Work of a picture capturer!

When my husband wanted to prove that he was a better picture-capturer [not photographer..]   than me..

 

 

When you compete with yourself....

Being a working woman, I am desperate to prove myself more than above satisfactory in home as well as in office. And as always, when we want to excel in both fields together there needs to be certain adjustments in both places. But I cant take it to myself excuses for not being best in home as well as in office.

Inspired by Shail and Sab, I am posting picture-proof of my  developed culinary skills.. we had visitors this evening for dinner, and this is what I prepared for them! A 100% kerala meal. They told they wanted veg , so I went for it,first. Later they told they can have non veg too, so I made "unakkameen"(dry fish) fry, when they were in the living room...

 

..our very own kerala sambar....

 

..beans "mezhukkupuratti"

 

..carrot "thoran"

 

.."paavakka varuthathu"... this bittergourd fry, I made the hard way.. not using readymade dry ones.. with fresh bittergourd i fried it after mixing it with greenchillies, salt and onion for 2-3 hrs.....

 

..this "unakkameen fry"(dry fish fry), I made it after they came, when they told they are OK with fish....

 

..This was our visitor  1 yr old, OM... while his parents ate, he slept on my shoulders....i was thankful that they could literally "eat" the result of my efforts w/o him bothering them... and he was damn co-operative with me, for sleeping..

 

..and finally this humble cook, with all the satisfactory smile all over the face...

NOTE: my alterations--->In sambar, i replaced chena(yam), chembu, muringakka, padavalanga, vendakka (ladys finger)  with potato, parsnip and carrot ..as kerala vegetables are not available here... my hubby doesnt even know that i use parsnip in sambar LOL!! it looks like chena,in sambar .

 

Test Result!

OK, I passed the provisional test with 40/40.. But in the eye test followed, I failed when I proved myself that I am blind... 1.5 (short sight) along  with astigmatism.. great.. to start with,  lost 225 € for specs....now i have to sign, that i will use corrective lenses always..

The vails of a confused DESI driver..

For past 1 month, i was sitting at my desk in MARCONI- G8(ok,now thats the way here all cabins are named, after all those telecom guys!!!), swatting flies (or you can say counting minutes, as flies are rare in ireland). And suddenly the work load dropped into my head yesterday like a bolt (a very heavy one) from the blue.Now all my team mates are also gropping in the dark, which doesnt make me and them any different (lol, and i have been thinking that i am the only dumb one, here!). Isnt it a good feeling that u have company, who are as ignorant as u r or may be more than u..

I was debugging and chatting (as part of multitasking) when i suddenly bumped into one fix which we were chasing for a while (to be precise which was chasing us ), and imagine what!!! i was stuck till 9 pm here.. Yeeeekkk.... Is this the reward for "working"???? if i had sat idle and just ignored the fix pass in front of my eyes...(he he he.. Sometimes i do that....) i would have been in better situation... I reached home at 9:30 pm and my dear hubby was waiting for me (he is on leave this whole week... So its complete role reveral for us... I come late and he is there waiting for me.. Wow.. What a pleasure!!! and yesterday he cooked too...). I must call my mom and tell her this... I wonder if she ask my dad to do this for her...

This is the advantage of being in a foreign place, alone. Hubbies have less ego and seem more co-operative than they are in homeland.

Tomorrow i have my driving test for provisional license. I dont know anything about all those different road signs that we see here in ireland. Especially the one seen in motorways... There are lots of ways here like freeway, motorway and i dont know what all ways...... India never had these 'n' ways...There everything was "free"-way i suppose.

And another thing is seatbelt... The fine here for not wearing seatbelt is 100€... And in india its like "helloo... Anybody knows what a seatbelt is????". I must erase every rule i had in my mind while i drove in india nd claer my mind... Hmmm... Still i cant..

Here vehicles always stop for the pedestrians to cross... And they inturn say "thankyou!!"-- which is soooooooooo strange to me. First of all

1) why do the vehicles stop for pedestrians to cross?? (typical indian driver thot!!!!)

