The One Which Is Actually A Mail

I have been wanting to post, and mail about the move, to all my friends and readers. And I thought, since its basically the same stuff, I will just use it in both the places. Yes, I am now safely in Brisbane, in a serviced apartment, while the GP is off to his first day at work, at yet another new place. Strange how for 6 years he stayed with the same organisation, but has been changing his work place each year since the last three. Anyway, so I mailed, my friends in Melbourne about the move, and I am just representing the mail out here, to all of you. Will just link up the blog friend, here, who has been a total pillar in my existence in Melbourne.

Hi Melbourne!

How are you doing? Do you miss me? I miss you terribly, bad climatic conditions included. I am mailing it out to the whole lot of my Melbourne friends, so please excuse the lack of personal queries about your well being. But this is addressed to my very very dear friends, and I would love to know about how you are doing. (And i need updates on how the quit-smoking program is working out, from the ones on it!! STAY ON COURSE.)

Well, the last few days were quite crazy and hectic, what else is to be expected, when I am moving out of a city, with a kid in tow, and the move includes a couple of nights in a hotel, and then another month and a half in a serviced apartment... I just did not know how to pack, what to pack, and what to send with the packers! But anyways things got done, and on Wednesday, the 24th morning, once the packing was done, I headed off to my last shift at the WIRE phone-room.( I feel really sad, not going there today.... breaks my heart, with the reality of the fact, that I have actually ceased to be an active part, of what was the start of a wonderful journey for me, hopefully one that continues throughout my lifetime. I miss you WIRE, the work you enabled me to do, and the wonderful friends you gave me.) It was a great shift, infact one of my best there, and that is a lot due to the wonderful ladies I had working with me on that shift. :) Thursday was moving of the stuff, us shifting to the hotel and such... The hotel, people, was the one right next door, so made it easy to monitor the ongoings at home, while shifting our luggage there. That day the house, which had become home over the past 11 months, became bare, the carpet was cleaned, I scrubbed and cleaned every available surface, for the inspection, and my little boy, just hung around watching. I need to tell you how wonderful the BB been through all of it, very sporting, no tantrums, no craziness. At the end of the day however, after the carpet was cleaned, we had no place to even sit on, and that was when he asked me to get the bed from the truck. Moved into the hotel soon enough, and at night, he wanted to go home to the bed. I had not the heart to explain to him, that we were not without a home, and would be thus, for a while. He was uncomfortable bathing in the hotel room, but did it anyways without much fussing. and so on.

By Friday evening however, it felt like Melbourne was ready to throw us out. We did not find a decent place to eat at Lygon Street, not that we knew of too many nice ones anyway... but.... Just shows, its not always a great idea to try out new, unknown places. We were tiered to the bone, when we reached back at night... exhausted with the past few days of work, and exertion. I had barely slept 3-4 hours a night, the past few days. And so we decided to just crash on the bed, and sleep till as long as we could, since our flight to Brisbane was in the afternoon on Saturday. Left the packing and locking of suitcases to the morning. BIG MISTAKE! While deep in slumber, the room-phone rang. It was the reception calling to say the check-out time was 10:30 and it was infact 10:30 right then. Jumped out of the bed, packed as quickly as we could and left. Fortunately, managed to catch an earlier flight. Things went well from there on. The flight was nice, got our rent-a-car conveniently at the airport, and were in our current abode, within an hour and a half of landing. The weather was gorgeous. Bright and sunny, yet a nice cool breeze blowing. Wow! I loved it. I haven't any photos of the place yet, because I am yet to pull my camera out of the bag, so sorry about that. We are living just across the Brisbane river, and its simply gorgeous.:) The whole walk-way along the river, is so so beautiful.

My initial impression of this place is, that its more laid back than Melbourne. There are no Coles or other supermarkets, that are open 24X7, in fact the lady at the register, at the Coles Express we had been to, to get some milk and bread, asked us if we had come from Melbourne, since, the stores are open all day(and night) long there. People are well dressed, but not as well as those in Melbourne. We are looking for a house, ofcourse, may take a while to find one, that we love though. Its no help that we know absolutely no one in this city, and that makes me miss Melbourne, with the wonderful set of friends I had formed there, even more. You were the ones who guided me around the streets, the public transport, the shops and more. The ones, who showed me around, and were always there when I needed anything, even to just talk my heart out. The ones who helped me with understanding the culture, the people and the way of life, and taught me not to take things personally. The ones, who inspired me to develop a more charitable, altruistic outlook towards life, and helped me become a part of FOK(Friends Of Kolkata

). And the ones, who helped me understand myself better! I was really sad about leaving Melbourne, mainly because that meant leaving these wonderful friends behind, and also quitting WIRE, which means a lot to me. But then someone in the phone-room, said to me, 'Always remember Melbourne(and WIRE) for giving you direction.' and that is exactly how I wish to remember it, as my starting point. I will miss you, but then I am always just a mail or call away....and that means, I will never really lose my lovely friends.

