Day 170

This is quite shameful. I had decided to post many times, but kept putting it off.

Days and weeks have gone into an interesting cycle. 

Days when I get a bus immediately in the morning and manage to catch the evening bus too and it's empty and the driver is super fast. Other days when the morning bus comes half an hour late and drives so slow that the trees have grown an extra ring and days that I miss the bus in the evening too. 

Days when things are a bit relaxed at work and I get to catch up on new music and have time to read. Other days when there are busy crazy deadlines and hours of extra work late into the night (and early into the morning once too).

Days when we cook up a storm at home- desserts and juices and multiple course meals and other evenings when we feel so blah and drag ourselves into the kitchen half asleep.

Some days I have the energy to read, to catch up on my online courses and to be productive and many days I scroll up and down my Facebook news feed all evening. 

And yet in all routine and mundane weeks of hot sultry afternoons and rainy nights, I still love it here. There are still so many exciting things in the middle of blah days. Here are some I can remember from the past 3 weeks.

- This morning I saw a snake in my loooong wait at the bus stop. It slithered into the gutter just a few feet away. Happened too fast for my brain to tell me to be scared.  

- Two weeks ago did a measured drawing in an old building and in the middle of our snooping and scavenging through the massive house, we found some old black and white pictures. 

- We went for the production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' Was so awesome. Such great singers and a pretty solid show.

- The weekend following that, we did a musical marathon that continued into the week. Watched Evita, Rent, Mama Mia, Fiddler on the Roof, Moulin Rouge, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Annie. Had my fill of singing. Was great!

- I always look forward to weekends. Now a days they are extra special because of the Christmas programme practices. Choir and the play and lots of music in general. 

:)

November is going to be a busy month. I have trips being planned and friends visiting and beaches to look forward to. Cannot wait. 

Day 150

I took a bit of a break from blogging.

After my Mum left things got a bit busy at work. Deadlines and such. My aunt was here for a week too and then in the middle of things, I knocked out 'update blog' from my schedule. 

Rewinding time a bit to when my Mum was here. We spent a day in Kandy. We visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth and the rainy weather actually made it so much more beautiful. There was some sort of baby dedication day and hence were plenty of families with little babies at the temple. Was quite lovely.

All roads in Kandy lead up to the lake in the centre. We loved the scenic drive through town and around the lake. Apart from the temple, the other thing on our 'to-see' list was the British Garrison cemetery. People would probably consider us a bit morbid, but I have this thing for epitaphs (my Mum does to).

The cemetery tucked behind the temple complex and a little walk uphill had a little under 200 graves going back as far as 1817, dotted between Frangipani trees. Apart from the many depressing child graves many from the same family affected by various epidemics, there were some interesting ones too. One in particular was the grandson of the author of the hymn, 'Abide With Me'. The three of us after many failed attempts and tonnes of giggling sang the hymn at his grave. :) 

Here's another that caught my attention: He was the 7th and last recorded death of a European killed by a wild elephant.

We ended the day watching quite a grand display of Kandian dances at the cultural centre. We were treated to a variety of performances from graceful peacock moves to the contrasting energetic masked dances of the spirits along with drums and tamborines and balancing poles and the grand finale of fire breathing and hot coal walking. 

I really need to finish sorting through the pictures from this trip (as well as the rest of the South African trip ones. sigh)

Her trip was so short, but still really enjoyed 4 days with my Mum- talking, watching movies, cooking for her, shopping and showing her around Colombo.

Other highlights from the past 2 weeks:

1. We have an oven and a blender. The mothers visits came with many gifts of which the oven and blender were the most exciting. So far, we've already baked apple pie, cinnamon cookies, apple crumble and chocolate cake. Fun times ahead.

2. The church picnic. We spent quite a nice Sunday at Hanwela with the church gang. How I've missed swimming.

3. Choir practices. I love that we get to start Christmas excitement early by researching Christmas music for the choir and the play. So much fun.

Speaking of music, I've decided to start a new post type on my other blog to feature new music that I come across. Here's the first one of the series: New Music 01