I'm a year Old

My blog that is....and i don't have anything interesting to write about, which basically means there's nothing exciting in my life at the moment. I'm bored talking about the weather and the plants and trees and evil birds...there is nothing spectacular to write about that as well. I did 50 posts in one year and that's awfully sad...I again blame my food blog for causing this drift between me and my personal all-time-favourite blog...so this year I'm gonna try and keep this one more alive, even if it means posting just a one liner or a picture on and off.

On a positive note, I started my gym sessions and boy does it feel great to work out again. I'm aiming at being trim and well-toned to fit into my swimsuit and look as ravishing as Cheryl Cole (if not now, at least in my next life) if at all we go to Spain this summer or if we don't, I'll just have to flaunt it for Ro (grin!)

Hope all you guys are living life to the fullest whichever part of the world you are in. I'll check back in a few days. Adios!

Back with a Bang!

I have ignored this space for so long and am feeling horrible about it. Even though my food blog seems to be more popular with 23 followers, Open Book is still my favourite space. I can actually blurt out whatever i want to and not care a damn about being judged, although i know a lot of em out there do judge me..but seriously, I couldn't care less.

My previous post was quite heart wrenching for me and now I'm embarrassed at having written all that. So you can say this post is to cover up the awkwardness. And as weird as it sounds, I got the maximum number of comments on that one. To an extent it comforted me...that i was not the only one going through emotions like that. Thank you all...

So whats been happening at my end..well, lets see...

1. I thought i should start job hunting seriously. I have a few projects in hand that i need to submit. But truth is, i haven't started work on that, neither have i started work on my resume. Honestly, I'm trying to figure out if its PR or Publishing or Editing or Writing or Events i want to work in. I have to undergo a proper interview if and when a consultant calls me. So i should be very clear on what i want and realised i cant play my way around like back in India..its a very serious issue here. And life would have been so much better if i could just for once decide what i wanted.

2. I have been putting off gym sessions for a while now. I decided to finally get off my comfort zone and start gymming on march 1st only to realize the package i wanted was not available in the gym nearby and i had to do a 15 minute bus ride to another gym to avail that package. If i took the one nearby, it was a 10 pound extra for facilities i would rarely or never use for that matter. After brainstorming with Ro, i am now pissed and am still in the process of deciding which one i should succumb to. Again we come back to making decisions.

3. I miss my girlfriends...I saw the Sex and the City 2 trailer the other day and wished for the 100th time i had them somewhere nearby, so we could all go watch the movie together and then go out and have Cosmopolitans and partay. Ro asked me why i miss them and i very openly told him i was so bored of hanging out with him. I got even more upset when i took a voice message left by one of Ro's colleagues about a project of theirs and i could clearly understand what that guy was talking about....IT related security solutions. That was an eye- opener. I need girl company and that too immediately.

4. I'm thoroughly enjoying baking. Its one thing i think i wouldn't mind doing even when I'm extremely tired. Like the other day, I was so craving some yogurt cake and at 10 in the night I decided to bake against Ro's wishes and it was one of the yummiest cakes I've ever made. Yes I'm blowing my own trumpet..somebody has to :)

5. I am gonna make it a point to go to church every Sunday henceforth and then compulsory brunch after that...that way i get to review various restaurants and enjoy brunch in one of the worlds greatest culinary cities. Although I'm now wondering if I'm doing church to have brunch on Sunday or vice versa. We went to St Pauls Cathedral the other day and what drama i must say. It was like theatre. Be it the sermon or communion or whatever it was, all had a bit of glamour added to it by the priests walking up and down with a sceptre and chanting and lining up and all sorts of stuff like that. It was highly touristy i guess. The choir was brilliant, but the echo was way too irritating. Ro- the non believer- attended the communion and he said the bread was stamped St. Pauls and that i missed it. I had to remind him it was a holy communion he was talking about and God would not leave him alone to which he replied there is not god. I wonder how ill convince him to head to church every Sunday.. maybe the brunch would do the trick.

6. The new DSLR has given a whole new perspective on photography..at least to me. We lug it around wherever we go and Central London is never out of new things to capture. Its so full of life and excitement and crowded and i love it. This pic was taken at Regent Street near Picadilly circus after a visit to the National Geographic Store and Cafe that was hosting a photography exhibition.

