When it rains… look for Rainbows When it’s dark… look for Stars If there is a Part I, there has to be at least a Part II. What I didn’t mention in the last post was how big the cottage was. We knew this place sleeps 10 people between the 6 bedrooms. Besides that, there are several other rooms across two different floors. One of our favourite rooms was the one with the ping pong table. It has been a while since we have played table tennis and the bad weather gave us a lot of time to hone those skills. The weather throughout our holiday was pretty lousy with…
Living in a Lighthouse – Part I
It isn’t often that one gets to live in a lighthouse. Ashwina wanted to find out what it feels like to live in one. So, to celebrate her birthday month, she booked us into the Lighthouse Keepers’ Cottage at Lynton, Devon. Getting to the Lighthouse Keepers’ Cottage The Lighthouse Keepers’ cottage is perched on the edge of cliffs in splendid isolation with unrivalled views of the Bristol Channel. On the remote and impressive Foreland Point, the most northerly point in Devon, the cottage sits partway down the cliffs alongside the Lynmouth Foreland Lighthouse that was built in 1900. If you managed to get all the way down to my New…
Happy New Year 2019!
Sitting here on the final day of 2018, I’d like to wish all my regular and irregular readers a Happy New Year 2019. Keeping with my long tradition, here’s my life in review post for 2018. Do you agree with Dilbert’s view on resolutions? I know I’ve barely kept mine from last year. Work Work takes up a significant portion of our lives, mine included. 2018 was a long year for me at work including a tonne of projects, long hours and quite a bit of travel. Life 2018 involved quite a bit of travelling for Ashwina and me. India We started the year with our annual trip to India.…
Closing the holiday with Montreal
Montreal was the last part of our two week holiday in September that began in New York and continued in Canada. We decided to drive from Toronto to Montreal which in retrospect is not for regular train travellers like Ashwina and myself. Two hours into the drive and I realised that I had forgotten the bag which had my laptop, iPad and most importantly my specs and contact lens. If it wasn’t for the latter two, we could have just carried on. However, this big mistake cost us dearly as we had to drive back to Toronto to pick the bag up. We finally made it Montreal late in the…
Niagara Falls 2018
Having spent the first day in Toronto, we set out on Monday to visit Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is less than a two-hour drive from Toronto and so can be visited in a single day. However, my dad got a good deal with the Sheraton Hotel in Niagara Falls so we decided to bunk there for a night. We grabbed lunch in Toronto before heading over to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls clearly is a busy town by the falls complete with several eating joints as well as a casino. Walking by Niagara Falls We settled into our hotel rooms and then headed down to take a walk along the falls.…
Hello Toronto
I posted about New York a few weeks back. And although it has been several months since our visit to Canada, and I’ve been meaning to make a few posts on the time we spent in Toronto, Niagara Falls and Montreal. So, without further ado, a short post on a fun day in Toronto. We reached Toronto on Saturday and went over to Ferdy and Anita’s house for dinner. They live about 20-30 minutes from my dad’s place in Toronto. The drive was not too bad and traffic was limited being a weekend. After a good evening of food, drink and chats, we headed back home. On Sunday, we set…
New York – Views from the Top
I’m back in London and the week has been busier than busy catching up on work. It’s Saturday, so trying to find a time to finish this blog post. My New York diaries continued with meeting Sneha after nearly 10 years. She took me and Ashwina to ABC Kitchen which turned out to have some really good food in well-sized portions. Remains the best food I ate in New York. After the failed attempt to view New York from Top of the Rock, we decided to try again. It seems like many others also had the same idea as we only got tickets for little over an hour later. We…
New York calling!
This year has been a relatively eventful one when it comes to holidays… also expensive! I know I haven’t blogged much about personal life, but this event definitely warrants at least one post as I’ve always wanted to come down for a holiday to New York and this one has eluded me for several years. New York, I’m here! Ashwina and I took our annual holiday to India in March this year. We stayed at the ITC Maratha in Mumbai for more than a week followed by a trip to Mangalore and then Pune. We then had two weddings to attend – one in Athens and the second in Helsinki.…
Happy New Year 2018!
As most good things come to an end, so must 2017. Browsing through my list of posts for the past two years, I realised that I completely missed out a Happy New Year post for 2017. Can’t miss that two years in a row now, can we? 2017 – A Year in Review Life… I began 2017 in India, more specifically being ill in Bangalore where I (as did Ashwina) spent a good portion of the holiday in bed recovering from bad allergy attacks. Apparently I can’t handle the pollen and pollution anymore! At least it got better when I got back to Mumbai where we were soon well enough…
To India
My last long term visit to India was in February-March 2012 for my wedding. Since then, Ashwina and I have travelled to Scotland, Dunwich Heath, Cornwall and Paris. To make a trip to India I really need a perfect timing of decent air fares, long holidays and good weather. Post Christmas 2013 gave us this opportunity. So, we booked our tickets on British Airways, which is pretty much the main airline I use to travel and made our way to Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 on a stormy Friday after a Christmas characterised by strong winds and a small storm. I usually prefer the day flights vs. the red eye because…
