Making mountains out of molehills

You can categorise your friends - some cheer you up, some are easy to talk to, some are ‘just there’ and some are so annoying because they make mountains out of mole hills.  

Yes there is one and we have had many trials with him. He once recommended a movie very highly - a movie you would never tell anyone you ‘bought tickets’ to watch. We have learnt the hard way that the Las recommendation = disappointment!

But as we are in dreary old London where it is a race against time to catch the mild rays of the sun, we jumped at the idea of climbing, what he called a ‘MOUNTAIN’, one early spring morning in March.

With the experience of climbing Siripada - Adams Peak   (the second highest mountain in Sri Lanka at 7341 feet above the sea-level) and a few other high climbs, we braced ourselves with lightweight sweaters, climbing shoes, lots of energy food and plenty of liquid.

Off we went to tackle our friend's ‘Mountain’ with new found energy and a positive outlook towards London, the one place on earth which seems to offer everything (including mountains) within city limits. 

In short, the "mountain" turned out to be the Northala Fields - a small man made bump in the grass, which we climbed right to the top in less than 5 minutes. The great mountain  our great friend wanted to show us remains a mystery … 

London Zoo

After a long hibernation, both of us decided to venture out on what was called a ‘relatively warm day with sunny intervals’ by our ever reliable Met department. Our destination - the London Zoo. It was a bold move as every single person we had met while in London said that it was just not the place to go to.

Our desperation to see any form of wildlife, after a period of over 6 months with not even a worm in sight, gave us the confidence to face this challenge.

As animal lovers, who have seen the worst of the worst, we must say that the zoo was not as bad as it was said to be. Here is the evidence.

No it's not a brick wall - it's a fish tank with this sea anemone

A green mamba attempting suicide?

Mr Gorgeous

Bali Starling - can you believe there are only 8 more in the wild

The shot - A blue Morpho

The cuties - White-Eyes

The sunny intervals never came and we had to spend over 2 hours standing next to the gorilla enclosure looking very much like two wet crows waiting to grab some of their food. Unfortunately Mr forgot to take any of shots of ‘us’ - the humans ...

I "shell" forgive you !

Due to reasons I will not go in to, Michelle's birthday was not a great one this year - NO I won't tell you why and believe me, you don't want to know either ! 

So decided to make up for it with a proper Valentine's Day! For me, Red Roses are such a cliché that I decided to go for white roses and to glam it up a bit, put in a good measure of purple (her favourite colour) tulips in to the bunch. 

Well I knew that a bunch of flowers was not going to get me off the hook, so I got something that she really wanted, all the way from Australia - Sea Shells !!! And boy did it do the trick. Even though she has always wanted to get them, she was worried about the cost but I decided that no cost is too much for my love :)  

 

Some of the shells are massive (the first one is almost a foot long). Needless to say, Mich was pretty happy with them and I was able to save my skin for another year.  

Note: For those who are worried, these shells are sourced from ethical sources - meaning that these are not live animals killed for their shells. They are dead ones collected from the ocean and cleaned and polished. This is why the shells are not "perfect" as you would find in some shops. 

Snow fall in London

Hi There !

So we are setting up this blog to share what happens with us while we live in this cold and dreary country. Instead of updating a website all the time the easiest way to keep in touch with friends and share our lives with them seems to be through a blog - so we are giving it a try. It also means I dont have to get constant reminders about updating the websites.

So our first post happens to be the first major event for 2009 - the heaviest snowfall in London in 20 years (or something like that!). Just as it turned February, it started snowing pretty heavily on Sunday night.

There was quite a bit of snow on Monday (2nd Feb). the transport systems broke down and schools were closed - which meant we got to spend the day at home. Well not quite ... we went around enjoying our first proper snow - there was atleast 6 inches of snow in some places. Great ! Here is our car all snowed in.

We walked around a bit, playing with snow and taking lots of pics.

Then we met up with our friends Lasa and Imal and decided to build a snow man

It was a great day and we had a lot of fun.

Fun as it was, there are some very sick individuals out there whose idea of fun is quite different and I hope you dont meet these animals whenever you are out !

We want to conclude this first post with this poem

The day after tomorrow

by Vivimarie VanderPoorten

you write to me
of blowing snow and whiteouts.
of snow goggles and skating rinks
you tell me your cat may need clothing
and you joke about
living in the movie
‘the day after tomorrow’
I write to you
of scorching sun and blackouts.
of checkpoints and closed roads
of a play I went to see
called ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’
You ask for news of home.
have you forgotten that
over here, no news is good news
or have black memories buried themselves
under white snowflakes
you say it is freezing there. again. You had to dig out your new car
from underneath
a mountain of snow this morning.
It’s burning here. still. this morning old women
and new babies were dug out
from underneath
mounds of mangled metal
you say everything there is predictable. I begin to think that is a good thing.
Here, a white van has become a black Maria
and nothing is certain.
and I have decided not to postpone my reply to you
until
the day after tomorrow.