Visit us soon, as soon as we get a place to live in, and settle down.
Hugs and Smiles,
GM

PS - The house inspection went really well. The agent, thought we had hired professional cleaners for the job. :D Yes I think I may just be ready for trying out a new profession here! ;)

OK! So I hate Mondays.

Every Monday, is a dull day, when it brings me back to the start of the mundane week. It feels a bit lonely with the GP back to work, and the house needing loads to be done, after the whirlwind weekend activities and no cleaning jobs done. So that is usually what Mondays are, and they are bad enough. But when there is a guest over the weekend, and she leaves, its just so much worse.

It is amazing how things can be, and how infact Facebook can do, what nothing else can. For all those who don't know it already, the brilliant, but now pretty dormant, Quirky Quill, is the one who introduced me to the world of blogs. The fact is that she was in school with me, and infact one of my favourite persons from my very snooty high school. She is a great person, and a brilliant brain to boot. Somehow though we were never belonged to the same group of friends. Met years later on Facebook, picked up the new threads. I had just had a baby, she was going to be married in a while, leaving for her backpacking Europe tour. We would chat on and off, and the familiarity increased to a lot more than what it ever was in school. And something that I never would have never imagined possible, had we even been in the same city we grew up in all these years, happened, and she popped into my part of the town this weekend, and stayed over.

It was wonderful having her over, sharing stories about school, common friends, and trying to refresh each other's memories about events and people from those years. Its amazing how easy it was to talk to each other, even though we were meeting after more than twelve years! Wow! Imagine that, makes me feel really really old now. Never on earth had either one of us thought we would infact meet up again, and yet. No wonder they say its a small world. I felt oh! so sad, when she left today morning, to go back. A Monday, as usual with some more void......

It was great having you over, QQ, and I forgot to crib about this to you personally, while you were here, but here I go now........ HEADER!!!!!! Miss you girl, and hope you pop in here soon, and hopefully with M in tow this time. Must meet him now, after all the wonderful tales I have heard about him.

Trans-Continental Baking Experiment - A Chocolate Mud Cake

I have been baking cakes for a while now. Nothing fancy, nothing great, but just regular, simple cakes. I have had issues with them each time I moved, and I have ranted galore about that too. I must be settling in, because the baking has improved a lot since the rants. But yet, my cakes as always have been plain and simple, the way I learnt as a child. Equal quantities of sugar, flour(maida), eggs and butter, all beaten really well, a pinch of baking powder, a flavour additive if we like, and off in the oven to bake. And that is the way it is for me. Since I love chocolate cakes, I picked up a packet of dark chocolate melts from the supermarket on one of my recent visits. Behind it, was the recipe for a mud-cake. I have been for a while, wanting to try my hand at frosting a cake, something I have never done, but seeing the gorgeous cakes my hot-shot expert baker/blogger friends belt out, I have been wanting to have a go. The recipe I found was complicated, it needed a lot of things, and I was not sure it would turn out great. So I looked up for other options online, there were many recipes for mud-cakes, quite different from each other, and I was totally nonplussed.

And so I decided to take the smart route and mail them and ask for a recipe that had been tried. Most of them had not tried a mud cake, but 'A' graciously sent a link to a recipe she had used to bake cup-cakes. I tried, and frosted a cake for the very first time in my life. While the frosting turned out really well, and the cake tasted heavenly too, the texture of it flopped miserably, and I had almost no sponginess or pores within. The taste though was, purrrrrfect. I reported my results to the 'jury', and the experienced women, decided to tackle the issue head on, and each one of them decided to give it a try. 'A', Monika, Smitha and Trishna, got on the jobs, did a little bit of tweaking here and there to the recipes, and landed up with absolutely and delightfully perfect versions. The flurry of e-mails, and exchange of tips and ideas that happened over all of last week amongst the five of us, has definitely left me a lot smarter about baking. I say this with no qualms, that I am the least experienced baker of them all, and infact the worst of them lot. After my not-too-great first attempt, when each of the other ladies came up with such perfect renditions, I knew I had to give it another go, even if just to save my own self-respect. And I did, on Sunday. And would you believe it, my first try, did not bake properly, because we needed to go out, and I checked just the sides, which had been baked, but the centre was still completely wet. I realised this when we got back home at 8pm. All my Lindtt, dark chocolate down the drain. But by then I knew I could not rest till I got it right, so I got down to bake another one, just then, and was finally done with the frosting and decorating by a little after midnight. And had to wait till then to cut in and see if this one was good. And yes it was, just perfect.

