Nuances

Lake District I am writing this blog at the risk of turning people off! Surprised??? This is the next edition of my travelogue and this time our car made way towards Lake District. As this region is to the south of Scotland it is a general perception that the landscape is like that of Scotland. This brings me back to the first line of my blog. As I have already written about our journey to Scotland, my faithful readers might quit reading this blog assuming it to be very similar to the previous one. I couldn't me more wrong than that!!! Rather than the actual journey it is the planning that gets me pumping. Things were simplified by the fact that we planned to find accommodation in one place and travel to the rest. Easier said than done! It seemed as though every traveller in the world was heading to the Lake District and unless you were looking to lodge yourself in a manor rather than a B&B you were out of luck. But, we were destined to be lucky and found a cosy ale...

Eulogy This is in fond memory of one of the two strongest women I have encountered in my life. I had to bid goodbye to one of them half a decade ago and now I am bidding farewell to the other. Bye bye Grandma! For me there is certainly a beginning to the relationship I had with her but by no means an end. She is a part of me and whatever I am today is mostly because of her. So she might have discarded her physical self from this material world but her presence will always be felt in my life. She was a loving wife albeit never showing her emotions to the outer world, a loving mother, a caring mother-in-law, the greatest grandmother and a sweet great-grandmother. She was the umbrella that kept the family safe for as long as she was independent. She was the marriage broker who passionately brought so many future couples together. She was the person who could fit a larger wardrobe into a smaller door with novel ideas that even an engineer may have not thought about. Her melodious ...

( For a better reading experience I would suggest you to open a separate tab on your browser and view the pictures of our trip to Scotland. Then you will be able connect better with what I am going to describe. https://picasaweb.google.com/beadarsh/AppaAmmaSTripToPBoroAndScotland?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnGzuG6uKnXaw#5604233475221641954 ) Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Imagine miles of blue sky splattered with patterns of clouds. As you change the angle of your neck to the eye level, add endless peaks covered with brown moss with the tops covered with patches of snow. Then sprinkle a few valleys between these mountains and fill it up with sheep that know nothing other than chomping grass and growing innumerable coats of fleece. Finally dot the landscape with small cottages that are scattered miles apart. Now cover the entire picture with a continuous drizzle. This is my description of the highlands of Scotland in the summer months. It is funny that you don't get tired o...

H aving lived in the UK for almost 4 months, the 3 unpredictable Ws have always struck me. I first heard about them from a guest but later realised that there was nothing new in them. Initially they sounded mysterious but take a moment to look around and they stare directly in your face! So this edition of ‘Nuances’ will be trying to demystify them. W eather is the first unpredictable W. When I arrived in Petey Town in the month of October, veterans of this place predicted the worst winter ever. Indeed it was the worst ever winter for the whole of Britain except.....(hold your breath) of course in Petey town. It snowed for a paltry 3 days!!! I could hardly enjoy the snow leave alone build a snow man or shoot snow balls at my hubby. Again when people were struggling to step out of their houses in all parts of Britain, it was a stifling, gut wrenching 9C in Petey town which almost sucked the air out of my lungs. By any standards that’s too hot!!! (Here, I might really sound crazy sin...