7. We very rarely have a full moon night or rather a clear night and when we did, we had to capture it. Didn't have a tripod back then, so its not picture perfect. Ro and me huddled together in the cold and managed to get this:

8. Its still cold and windy and pathetic and i cant wait for summer (note: I'll crib about it being too warm then). The only relief is that Spring has slowly made its way through and it wont be long that we are back in the green. To celebrate Spring, we went and got a few flowers and plants. I wanted fully grown plans with flowers and all the works and it just had to look pretty on my balcony, whereas Ro tried explaining to me it was a pleasure seeing the plant go from scratch..well..whatever that pleasure is...i really don't think I'll have it. We picked up Tulips and cypress and Iris and Daffodils and even a few herbs for cooking. I am not a gardening/plants/ flowers person at all. I don't even know how to appreciate it. You might wonder why i got them in the first place..have no clue... I wish I knew. Its like all other things in my life...after the initial excitement, I'm bored with it. A friend asked if we were watering it and I said its Ro's duty to which he didn't reply but gave me a stare that lasted a while. Our orange tree is so shattered, I think it will die completely by end of summer.

Some of the flowers bloomed and i clicked a few pics. I'm loving the new DSLR!

TULIPS & HERBS (in the pot..i am yet to plant it)

CYPRESS

IRIS

DAFFODILS

No heading ...its a state of mind for me

This is how i wanted it to be:

Pass out of college and get a kick ass job

Move into an apartment on my own and live life to the fullest

Take salsa classes

Make enough money to do my higher studies in a good University abroad, preferably the US..i say abroad because the course i want to specialise in is available only in Universities abroad..and US because half of my family is there and i have a soft corner for US;)

Pass out with flying colours and get a job

Think about marriage

Build my way up the career ladder

Visit loads of places

Take up a hobby and be serious about it. Pottery, painting, baking, candle making and so on.

Meet a Mr. perfect (and by that i mean someone in my wavelength..there is no Mr perfect in reality)somewhere along the way and get hitched for life

Have the most amazing, romantic wedding ever and be so smitten and in love for ever and ever and ever

Honeymoon for about 5 years and then decided to go the family way

Have kids and still enjoy life to the fullest and not fall out of love in the process

Not stop 'having a life' because you are all settled down

Chuck the kids out of the house by 18 and go ask them to live life the hard way, make money on their own if they want to have an extravagant wedding (if they want to get married at all that is. Living together..good enough for me)

By now i would have reached somewhere up the career ladder, prob own a business or something and so id be tackling other areas of interest or expanding my business

Take a holiday without having to worry about loans and ailments

Die before my husband does :)

This is how it ultimately IS

Passed out of college and did land a job

Moved into an apartment on my own and was just beginning to enjoy life to the fullest.

6 months down, i got engaged and quit my job (no not to Mr. Perfect but to Mr. systematic and I'm-serious-in-life-i-cant-do-things-for-fun)

Had a pretty decent wedding, but not the one of my dreams. Smitten yes, for a good 2 years, after that it was just plain annoying to have a nagging husband..yes in our case.

Honeymooned for exactly one week and after that it was eclipsed. Fought on all valentines days, birthdays etc. after that, religiously :)

Pottered around a newly set up house, threw parties, had a tough time adjusting to the new person in my life and married life in general

Missed being single, a lot

Went off to the US. Was beginning to like it there when we had to return back to India

Frustration set in and i got a job, again

Enjoyed myself to the max, loved the job, loved being independent, loved the appreciation, loved the money, loved the pressure, loved life in general

One year down, quit the job, relocated to UK. Within UK, relocated quite a bit. And yeah uncertainty rocks!!!!! You should try it sometime

Frustrated, friendless, fat

Struggling to freelance from home. Was doing OK, till a bunch of unprofessional f****** in the publishing business decided to keep my pay stalling and i decided to quit. Thanks a lot F----e (you know which mag right?)

Non stop harassment from people-i-don't-care-about, about stuff i don't care about at the moment

Did i mention FAT?

...this is the story so far

Yeah yeah, sob, sob, i know everyone has their share of miseries. I'm in one of those miserable moods and the rainy, gloomy weather inst helping much. I complete 4 years of wedded bliss (quite a strong word to use, if i may say so) in 3 days. What a pathetic time for me to remember nasty things. Well, if only the world was a happier place to be in and life worked out just the way you planned it.

As if that wasn't enough, I am entering the big three zero soon and i haven't achieved any of those things i wanted to. Reality set in last night and i recalled all those things i wanted to do and which i would have done if my head had made the decision and not my heart. I cried myself to sleep and actually woke Ro with my uncontrollable sobs. He thought i had a bad dream or something and in between snores consoled me saying, its all OK...well, little does he know!

