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. 

It's a wrap

 New year's eve again. That time of the year when 12 months seem to have zipped past and it seems like yesterday that it was last year.

This year has been one of certain uncertainties for me. Sitting in 2022 I was sure of the things that were going to happen. There was a trip to India, there was renovation work for our house, there was Chiyaa starting secondary school, my parents visiting UK, my sis moving to her own place and then a holiday. That was a bit long list but we were uncertain of how things would pan out.

First up my parents arrived in February which coincided with my sis moving from our house to a rented house of her own. It was a different experience for her getting everything sorted independently. It was also a tug of war of emotions. There was a desire and longing for all of us to stay together. But then mummy and papa were keen on supporting my sister as well who was setting her own place. It was a bit of a roller coaster of emotions the meeting and parting every week. But eventually we started getting used to it.

April we made the trip to India. It was an epic trip with us managing to stay at Bengaluru for the major chunk of our holiday. It enabled me to meet up so many of my friends! It was an amazing and utterly soul soothing experience.

We came back from the trip to have Chiyaa face her Standard Assessment Tests which is like a public exam. She did quite well and it was milestone for her. With that over we had to look at her starting secondary school in September and a whole bunch of changes to our routine. The two kids would goto two schools which would start and finish at different times. It would throw our work patterns a bit out of whack. We used to brainstorm literally every day how we would go about the whole thing. But when September started it just wham! naturally fell into place!!! K would drop her and I Pumpki. On good weather days they walked and K would await mid way and we would drop Pumpki together. Else it was a car drop for Chiyaa. Most days she walked back by herself which for me was a major letting go. Pumpki had her first year in school without her elder sister in the playground. I saw her strengthening her friendships with her peers and seniors. Since we were ending up starting work a bit later cos of the 2 drops we started after school club for Pumpki so that we could stretch our working day. It also added to her set of experiences. Chiyaa settled down perfectly in her new school and it was so nice to see her forming the social connections which she missed in primary. By God's grace the kids were finally settling.❤️

All this while we had quite a bit of renovation planned for the summer. The summer became late summer and that became early autumn. That turned the whole house to pay turvy. K and I used to get into arguments about this or that regarding the builders or the cost or the layout or some random stuff. The season has changed to winter and the work is well and truly underway. But there is still so much more to do in the new year. 

Which makes the coming year a year of uncertain uncertainties. We have to make some financial recoveries since the renovation has run a bit over budget. How  needs to be figured out 😀Also we have no idea when all the tasks will get over and the house will be fully usable. My parents might be making a trip again. But we aren't sure when, for how long and what we plan to do together in terms of trips etc. My Mil is coming over and it will be a different experience for her coming over first time since the pandemic. We have no certainty about any trips or holidays we might be undertaking.  I will be changing teams at work with new people, new systems and new tech stack. There are just too many things up in the air and I would love to see my thoughts on 31.12.2024 😃

But here's wishing anyone who chances on this post a very happy new year. May your uncertainties result in pleasant outcomes. May you have the strength to live through them and the results. May things forge ahead and be enriching. Wishing everyone a new year full of pleasant surprises!

Getting used to the mess

 I might have said in a previous post that we are undertaking some renovation work in our house. It is a simple room extension which we thought would throw one room out of function. But the work has seemed to grow arms and legs! First the room under the room to be extended got impacted! The builders had to put scaffolding on it and make the base stronger etc. Now this room was our 'office' room. So working from home was thrown out of gear. We had to shift everything from that room. Once we started the process we realised just how much the room housed. There was the usual office stuff of laptops, monitors, printer, shredder. But then there was a huge book shelf. Little one's keyboard. A small heater fan. Plants. The list goes on. All these stuff and the people who used them had to be rehabilitated to the living and dining room. 

I set shop in the kitchen and K in the living room. The living room ended up having a very ragged look with all the plants and the office set up. It was a throw back to the covid lockdown period when we did not have a proper office setup and things were a bit ramshackle. 

Anyways the work started. There was a big skip in front of our house to accumulate the debris of construction. The parking spots for the cars were gone and we had to have a daily chase of picking a spot on our street. Initially it started with being annoying. But then it turned into  was fun and games and there was a certain thrill in getting a certain parking spot. K would come and shout woo hoo! I got the space under the tree. Other times I would be like hoorah I got the one near the wall. 