2) why do the pedestrians say "thankyou" for that???(typical indian pedestrian thot!!!)

I am just a confused indian driver trying to sort out irish driving from indian driving:

1)why DONT these ppl blow horn at all even in traffic blocks????

2)why DONT they push smaller vehicles into the kurb??

3)why DO they insert parking fees into the machine slot, even if they park for 5 mts?

4) why DONT they curse at each other when someone overtakes?

5)above all from where do this towing machine comes up?

...Oh...Oh..I am so confused..Tomorrow will tell u whether i passed or failed the exam.. I feel its 10:90 for pass:fail...I am so much used to indian driving... cant blame me...

the pass mark is 35/40 ..ISNT IT SO UNFAIR???

 

When tongue goes blah blah blah..

It has been a long while, since I wrote something. After I have started to manage house and work, I dont seem to get time at all, not even to take a regular bath. Now dont say to me that I stink. I am not that bad. Its the climate,here. U tend to hate touching water,unless very necessary cos u never seem to sweat at all.

Anyway that wasnt what I was saying.2 days back I joined orkut. Till then I never knew that such a thing existed (now dont tell me that I am dumb,  besides stinking). There I send an invite to a lady whose profile answers were weird. Yea, I love weird things. And she accepted it,and then only I noticed her name (yes, I am a little careless, too). And I had a hunch she used to study with me in school, and that was 15 yrs ago. I just asked her if she was 'she'. And she told yesssss.And we began to exchange information, frantically. After 2-3 mails she told me that she never expected me to be sooo like this. She used the word 'boisterous' (i didnt even know its meaning till then..) she told: 'u used to be calm and composed'. He he he... And I laughed like hell, after understanding the meaning of 'boisterous.' hmm...

Then I had a flashback of my school days. The used to be calm girl, now turned into one with animal Instincts. My college mates will be saying something else. My school mates, something else. And me ? .I am somewhere In b/w. Not calm and composed and not with so much animal spirits. Amnt I? not sure...

But I wanted to write something and for that I have to arrange the flow of thots and put down into a blog. But with my busy schedule now, I really couldnt. Mainly cos me being a clean-o-freak, it consumes much time. But then I think about Shail, who is a complete housewife with 3 males in the household (i cant even manage one male, I wonder how she manages 3 males and still keep the house clean!!). And I think If she can manage everything and still write beautiful blogs, why cant I. And I feel I am no good. Just using the easy way of posting pictures.. Naaah.. I want to write... Put my thots in order and have time for myself. At least once in 3 days, I must try for that...So let me try..

Our (not new) car!

Yesterday we bought this car..(a very much used Toyota Corolla 1.3 !). But may be bcos of the quality roads here, its in perfect condition(touchwood!).We cant afford brand new cars, in Ireland as new ones r nearly 40,000€). This we could buy without a loan.

Though I have only Indian and International license, I drove it in country side road here(where only my car was on the road.. he he he)... and its right hand drive car (as it is driving-on -the-left here)...just as in India and NOT like in US or any other country.

My driving exam is on this 21...after that (if I pass!!) I will get  Irish provisional license.. and then I can drive, finally... !!!

..and the entrance seen on the back side of the car is our Rinardo House.

Geilic Names!

I just wanted to tell some of the minor problems (which may turn into major ones in the future!) I face in my workplace. My 25 team mates are Irish except for Iwasaki (I hope he is of no relative to the protagonist of 'Memoirs of Geisha', in real life - Mineko Iwasaki ). Anyway my first task was to familiarise with the names of my team mates. The irish names, written as something and pronounced as something else were(are) difficult for me. For eg: Dublin in written as Baile Átha Cliath and Athlone is Ath Luain, in Irish. Me and hubby have funny time, trying to spell and pronounce irish name boards, while we travel. For eg: we had a fight over Inis Oír which turned out that both of us were wrong(which actually meant 'golden island' , an island which is part of Aran Islands). I know Irish ppl must be laughing their heart out when we try to pronounce words in the same way as we read english.