PS: Even though i have an emotionless, unromantic goof of a guy as husband, he is the only one who can actually stand me (although I'm sure he's wished a million times he'd married someone else). Understand me, not quite well, but bear with what I'm going through, yes to an extent. I love you and I'm sorry for being a bitch right now. I love the fact that you are so organized and planned and know what to do when you are 80 (if you are alive that is hahaha) even though i will tease you to death about it. I love it that you are neat and tidy and shout at me if i don't fold clothes properly, roll the toilet paper right and leave the toilet seat down:). Even better, i love it that you willingly do all this and more and are never lazy or tired to do anything (except of course shop which im ok with). I don't think i could have lived with a guy who wasn't you. Happy 4th Anniversary. Lets get drunk and celebrate 4 years of achieving nothing.

Four years...but does it feel like forever?

...is what i keep saying when someone asks how long me and Ro have been together. Yes, four years back, this day Ro and me met for the first time. Err to be more precise, it was sometime between the 20th and the 27th...lets put it that way. Its so weird that its usually the women/girl in the relationship that remembers the dates... birthdays, the day they first met, the day they first held hands and so on. I am nothing like that. I am still confused about Ro's birthday in spite of it being the same month as mine, but i rem my best friends b'day again in the same month...weird? I thought so too! I don't remember the day we first met and so every year i conveniently announce a day or 2 before hand that 21st or 22nd or whatever will be x number of years since we met. So today, i have decided its 4 years and whats different...nothing:)

Ro is working from home and as usual eating my head every five minutes asking me for food or coffee or juice or whatever. I am watching Gilmore Girls (ya...absolutely lame..don't ever start watching it) and waiting for the next season of Everwood to start on Channel 4 and simultaneously typing this out. I made Tiramisu yesterday and its chilling in the refrigerator. I have become a pro at it and I'm slowly losing the enthusiasm at making it, since its now no longer an achievement. If you are thinking its damn difficult, its not at all. I also have decided we are going out to dinner..i am yet to figure out where.

Our first date was at this really sad coffee shop in Chennai called Java Green..i was so adamant about not meeting Ro when my parents called up and asked me to do so. Whatever bit of excitement was left, was ruined when he suggested Java Green and to this day i take his trip on that, to which he holds the fact that he was based in Mumbai, and had no clue about places in Chennai. Although the fact that he took me back to the same place a year later was incredibly sweet. I wore torn jeans and an even worse top...purposely looked like a college girl and i had my friends call me every now and then to make him realise i had better things to do...which i honestly did. He however, happened to be in Chennai for a week and asked me out a couple more times..actually twice or thrice a day, the entire week, took me to expensive restaurants, bought me flowers and completely wooed me into it. I was so stupid to fall for all that shit. That's probably the first and last time he ever bought me flowers..er and also when i quit my first job cos he thought id be upset. Well anyways, what i was trying to say is..if you think its gonna be the same even after you get married, its not....and i thought it would be.

Now when i ask Ro why he doesn't get me flowers, he's like..there are way too many varieties and i don't know what you like, so why don't you go pick up any flower you like..well, that's the whole point....dumbo! get to know what flower your wife likes, and what colour she likes the most. To which he replies, ' you are confused yourself....what flower do you like N? Err mmm..tulips, no no wait roses...no no no I'm sure i like the daisies or maybe even the white lilies..oh no not white, cos it will look too plain in our apartment.' Well, i think he just proved his point. 'Why don't you make an effort to know what i want and buy it for me..surprise me..the fact that you made an effort is good enough (not actually..id like to get it too).' What do you want for your birthday? Oh baby, i don't want anything (means...i obviously want something, but i shall not say what...you need to enter my mind and play along with it every minute so you would, at the end of it all figure out what i might want). When that doesn't work, i throw hints..hmm I've always wanted a pair of Jimmy Choos, that trench coat sure would help stop the gusty wind hitting my thighs, my sunglasses are broken (or it will be soon). After all this drama....N, here's some money, go buy what you like...is what i hear. Well, the fact that i exchange most of the things Ro's got me is another thing, but he could still make an effort right.. well this went on for quite a while and initially it used to upset me so much because i make such an effort at things like this. Now i have resigned to the fact that i should just tell him what i want, or even better I'm completely OK with the fact that i get gift money and i can do whatever i want with it. In fact i think I'm beginning to like this arrangement a whole lot better.

See i have evolved from a hard core romantic to a more practical woman....well mostly. And Ro...from a person who thinks birthdays and anniversaries are over rated, has come this far to play along with me and humour me. And this is just one of the simpler things that both of us have learned to accept about each other. We have had our share of terrible times when all i wanted to do was run away which i sometimes feel now as well, but i know that at the end of it all, i would run back to him...Ro this is to you..who is a complete pain in the ass most of the time, but the bestest friend ever..muah!

