my assignment on the 21 st and was informed  that I would get some feedback by the next day. It was a day filled with trepidation. I received no feedback. Which I felt was all right because it is not easy to evaluate a submission for a technical role at senior level. Also the evaluators would have their regular day job to  manage as well. Wednesday I had the phone on the highest ring volume and waited. It was also the day the kids started their summer holidays. K, I and the kids had plans to goto an indoor jump park to burn some calories. We were getting ready and the phone rang! Well, thank God it was nt just got news, it was amazing news. I had done quite well in the tech test. They wanted to schedule the next round. I was mostly available since I was not doing anything useful at my current place. The interview was scheduled for the next week Monday. 

I spent the Thursday preparing. Friday was a play date for both the kids. It was a good day with both being busy with their friends. It was also quite enjoyable for me since without much workload it was the first time I was able to host a play date. My parents came over from my sisters house that evening so it was a lovely full house. 

I had my interview on Monday and by the evening I got the information that I had secured the role! It was just amazing to land with the job which would be more my cup of tea. I had to inform the other place that I would not be joining them. It was to be quite an unpleasant conversation but something which had to be done. I prayed for the reason to just tumble out and not burn any bridges or be supremely uncomfortable. Thankfully it somehow segued into the realm of personal circumstances where I was looking for a more stressful free and less demanding role. Again by the grace of God the recruiter went away with the reason without challenging me much.

That door was nice and firmly closed. Now I was relaxed. Though I had to take a pay cut I was happy with the role and the company. Sometimes it is for the greater good. 

There were 3 more official days at my firm. I was itching to send my last day at work email 😂 

I was having a time of my life with the summer holidays though. There was no work to bother about. I was doing some light reading to keep pace with the changes in technology. There were long walks with the kids. There was a lot of time spent playing board games. There was a lot of video gaming as well. The schedules are messed. Kids would be up till 11pm and I was hitting the bed after midnight. It was exhilarating. Something I would never have done with work. I wasn't on holiday but I had no work. It was the most amazing 2 weeks. 

Finally we got to the 31st of July which was my last working day with my organisation. I informed the people I had worked closely with. It was amazing to get the good luck wishes from my wonderful colleagues. It was an official end to a chapter. A very weird chapter. I was being paid a lot and had a lot of perks. But I never had challenging work. I had good work life balance but then there were some funny characters to deal with. I had unlimited leave but then each day wasn't worth much. It was funny. I had no reason to leave and no reason to stay. It was a limbo. And finally push came to shove and I had to leave. An unceremonious leave. But hopefully all for good 

And we are done

We reached office the next day. It was our first proper day at the office. Michelle was greeted to a pleasant surprise. Her hitherto lost suitcase was at her desk. There was a very interesting story to the origin of it. The colleague who had kindly offered to follow her to get the suitcase back had conversed with the passenger who had mistakenly taken her bag. He had got the details of the location of the person. He happened to be in a rural area where the colleague of ours had a friend. He asked his friend if he could collect the luggage. The friend gladly agreed. And as another happy coincidence the friend was coming over to Cluj the next day. So he drove in with the suitcase and ended up uniting it with Michelle. It was a very quickly resolved issue indeed something that was quite unexpected.

The day resumed for us in its full glory with a lot of meetings and chats and catching up and some bit of coding as well :). In the evening another colleague of ours offered to take us around the old town. He took us through the history of some of the old churches and buildings. We were treated to some amazing authentic Romanian food which was simply divine. With the food and the tour around the town, we called it a day. 

The next day was unremarkable in what needed to be done. After a packed day at work, we spent the evening shopping some souvenirs. It was very nice bonding, chatting and spending a relaxing time with Michelle. Day done the next step was pack up and a return home. It was a work trip which mixed some elements of fun and winding down. A very different one for me, for I havent done this since the kids. I would love to take them all along with me sometime in the future to beautiful Romania :) 

An unexpected day

I could understand the predicament  of my teammate Michelle. She was without the bare minimum of her necessities. The Monday morning I offered her my company. She was wondering whether she should attempt going to the airport and start pestering the authorities or she should go shopping and get her stuff sorted. I recommended that she should get her stuff sorted because going to the airport might not be worth it. At least with the essentials shopped she would be able to function for the rest of the 4 days even if she wasn’t able to recover her lost luggage. She seemed convinced with the rationale. We had some breakfast at the hotel and then went ahead to go to the nearest mall. For me it was quite an experience. I had ventured on the trip expecting 3.75 days at office. But here I was with a team mate making my way to a mall. As with any foreign city, the sights and sounds were new and different. It was quite an experience noticing how things functioned, how people were going about their business and how daily life was. 