Things went a bit too our of whack when our bedroom was impacted too. Since the window in our bedroom was to be cut and shortened, they had to access it. But the delivery of the smaller window was delayed. So they boarded the gaping window space, but the room was super cold. So it was a call back to the floor of the living room for K and I. First few days it was a bit inconvenient to set up the sleeping area  on  the floor of the living room. But then the silver linings emerged. The living room was way tidier during the day since we made sure to keep it cleaner for the nights. The cosiness of the living room with all the plants had a charm of its own. 

When finally our bedroom was in operation again, we changed all the covers and vaccumed it like there's no tomorrow. It was so clean and sparkling that all the inconvenience seemed worth it when we finally hit the bed!

The work is going at a decent pace. Hopefully sometime by February next year things will be a bit more settled. The journey unsettling at first is something I  have definitely gotten used to.

Speechless

 The other day little Pumpki asked me, "what do you do when we goto school". I said, "I do work". She asked, "But do you miss us". Then I said, "I do, but work keeps me busy. But I definitely wait for you and didi to be back". She had me speechless for a moment.

Some serious shit

 We are undertaking some house construction work. Because of it the entire year was on standby for us since the builders were not committing on a date. Finally it started on the last week of October.

There was much glee in our family when they put the scaffoldings up and started work. We noticed the day's progress with the curiosity of kids. I went to pick the girls up from school in the evening wondering how they would respond to the changes. We parked near our house and I saw some muddy water coming down our driveway. I though the builders had cleaned something with cement and left the water on. We carefully came in and then once we were near the back yard of our house, we saw the manhole was bursting open. We immediately called the builders. They said it was nothing to do with the work they had done during the day but anyways came to inspect. 

We learnt a lot about the way the sewerage system works that day! It so happens that all the toilets across the street join up and flush down through common pipes. Our house happens to be on the top of a hill. There seemed to be some sort of blockage which was causing the water to hold up. And somehow it had chosen our manhole to burst open. So all the fecal matter that was pent up on the drainage was bursting out from the manhole in our backyard. Also any time anyone flushed, the drains were being impacted and and there was an  outburst of poo and everything people were flushing. It was going through like rivers around the house and flowing onto the street forming poo ponds where ever it could find the crevices. 

The stench was horrible especially once we realised that it was poo. We needed to call the central company that deals with such issues. We were constantly on their customer service. Our case was registered but we were informed that it could take upto 3 days for it to get sorted. K and I were quite nervous about the whole scenario. We initially refrained from using the toilets etc. But then we were advised that it would be OK. We somehow manage to go through the river of poo and drop the kids at school the next day. We had a lot of options thank God like going to my sisters house or taking a room in a hotel. But we decided it would be OK to just live it out. 

K and I wore some water proof boots and plastic bags in our hands and approached the manhole. Since the lid of the manhole was being pushed open everytime anyone was flushing the sewerage was coming out every single time. We decided to brave it, make it to the middle of the pool of poo, close the lid and put something heavy on it. First we had to clean the area the best we could so that we could put our four feet. The sludge of shit was dangerous to stand on. After that we dragged the lid and closed the manhole. Last year in one of the storms a portion of our wall had broken. We had kept all the heavy slabs from the broken wall. We dragged 2 of them and put it on top of the lid of the manhole. That prevented any further flushes from pushing the lid open.

The next day was a super rainy one and we did not have much hope of the issue getting sorted. We rang up customer service again to highlight the severity of the issue. Thankfully we had some people come over around 9:28. I know the exact precise time because that is how keenly I was following the events 😅 They had the expression on the face of shit having actually hit the fan. They started investigating from the house  next to ours. There were people staring at what was happening. It was a proper scene! Then they came to our back yard and started their clean up..gawd the stench. They then went over to the manholes in the street and cleaned up and found a big mass of clog. People had been flushing wet wipes down the toilets which had caused such a massacre. 

K was supremely humbled the entire experience. He went and got boxes of biscuits for all of them. We had to get some new hose pipes and the weekend there was a round of super deep cleaning.