Amsterdam...and a lil bit of everything

I know I haven't been updating this blog for a while now and I'm about 2 weeks late on my Amsterdam update (yes, we took a short break and headed to Ams for 4 days). Now i cant seem to remember half of what we did/saw..intricate details i mean... and most of my readers (yeah i have a total 6 or 7) would have seen all the pics on FB and orkut and so I'm not gonna bore everyone by going on and on about it again. For the others, me and Ro had a gala time relaxing and taking in all that Amsterdam had to offer...well almost. Except for the first day, where we took an organized tour of the Dutch Countryside, we soaked up the sun in the cafe's and went totally wild at the 'coffee shops,' if you know what i mean! My whole perspective of a holiday has changed, i must add. Initially i used to love going around, catch glimpses of the local attractions, shop and do major touristy stuff without even taking a breather and at the end feel so pooped and tired and wait for the hustle bustle to end. My parents keep going on holiday to these resorts and do nothing but eat and sleep and not even step foot out of the resort. I used to shout at them saying they are such losers and have been to so many places, but haven't actually 'seen' any. I now know what exactly they mean. Its probably signs of getting old. I just love to relax...in the hotel by the pool, or at a cafe sipping Iced tea's and Sangria..which is exactly what we did in Amsterdam. The cafe culture in Europe is just amazing. Its popular here in London as well, but because of the crappy, unpredictable weather, cafe's are not the most fun thing to do when you want to sit with your jackets and shawls and umbrella. Amsterdam was laid back, but filled with tourists and so commercialised. The countryside was good, but even that has been preserved as an attraction and infested with tourists. We missed the tulip season, which was something i actually wanted to see so so badly. But if you ask me if i saw the famous Rembrandt and Van Gogh museums in Amsterdam..no i didn't, did i see the cathedrals and shop, no i didn't do that either. But what i did was completely relax and eat and sleep and took a real holiday for once. The last time i remember doing this was on our one week honeymoon in Goa (i would have to admit that was the best trip i ever had). Came back and it took me one week to recover and get back to routine (read boring) life. Posting some pics, just to add to the rant.

The cheese factory. Was so sick after tasting all the varieties of cheese.

The beautiful, but awfully uncomfortable clogs

What gets served in the 'coffee shops'

The beautiful Dutch countryside

The Alkmaar Cheese Market, where buyers and sellers come face to face.

Taken on our canal cruise. The canals are a major attraction and are filled with houseboats. We thought of renting one, but they were incredibly expensive.

The wild part...in the Red Light District

Tulips (wooden, plastic) at the flower market

Orchids @ the flower market

Street side entertainment. This old man was very popular with his wacky moves and skimpy thongs

One of the cafe's we lounged at

I had mentioned previously that we were apartment hunting and that we were almost gonna make an offer on one. As usual with Ro breaking his head on the pro's and cons and by the time we decided to say yes, someone had already done the deed. We were quite bummed by it, so gave up our hunting and decided to stay put in our one bedroom abode since winter was approaching and we didn't have any family visiting us till next summer. Friends have our pull out sofas to crash on :)

But just last week we went and saw an apartment just for the heck of it and we liked it. But they were asking for about 200 bucks more than what we are paying now and we still battled the odds and said no. the agent harassed us to make an offer anyways and so we went ahead and made a bizarre offer which surprisingly got accepted....even the terms and conditions. I now keep asking Ro if there is something seriously wrong with it, that the LL agreed to it. I shall update you on that once we move in. We are, however, going from amazing views on the 5th floor to absolutely no views on the 1st floor. The only draw back, but not bad enough to say no to the apartment and moreover with winter fast approaching, the views and balcony wont be of much use. So yes, we are moving in by Sept 2nd week and i am looking forward to setting up the new place, but dreading the packing.

Talking about winter, i completely dread it. Temperatures have already started dropping below 20's and it gets dark by 8. Before i know, leaves would start changing colour - Autumn and then the horrific winter. We are getting ready to pack our fans and get our thermals out. In fact according to BBC, the coming week will be the last of sunshine and warmth we can enjoy. Yeah i know, weather has become an important part of our lives and i have begun to appreciate the sun and warm weather just like the Brits. No wonder they all come out in shorts and bikini's the moment the temperature hits about 23C. 25 above will be declared as heat wave and they make such a big deal out of it.

Its nice to catch up with this space after a long time. I have been completely hooked on to my food space and been ignoring this one long enough. I enjoy pouring my heart out on this one, but most of the time laziness gets the better of me and i chuck my random musings for easy-to-type out, brainless recipes.

Its a long weekend and the last of the bank holidays that we have this year. The Nottinghill Carnival is on and i am covering it for a mag. So, long day tomorrow, but sooo looking fwd to it. Will be back with pics. Till then, ciao from me.