Cherry Blossoms...

UK has loads of cherry trees which are now in blossom. Some photographs we clicked during one of our walks in our favourite parkland.

Hope you are enjoying the spring too!

From the Chapel Market...

We were going for a meal to the Indian Veg Bhelpuri House, an all-you-can-eat buffet of  Indian vegetarian food near Angel, a couple of Saturdays ago. This place has authentic Indian food, their loochis/puris are awesome, tastes  like straight from mom's kitchen. Their vegetable curries taste just like the food served as prasad/bhog in temples all over India. This place is run by Bangladeshi gentlemen and we have become great fans of their food. Anyways, on our way we had to cross the Saturday market at the Chapel Market. These are the stuff I picked up from the market.

 By the time we got back home, a couple of flowers had fallen off from the bunch, I made a South Indian Uruli style arrangement with them.

 Picked up an aloe vera plant...the shopkeeper promised that in three four months time I could dig out the leaves and use them. I have big plans to make my own aloe vera paste. Wouldn't that be exciting? Till now I have always read about aloe vera creams, now I am going to make my very own! Wish me luck...

Finger puppet...isn't he cute...I am sure my grandma and my mom can easily make these, but since I am sewing retarded in every which way, I feel happy buying them! The guy manning the stall told me that they are handmade in Guatemala. So now we have a piece of Guatemala with us.

A Trip to the Royal Observatory

A friend came to visit us a few weekends back and trying to organise a Saturday's entertainment was a little difficult  since she has lived and been to visit London many times. Luckily she had never been to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich so we settled for that one. The weather prediction ranged from sunny to heavy rains, thankfully it chose to be a usual cloudy, grey day.

Once we came out of the Cutty Sark tube station, there were ample directions to show us the way. The area which is known as the Greenwich Village is very pretty and quaint with loads of nice shops and cosy cafes and restaurants and also a covered market where a Saturday market was on at full swing. After five/six minutes walk we were facing the gate of the park and a long trudge up the hill awaited us. It seemed rather a lot of walk but the hill seemed gentle enough. Do not be fooled by the gentle hill, soon all three of us were huffing and puffing. But there were so many others walking along and the park is rather nice, so without too much grumbling we reached our destination. The view from the top is worth every bit of effort in walking up that hill.

Some of the photographs:

 Photo taken from down below...

 The view of the rolling park

 Another view of the park with the Royal hospital in the background and a hilly short cut that people have created for themselves

 Now the real telescope

 Check out Bombay! By the way that is the Meridian Line in copper I think. Remember all those complicated sums that we had to do in Geography class in school, involving latitudes and longitudes? Standing here, I went back to those school days :)

 The clock...

 A slightly different view, dusk is falling...

 What they say about the view...

 Before we knew it, it was dark and all the lights came on and it looked all the more amazing...

 See the green laser light? Well it is the meridian line, lighted up like that in the dark. Isn't it really cool?

At 1p.m. every day they sound a gong, I was disappointed to have missed that. But then when I saw in view in the dark and the laser light, I was glad we came late enough to get a day view and also an evening view.

Apart from the line, there was two/three museums displaying various kinds of clocks, astronautic instruments and there is the Planetarium next door, which we covered as well. 

Nooks and crannies of our London house.....

Since moving to London I have been promising my family and friends to share some photos of our house. Had taken some way back but have been too lazy to post them. Recently during Christmas our friend Anurita took some lovely shots of the house, so finally with her photos and mine I have assembled a virtual tour of our not-so-new-London home.

Our house from the front after a heavy snowfall....

The entrance.... too stark and white....

Some Christmas lights, a Buddhist flag and we are set.... I had bought these hanging birds from Sarojini Nagar Market, New Delhi way back in 2002 when I first moved into Ganga Hostel to make my hostel room a little cheerful. Almost a decade later and after travelling half way around the world they are still cheering me up...the little bell we picked up for Christmas....

A closer look at the lights....

The drawing room....our landlord provided these super comfy black sofas and the stark white curtains....touch of turquoise was Indranil's idea....I wanted a profusion of earth colours likes reds, greens and yellows...but I gave in when we found these Indian cushion covers from a gift store....layering the curtains with turquoise ones was my idea.....and now I love this colour scheme.....

We were searching for a special lamp...not the usual ones found in home store chains in the UK....after going through all the choices, we decided to innovate and this is the result.....

This elephant hanging has been part of my life since my Delhi days....

The fire place while we were setting up the house...not there yet....

A rug can make all the difference in the world....found this matching rug from the same shop....

 In the absence of logs, we decided to make do with some candles....

Kitchen and eating area...

 
Our dinning table, soon after moving in...

Kitchen window from outside...

Our sitting area in the garden. All this place needs is a barbeque machine and summer!

The garden which I confess I have been neglecting.

Our bench for enjoying morning cup of tea....cannot wait for summer!

Christmas Tree....

 This year we settled for a tiny tree. Since it was so tiny that we could not find any decorations for it, so Indranil decided to make some. I have some origami papers given by my aunt about 20 years back. Initially I tried doing origami, but it was so intricate and demanded such concentration that I soon lost patience and interest. But I loved the papers and preserved them lovingly and also happened to bring them with me to the UK. Indranil apparently loved doing origami as a kid but never got the right kind of paper for his creations. So it was like duck taking to water. Indranil and the papers created magic! Enjoy the photos, most of them are taken by our friend Anurita with her superb camera.

Our teeny weeny tiny tree....

Tree next to the fire place...

|Origami decorations

A flower for the tree...

A basket...we had heard that |Santa was now a days leaving goodies in baskets as well :) So we were ready for him....

Deft fingers at work...

And a star is born....

Yields of four hours of hard work!