Magical Milestone

Today we completed five years of living in our current abode. Five years that passed rather quickly, I must admit! 

Much water has flown under the bridge since we came in.... and nowhere is the growth more apparent than in the way we have settled into a routine about everything, despite the frequent changes that we seem to face here. And of course, the growth can be seen in the children - from gangly teenagers loathe to changing schools in their higher classes, they gracefully dealt with a pandemic, a few losses, and a plethora of life lessons. And have now transformed into beautiful young adults who make us both happy and proud. But I digress...

Us in 2019

Today, on the auspicious occasion of the harvest festival Baisakhi, we had moved in five years back with dreams in our eyes and excitement in our hearts. Many of those dreams materialised, while some surprises were sprung at us too. But then, such is life - a mix of sweet and sour! 

Us in 2024

As we stepped out on the front porch today to enjoy the rainy afternoon, an amazing experience unfolded. A large bunch of rosy starlings chose to present their magical dance in the sky right before our eyes. 

Watching their mystical murmuration right over our heads seemed like a divine gift to mark our milestone in this abode. And perhaps a portent of things to come... But we all were so absorbed in watching the spectacle unfold that we didn't realise the camera wasn't recording. Such divine experiences are meant to be remembered only by the mind's eye!

Another Kitchen Makeover

If you look back through this blog, I had shared a kitchen-related post way back in November 2020. Much has changed around the kitchen since then as it seems to be the one place in the house that requires constant work.

Kitchen in 2019

To start with, the house next door got sold a little over a year back. The new owners wanted to carry out renovations as per their taste. Since one of the kitchen walls is shared, their over-the-top tile work had immediate repercussions in ours. The dampness caused one wall to peel through the year, barely six months after I had a patchwork paint job done for the peeling in 2022.

Meanwhile the adjoining wall with a wooden cabinet fared worse. It suffered an acute termite infestation and the cabinet had to be discarded, leaving behind a marked wall.

Missing cabinet - 2023

We had to rearrange all the crockery and stocks that were in the discarded cabinet. We also got a made-to-order iron rack in the kitchen that could hold the essentials like flour and rice.

Kitchen in 2024

Earlier this month when a neighbour was getting a house-painting job done, we got our kitchen a fresh coat too. The slab is still crowded but at least everything looks spring-cleaned.

My learning from these repeated episodes of kitchen renovation: the modular style just does not work here for the long term. Local workmen fool residents into believing that the newest materials are superior and will make a difference but the reality is far from that. In a place prone to general dampness, termite attacks, and even flooding, the only viable option is a metal and stone kitchen. The kitchen in my parents' DDA apartment fared much better, lasting well over 35+ years!

Of Happy Endings...

 

This post is surely about happy endings. And perhaps, new beginnings... After all, endings and beginnings do go hand in hand.

But let me start at the very beginning. In mid-February, a pair of purple sunbirds built their nest on a hanging hen chime in our patio. While we watched in anticipation, the obvious never happened. For sometime in March, amidst a spate of untimely thunderstorms, the sunbirds disappeared and wouldn't return to the nest. I'm assuming (from whatever little footage we could see via our CCTV) that a bigger nocturnal bird attacked their nest.

Then again in May the purple sunbirds came back. After diligently repairing the nest, the pair started raising a brood. And this time three little chicks magically appeared one day in June.

Within a couple of weeks, with the parent birds' due care and nurturing, the triplets grew quickly. From pink blobs of flesh with eyes closed, they turned into beautiful little chicks with soft yet strong wings, yellow beaks, and the most shiny black eyes.

The nest suddenly became full of activities - the parent birds' coming and going multiple times as they brought food and groomed their babies, the chicks scrambling over each other in their eagerness to get ahead, and plenty of cheeps as the siblings moved around, perhaps flapping their new-found wings.

And before we realised, on the last morning of June, all three of them flew out, one after another. We could catch only one of them in flight, on camera.

It was the happiest and most heartwarming sight to watch the sunbird chicks take wing. With their pretty plumage all bright, the chicks flew away to new beginnings.

We marvelled at the intricacies of nature, and at how clean these tiny birds had left the nest. As we became empty nesters, albeit with our hearts full! ❤️❤️❤️

Recap: Mar & Apr 09

To continue with the recap...

Mar09:


As the school session was to end this month and the kids' would get a week off, we decided this was the best time to make the final move.


But before that there were such long lists of things to buy for the new house.



Result: Shopping Frenzy!



I am not much of a shopaholic but this one month I shopped like crazy. That we had quite a few exhibitions on only propelled my mad consumerist soul to go all out. I visited the Dastkaar Haat which was really, really good. You can read about it here.



Then I stocked up on bedspreads, cushion covers and god-knows-what-else from a handloom exhibition at Pragati Maidan.



End Result: Excellent Retail Therapy! :)


So loaded with all the recently purchased goodies, on the 28th we landed at the new house all bag and baggage. Was it a coincidence that the radio played that old number Final Countdown by Europe as we drove towards our new home!!!



Me and hubby had a good laugh over this; this really was the final countdown, the final move.

Apr09:

This one month passed by in such a rush. Trying to adjust to the new life at a new place. Falling into the paces at a redefined tempo.


But the fact that we had moved into a relatively sububrban setting from the mad city rush somehow soothed our senses. We finally had time to stop and smell the flowers, at least over the weekends.


We had the time to go out for walks. I resumed my reading after years. This was just the wonderful life we had wanted.... touchwood! :)

Recap: Jan & Feb 09

Here's a recap of the past few months while I was away from this blog.

Jan09:

The beginning of the year saw us take the first concrete step towards turning the new house into a home. We moved our existing furniture on the 19th and ordered for some new furniture on the 25th.

Pictures of the sample furniture in the store display.

Feb09:

The smallest month of the year turned out to be big for us! We decided to spend the Valentine weekend in the new house, amidst all the chaos of unsettled furniture and a half-arranged kitchen. But the effort was well worth it. We got a first-hand taste of how life in the new place would be when we move, and realised that two things were essential to stay in this neighbourhood - a phone and a car.


My daughter catches up on some food in the midst of royal chaos.

So we promptly brought home our new car on the 19th and that sure brought a lot of smiles on the kids' faces. :)


As I went out for a ride in the new car on the 20th, the postman handed me a parcel from the US. Guess what? My pansy drawing that I have written about here had finally arrived! Didn't I tell you Feb was a big month...


We also shopped around for curtains and cushions for the living room and got some fab deals since the sales were on. Some of our new furniture was delivered towards the end of the month but that turned out to be a mixed bag. While the sofas seemed fine, the beds were not quite what I wanted.

And thereby hangs another tale that I'll cover in detail in a future post on this blog.