The weekend that was

So went our christmas extended to anniversary weekend....It was totally fun, except for the return journey. Ahem! We'll come to the bad parts later...

We drove( figuratively of course, i am addicted to the passenger seat. Wouldn't trade that for anything) about six hours, including the one hour we spend chasing V to make him eat breakfast.

Till we were about 20 km from Mahabaleshwar, we were pretty convinced that it could not be as cold as we were told. The sun was blazing, the car Ac was full on, and we were hoping for a winter break?? But lo behold, it.was. cold. The temp suddenly dropped, and Mahabaleshwar was everything that we were told it would be. And yes, it was teeming with people. Half of mumbai seemed to have descended there.

Nevertheless, it was worth the travel. We had two good days roaming, including the famed temples, the breathtaking( heartstopping, is more like it) views from the various points, went boating, and horsing(as V says it), ate all sundry stuff and bought a lot of stuff from the MAPRO farm- like three months worth of jams, crushes, jellies etc.

Personal highs-

- Having TB feed V three times a day, for two days straight. I loooved it. I could totally do another trip to see that. He was completely papa's boy.
- Watching a strawberry garden, and real strawberries( please pardon if i sound completely over the top here- i grew up pretty convinced that strawberry picking was some exotic thing that only children outside india did). I took pictures of strawberries- red , green and all shades. I have hereby gotten oven strawberry madness. And yes, we also has strawberries and cream, like every faithful who comes here.
- Admiring the baby radishes and baby carrots that lines every road. I was sooo tempted to buy all of them.
- Singing along with the car radio, and teaching V the lyrics of " We will, we will rock you"
- Complete lack of mobile network. Ha ha....there was not even one signal bar where we stayed. And there was peace.

Some revelations over the weekend

- I am completely out of form, half a day to all the points , and i was panting like a dog!
- V has inherited a lot of habits from my dad, inclusing a very irritating one of not using the pot when outside his home. He waited till we got back home to do his thing!
- V has motion sickness. He thereby joins the ranks of his mother and grandmother who consider antihistamines among world greatest discoveries.
- I still remain incapable of riding a horse, or rowing a boat, or driving a car. Hmmm! Maybe i should include this into a new year list?
- If ever one needs a romantic holiday, one should find alternate accomodation plans for child.
Child+ Romantic destination= Not happening. Am glad we figured this one out before we plan on a romantic escapade.


The anniversary itself was very eventful, where my stomach and my intestines gave up and had a field day. I was up from 4 AM, emptying the contents of my stomach. Considering the long drive, i had a ' lomotil' and did not have a single drop of water. Despite that,we stopped several times and i threw up( or tried to, rather).
V joined the club and threw up all over his dress. We changed his dress, cleaned up, started,and he threw up again!. Between me and V, poor TB made several stops,i was pretty convinced he would stop and ask " Ok, whose turn is it now?" after some time. He held his fort and got us home very quickly.

We managed to go to the temple and thank god for making sure we have not killed each other by now, and making a petition that it stays that way for the next 50 years.

Then we went to the hospital and and told the doctor all about my stomach and intestines giving up on me. Went home feeling better courtesy one injection and several medicines. The doc called it hyper acidity, and lectured me on skipping meals. TB calls it stupidity- all it needed was one Omez, he says.
Anyways, i now have 3 days worth of disgusting medicines to have, that should put my digestive system back on track.

All in all, a very memorable anniversary, and a weekend that we totally enjoyed. Some pictures from the trip are here.....


V at our place of stay....they had lovely gardens all around..

Father and son walking in the cold night( bad lighting, i know..)

Yay..strawberries!!

And some more strawberries....

Off to catch a nip in the air...

We are running far away from the mumbai madness for our anniversary....and enjoy a little bit of winter.

Agenda also includes introducing V to horse rides and strawberry picking

More about the trip and pictures when we come back:-)

Just some stuff about our life

Realized that i completely missed talking about of extended , eventful weekend. it was... very eventful.

TB and myself had taken the weekend off to show dad around the city. We went on a long drive to Lonavala on thursday. It was such a pleasure to get out of sveltering mumbai. We even had fog on the way back!Bought loads of chikki for the family and candies for son( and father, though he'll never admit that in public- remind me to tell his colleagues in the next party).
We came home by early evening and V started a temp. Got worse over night..i was dreading the convulsions and kept sponging him. Ran to the doc, who promptly told us to keep him home.
That was it!All our grand plans down the drain!

Adventurous couple we are, took the feverish, recovering child along for a small trip since we were feeling too guilty of having left dad all by himself last few days. V came home and crashed. The kid could take no more. The crash helped..he woke up the next day all bright and smiley, so we did most of our pre planned trips then. After a long, exhaustive day spent on the road/ rail and sea...V 's fever showed up again!!And he stayed home for the next two days..recuperating( theoretically..the term really does not apply to kids of his age).

I'll take a minute here and retrospect. Quite a lot of people will find it completely unacceptable that we carted around a not so well child for two days since we wanted to travel. Does that make us bad parents? I knew it was risky, but hey, we know where to draw the line...Moreover , i'd rather him have a not so protected life. Bad parents? Never! Risk takers? Sure, but planned one's. I''m just justifying our actions here. In case anybody is even remotely interested.

Back to other stuff..................
The next day morning, we dropped of dad at the airport for an early flight. We had to promise V bumper car rides to keep him from being a stowaway. He was even ready to sit inside his bag and go, if dad would as much agree with a nod. Well, bribery always works at this age, and we still have our kid at home:-)
Having a kid at home can be very useful when you need help ....

"s'il vous plaît répondre à mes commis de cuisine"( please meet my commis chef)




He's a fantastic commis, till he discovers that objectionable black thingie with buttons mom had hidden away!!!

Then he is of no help...he turns deaf and non existent in this house...."ye ther,c'mon fella..we've lots of work to do"



I swear i could almost hear him say" buzz off!"

Some other day...more about that "black thingie" slowly taking over my life.