It was the perfect culmination for all the fun we had learning about baking, small tips and tricks from each other. Five women, four different continents, Asia(Monu), Europe (Smitha), North America ('A') and Australia (Trishna and me) and one cake over a period of one week. It has been awesome fun, and the fact is we have branched out into a lot of other recipes and more. Thank you ladies for teaching me so so so many ways to improve my baking and taking the time and effort to share your thoughts, experiences, and actually trying out the cake. Hope we keep doing this, again and again.

Presenting you with my final product.




And just hop over to read about how 'A', Smitha, Monika and Trish baked theirs.

Meeting Up and Going Away

And I have done it. Never thought I would be able to, but I did. I met a fellow blogger, Tara. I visited her home, and had some yummy food too. The grilled chicken and some absolutely mouth watering paav bhaaji. Oh! And did I mention her picture perfect home. Its just the place for friends to sit and chill out in. Relaxed, cosy, vibrant and warm. They have definitely done a great job in doing up the house. Tara is exactly what I thought she would be, warm,sweet and quiet. She was busy being a good host, and letting the BB play around. The BB on his part as always was fascinated with the Tara's fish tank, and kept repeating atu,atu (read water). And he was also amazed with Tara's open kitchen, where he could see us, even while we were in a different room. Tara has beautiful plants all around her home, and sea shells too. She has a mind blowing collection of the shells, and how well she has used them to decorate her home. Every nook and corner of the house has that special touch of beauty and decor.

Tara and Amit are such a sweet couple, if you didn't know them, you could well believe they are just dating. I was just smiling within as I saw them, and I am smiling right now as I type this. We talked about this place, the people and loads more. I love the area she lives in, it is very well organised, and is green enough to make you believe you are in India. We actually drove around the place after dinner, and rolled down the car windows to actually smell the foliage. The greatest thing about the meeting, was that, not for moment did I feel like it was a first meeting. It was like sitting around with friends we have known long enough, and having a relaxed chat and dinner with them. I never knew it would be this easy. Was always a bit apprehensive about what it would be like to actually meet one of the people I read, or one who reads me, and it turned out to be such a wonderful experience, now I just wish we had done this earlier. Tara, thanks a ton for the lovely dinner, and such a fun time. The men bonded nicely too, and I can now always tell the DH, how he met wonderful people, just because I blog, next time he cribs about me being on the laptop too much! The comfort and warmth of the meeting completely belied the fact of it being our very first time. Tara has put up her mysterious account of it too.

The honest fact is, Tara saved my neck, I am leaving, and she kindly accepted to take over my plants. I would have hated to see them dry up. She said she has space, and can take them. And I jumped at the offer, and went to give them to her last night. And since I have mentioned it, yes, I am going on a vacation. Come tomorrow night, and I am off to Bombay for a few days, 12 to be precise. The DH finally got his leave approved, and the tickets were booked late last afternoon, yes he is the absolute last minute kinds. This being the Eid weekend, we were fortunate to find some seats after all. Let the monstrosity of the prices not even be discussed. We finished most of the gift shopping yesterday. Doing very little of it this time, because another, longer trip is scheduled soon enough.

Finally, a vacation after a really really long time. Most of it is going to be dedicated to health care. I am visiting doctors, to let them look into my eyes, ears and other things and ensure that whatever afflictions I have are cured. I am leaving the laptop behind, and staying away from the internet. So that I get more time to relax and enjoy. Waiting to switch on my India SIM card and ring up all my friends, and family. I want to do a photo-chronicling of Bombay, but am not sure how well I will manage. As of now I have the plans though. Durga Pujo is also to be celebrated with great pomp and show, hence am going to pack all my new clothes for the trip. Also packing all the give-away that have collected here, the BB old clothes, blankets etc, some of mine and the DH's too. In India I know of people and places I can give them away to, here I know none.

And, vacationing I go tomorrow!