At the mall, Michelle went about doing her shopping and I spent time going around noticing stuff. Once she was satisfied with the stuff she had purchased we made our way to the hotel. We got in touch with our other colleagues and went for lunch with them. It was a warm and windy day. It was brilliant sitting in the sun and chatting about random stuff. 

Suddenly Michelle received a call from the airport lost baggage office.  It seems they had been contacted by the person who had mistakenly taken her luggage. He was willing to have Michelle come over and collect her luggage from their place. The airport authorities gave the contact number of the other party to Michelle. What ensued then was a nightmare of conversation  and translation. The person who had picked the luggage couldn’t speak English. So he in turn gave her the contact of his relative in UK who acted as a mediator. So the baggage collector spoke to his relative, his relative spoke to Michelle and the conversation happened in reverse order to communicate from Michelle to the baggage collector. It must have been pure torture for Michelle to engage in this communication, but the summary was as follows : The person wasn’t willing to travel all the way to Cluj since he lived nearly 3 hours away. He was happy for Michelle to come over and collect from his house. Since the distance was so great and it was an unknown place, Michelle asked to meet half way. He was ok to do that, but the location he sent as the meet up point ended up being some random railway station. It seemed a bit suspicious. One of our team mates recommended that Michelle ask someone from the Cluj office who was conversant in Romanian to accompany him. Michelle did so and one person was more than happy to accompany her when the data and time was fixed. 

This seemed good enough progress for a Monday. Our band of colleagues decided to call it an early day since we had travelled over night and meet up for lunch in the foyer of the hotel. We had some delicious food at a Greek restaurant and called it a day. 

Coming back to my hotel room I missed my kids. I have never travelled by myself. I have always the girls clamouring for my attention. Coming back into the quiet hotel room was a different experience. I got on a call with the girls since it was 1900 in the UK. They filled me in with all the details of what happened at school and back home. After spending nearly an hour chatting with the darlings I asked them to get off to bed. I proceeded to prepare for the next day at work :)  The day sure was most unexpected, filled with an impromptu trip for shopping, developments to secure the lost luggage, lot of help from colleagues at Cluj and some chilled interaction with colleagues. Next day was to be a new day :) 

Prepare and fly

I was to start from home on a Sunday evening, spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the morning half of Thursday at work and fly out on Thursday afternoon.I had it planned in my head. I would meal prep for the 4 nights I would be away. The kids have cereal for breakfast and their lunches are at school. It was only the dinner I had to care about. My plan was pasta for one night for which I would make the sauce, paneer curry for one night and chicken for the 3rd. K could take care of the carb component by making the pasta, roti or rice. Wednesday evenings Pumpki has swimming lessons in the evening. So after the lesson the trio could have some dinner at the swimming centre.The only issue was I needed K to complete the grocery shopping so that I could proceed with meal prep. Seeing this plan, K was of the opinion that I was over reacting and over preparing. I said  wanted to ensure that the kids’ meals were taken care of. K claimed he was perfectly capable of doing it. I asked how. He said by buying stuff duh! I said that’s preposterous since I was more than willing to make the food with fresh and known ingredients. (You get the drift how this is going) This extended into a long drawn argument about how much was too much and I was being self-sacrificial while he was being flippant. Eod he did get the stuff I asked for and I did meal prep as I intended ;) :D 

 In other news, Pumpki was crying her eyes out nearly every night leading to my departure. She anticipated that she was going to miss me a lot and could not fathom being away from me. It was saddening but I also felt it was something she had to experience. Chiyaa being older was way more composed. But come Sunday afternoon, she started being a little clingy. She made some cards and origami art work for me. She didn’t cry but came to me and hugged me tight and said ‘I wish I could cry like Pumpki.’ I reassured her that there was no need to cry since she was a capable independent girl. She would be so busy over the days that she would barely notice me missing. But her words made me well up. It surely was a different and somewhat difficult time for both the kids. I gave them the example of when my sister and I were little and my mom used to work in a different city from us. We did not even have the luxury of video calls or WhatsApp in those days. But it eventually became fine. This was only going to be 4 days. It would pass in a jiffy.

