A trip to london, a car, a tv, the library, school and movies!!!!!

Yeah...thats about what we have been upto the past few weeks! Its been a whole lot of fun, getting new stuff and going to new places and putting the kids in school. But what I enjoyed the most was setting up the house! My daily activity would be searching gumtree for all the lovely second hand stuff we can get, and believe me, we got real great deals! We've been selling and reselling a lot of stuff and I am in love with some of the quaint furniture we have got! There is this lovely rattan set, chest of draws, corner table and bedside table which we got for a steal of 25 pounds, and it looks like new! We got another real antique looking pure wood chest of draws that I have converted into a dressing table, well, it does look a bit converted, but cute all the same. Sold off our old book rack and have put a few more items for sale, but no hits so far. Its so much more fun looking at the best deals, figuring out just how far is the person's place and whether the price and the item is worth all that travel and finally getting a good piece home. Its kindof addicting. I am having to drag myself out of gumtree and I thought writing a blog about it will give me a break from the 24x7 perusing of the site!
On other things, we did a trip to london a few weeks back, wanted to name the post.."London trip-part 1", cause thats exactly what it was! We went to my cousins place, had a blast with her family, she has a daughter my twins age and they all freaked out. All four in the tub, tumbling around, eating and spilling around the house and what not! And, we saw.....the london bridge. Thats about it! Took us around 4 hours finish our slow walk across the bridge and by then we were famished. Went to east ham, the Indian quarters of London and ate a full meals at Vasantha Bhawan, karthik was thrilled beyond words. So, I think there must be atleast parts 2 - 6 to finish up a bit of london.
Kids started school last week. They go to the afternoon batch, quite a lot of work for me! Getting them ready, fed and then walking for a good 15 minutes with them in the cold. It takes more than that if they decide to stop and watch the cars going, railway track, signals and other kids on bikes. We do somehow manage to make it in time. Karthik tried it a few days back and he did a hats off for me!! The challenge is in doing all this without blowing off the top. Maybe the kriya helps (meditation is making me a better mom!!). They love the school. Infact, kautu starts asking at around 11..."Amma, why are we not dressing up? We NEED to go to school". Ok, dears, I too am all in favor of you going, though the two hours you are there is hardly a break for me. It takes me another 15 min to walk with baby back, (she sits in her pushchair, thankfully). Then your dad comes home for lunch and by the time he leaves its time for me to started getting ready again to come n pick you up. So, tell me, who is having a better time, you or me? They have milk and a fruit at school and always have milk whiskers when I go to pick them up..looks sooo cute. They come running out and give a big kiss to baby and thrust their days activity paper at me. I then sit down to button up their coats which they have put on by themselves in class, and so its almost always either buttoned up wrong or not at all. Then we all start our long walk home. Only, the coming back takes longer due to either our library visit or the school stories.
And then there was the library membership. Ahhh.. I have been binging on books the past few weeks. Would finish up a book a day and they have such a huge collection (well, its free too, that counts!). We usually go there on the way back from school as said above and the kids sit on the engine in the kids section while I finish up my selections. Then we take a book for them and start back. Got caught in a blizzard last week (full with the snow and wind and all!). Luckily for us we had popped into the library, else would have landed up in no mans land during the blizzard, can't imagine what it would have been like with the kids stranded on the road.
Well, we finally bought a car two weeks back. So, I do drop them to school if its raining or snowing in the car, but I really prefer walking as parking is quite a pain, have to keep doing rounds to see if someone is taking the car out. Car is a boon, and the one we got is quite similar in controls to the one I used to drive in bangalore, so its quite a breeze (esp. the lovely roads and well behaved traffic.). If you can drive in any of the metros in India, you can pretty much drive any where else!

And the movies! Got a 40" tv and a blu ray player, so, its been a movie a day for the past few days..seen revolutionary road, volverine (or is it with a W?), curious case of benjamin button, kung fu panda, hangover (awsome!), knowing (terrible, bah) and more on the way. Kids sleep off at 7.30 these days, so we chill out after that.

Enough of my yak, yak? I'll get on with the snaps.

The leashes are not visible in this snap, but we had two leashes for both the boys which joined their hands with mine! Thats what saved our sanity that day.


Finally, a family snap.


In front of their school .. the first day.


By the river cam, on a sunny day


Feeding the ducks n swans, we all love this! Last week we finished up two entire loafs of bread. You should see how fast the ducks can swim when they want to catch that bit!