Sunday evening, as the time for my departure to the airport drew closer, I allowed them to have some screen time so that they would be distracted. They were engaged on the tv and wished them goodbye and left. Their eyes looked sad but they were eventually ok as K attested :) 
I was undertaking the trip with a bunch of people I work with and also get along with. I don’t like spending time with people from work. I was wary of how this trip was going to be since I had to spend considerable time with folks from work and also spend considerable time at an office setting. I was assured that the office setting was quite cool. People who had been there from Leeds claimed that they used to go for a stroll and go around exploring whenever they felt like and there were no questions asked. I wanted to avail the opportunity but I wasn’t sure how chilled out everything would be. But we would cross the bridge when we get there. At the airport we got together near the check in counters and then it felt like any other travel. There was the usual kerfuffle  of checking passports, boarding passes and the whole nine yards. Formalities done, we now had a long wait for a flight. The flight was scheduled for 2230 UK time and to reach Romania at 0330 the next morning. It would be nerve wracking to get to work the next day. Everyone was strategising how to get through the next day. It was nice for people to just chat around with their guard down. I was particularly close to one of my team mates Michelle. We spent quite some time having heart to heart conversations about things from work and outside. 

It was a late night flight and we were zombies by the time we touched down. We went through immigration which took a while for us. For some reason they were a bit snarky towards British passport holders ;) After that we made our way to  made our way to the luggage carousel. We all got our luggages. Michelle’s was now where to be seen! There was one suitcase that was left behind as well. We guessed that someone must have picked hers up instead of their own and made their way with it. We got in touch with one of the airport authorities about it. He took us to a room where he asked us to note an email id and phone number to get in touch with lost luggages. After that he escorted us out quite unceremoniously. We had no way of getting and nothing else to do but head to the hotel. Michelle got some spare stuff from the reception desk at the hotel. 

I hit the bed with absolutely no idea what was in store tomorrow.

That makes way more sense

 My office has a big presence in Cluj-Napoca in Romania. And my manager is someone very keen on building relationships and hence one who encouraged us to travel and build a face to face rapport. I was not very keen on the travel, but then gave in thinking that it would be a good experience. K was happy with managing the kids for 4 days and said also asked me to go on the trip. It would be my first time away for 4 days from the kids. I had stayed a few nights away from them, but never 4 nights. It would need some getting used to on both sides. As soon as my tickets and accommodation were confirmed, I told the kids. I: “I am going to Romania”

Chiyaa: “What? With Sorina aunty? “ (Sorina is my friend and hails from Romania) 

I: No not with her, by myself.

Chiyaa: So nice.

There were some more questions as to when, for how long, who would put them to sleep, who would do the school runs etc etc. There were a few tears from Pumpki. I was very sad because she was sad, but then it was something that had to be done. The next evening Chiyaa mentioned , “You will be rid of us annoying kids for a few days and must be so looking forward to the trip”. K corrected her that that would be probably something he would do, not mummy. I was thankful for the reply and the girls were maybe convinced. 

That night while putting them to sleep I mentioned, 

‘If it was school holidays I could have taken you and daddy to Cluj. He could have taken you around when I went to office”

Chiyaa : “What do you mean he would have taken us around?”

I: “I would be at office so only daddy would have to take you for site seeing and all.”

Chiyaa : “Why would you be in office? And what office? “

I: “Oh didn’t I mention? I am being sent through work, so I would need to goto office every day.”

Chiyaa:”Oh so you are not going on a holiday?”

I:”Of course not, why would I go on holiday without you all? “

Chiyaa: “ Ohhhh I thought you wanted a holiday without us and would be having a fun trip by yourself.”

I : (hugging them) “How can I have a fun trip without you.”

Pumpki: “Now I feel sorry for you that you will have to goto office everyday.”

I: “Aww.”

Pumpki: “ Who asked you to goto Cluj.”

I: “My manager.”

Pumpki: “ I hate your manager.”

It was so weird and funny that missing 2 words for work made all the difference. All the anxiety of not having me around got transformed into anger for my boss real quick ;)

My lil grown up gal

 Anyone who has more than one kid will vouch how one kid's favourite food is another ones worst. Same is the case in my household. Whatever Chiyaa likes Pumpki hates it and what Pumpki likes Chiyaa finds disgusting. Chiyaa loves roti while Pumpki likes rice. Chiyaa loves chickpeas and Pumpki finds them horrendous. Pumpki loves peas and sweetcorn and Chiyaa hates them but likes beans which Pumpki hates. I could go on but you get the drift 😂

So the other day I asked the girls what sort of chicken should I make. Chiyaa likes something dry out of it like a grilled chicken or patty. Pumpki likes it juicy in a curry of stew. One shouted grilled the other curry. But I can sometimes bring them to a compromise cos it's chicken after all. They can tolerate a form which is not their favourite as well. 

Chiyaa said, ' We had curry last time so we should have grilled this time.' 

Then Pumpki who is the more difficult eater at the moment said, ' But I want a curry'. 

Chiyaa being the sweetheart that she is said ' That's fine I can have curry '. 

I said,' I can make both, not a problem '. 

Chiyaa being the ever thoughtful sweetheart said, ' No that will be a lot of work, I can have the curry.' 

I said,'No it's not a problem for me, grilling is just keeping in the oven. I can do both.'

But I was so immensely touched by the empathy she had for me. She really is a mature sweetheart with her head in the right place. I so grateful to God for the thoughtful daughter of mine ❤️

Murder of a recipe

 It was Pumpki's birthday last month. It comes bang in the middle of Christmas and New Year when everyone is too busy celebrating one or the other. This year also we were in the midst of day trips etc. For her birthday we had plans to go for a lunch to a place that served Kerala cuisine which is one of our favourites. The evening we were to check out some light installations in a park. We had a pretty packed day and had to squeeze in baking a cake in the morning.

But, the previous night my sister recommended that she would bake the cake since I was pretty tied up in giving the kids a bath etc. We had had a long day with travels to some place. She was not keen to leave the baking to the next day morning in case something went wrong. 

As usual the kids had wished for Devil's food cake by Shivesh . Now this is a luxurious 3 layered super rich but super fluffy chocolate cake with waist-increasing chocolate frosting. My sister started the process. Mid way she realised there wasn't enough flour! Thankfully we had self raising flour and she being the master baker was able to make a judicious judgement on the amount. If it was me, it would have been quits and a dash to the shops. She went on to the next super crucial ingredient for a chocolate cake. Cocoa powder. There was absolutely  none! URGH! Retreatttt! Quick change of plans! It was going to be a vanilla cake now. The cake also called for curd. We thankfully had jjjjjjust the right amount. My sis literally scrapped the bottom of the curd container :D 

Somehow we managed to procure enough materials to get 2 layers going. Now for the exterior. We did not have dark chocolate. Just white. We weren't sure the kids would be gung-ho about it. So opted to plain buttercream frosting. I was in charge of the external decorations. I made the buttercream.  As I started applying it, I realised that the cake hadn't cooled enough. This caused the buttercream to just melt down the cake instead of sticking onto it. Was everything supposed to go wrong today?! 

Again a quick change of plans. I decided to slather the cake with strawberry jam. The kids would be  fine with it. So well jam it was. By this time the cake was a decent temperature, so I put the buttercream in a piping bag to pipe some random designs out (facepalm) It was close to 2230 by then, which is laaaaaate by my old woman standards :) 

The cake didn't look great. But it was consumable. A murdered recipe can result in a zombie cake at best :|