When I first talk to any one, I just try to get their name written in English as they pronouce in Irish. It turned out to be very helpful,cos I will recite it again and again, so as to avoid embarassment both for me and for them. So my team mates include:

Aine - "awn + ye"   my version:'aye-yin'

Ciaran -"care + in" my version:'see-ya-ran'

Ciara - "kee + ra"  my version:'see-ya-ra'

Aidan - "aid + on" my version:'aye-dhan'

Eoin - "ow + en"  my version:'ee-wo-yin'

Niall -"nye + al"  my version:'nile'

..and the list is incomplete…

In fact I am surprised that my name is pronounced corerctly by them 'swa-thi'… impressive!!!

Now isnt it odd that Ireland in irish is written as Éire ???

…and I am still studying….and it seems I have to never stop it..

Some photos to show off...

Just some photos to show off....

On our apartment stairs...

Upstairs, that door visible is our apartment 7,Rinardo...

..as usual courtesy goes to my husband for shooting this...

 

on the left is...Handmade broom from coconut leaves ...

I dont know about other states, but in kerala every single house will have these(for cleaning , ofcourse!!!). And here, in Ireland I find this as a part of interior decoration in every bathroom showhouse I have visited... in kerala, displaying this broom publically is considered a very disgraceful thing to do... and here it has such high status that I wanted to show this to every single keralite who visit my page.. this broom is very costly here and considered as a very valuable item for interior decoration.

..and I was actually thinking to export these brooms from my home and make a fortune here..by the way, pls dont copy this innovative idea...it is specifically patented to me, Swathi Sasidharan!!

to madhoo...who always ask me to SMILE..

 

i just saw this caravan, on the way...

Finally those rabbits!!!

These were the nearest of rabbits I could get !!

I was using full 4x digital zoom...still I couldnt get near them with clarity!!

It took almost 1/2 an hr to get these snaps....

There were some 6 of them, by the time i moved inch by inch, i could get only 3 of them!

Me, inside my cabin, today morning...

Yesterday while my husband was playing with this new mob cam, i was leaning to find out what he was up to, and this was taken accidentally . Both of us didnt know that we took this snap, till we saw it!

My husband, sajeev, who is such a sweet person that he gives up every nice and fresh things for me to use first!! (that includes even new soaps!)

Rabbits!

Today I found one very interesting thing in my office campus...There are brown rabbits in bushes...that too in their natural habitat, almost 25 in number...they  come from the bushes across the expressway and make their burrows inside the campus (btw, its very large and full of bushes)...

Today I went for a walk around the campus and bumped into a rabbit meeting (!). They and myself were stunned for a second and they ran like hell...(I didnt, somebody had to run..)

I forgot to take my mob-cam, else would have got their snaps too ;-)
Let me try tomorrow...have to be careful while visiting them it seems. What if they find my visits annoying and plan to move to another place??

They are not very large, small brown ones..still not very small too...
They are real fast....dont know if I can catch them in my camera, cos they sense my presence much faster than I can even make out theirs...

Wish me luck....to get a snap of at least one...
or else, I may have to try for some more days....

note: the pic has nothing to do with what i wrote....just put it as filler.. ;-))

Cliffs of Moher---Part 1

The Cliffs of Moher & The Burren Way - Part I

Thanks guys alot for all ur wishes and encouragement. The weather was sunny, and I got very good views. As I have nearly 75 photos in today's tour I will break  it up into different parts and post it in coming blogs...

These are the cliffs of Moher, right side view....

The Burren valley...with cows grazing along with sheep....

This I took it, from the very edge of the cliff (they havent provided any barricade!!)

My husband took this, with cliffs on background....the ocean is just behind me, one step deeep....down !!!

Another view....

An old castle on the way....The guide told us the name. But I dont remember. Ireland is filled with castles. Even Athlone has a castle near our home, which was built in some 16th century.

The green valley meets the ocean in the horizon, (on the way to the cliffs)

The green grass and  yellow flowers extending for acres, meeting the blue ocean and blue horizon, the view was wonderful!!

 

The small village down the valley near the ocean....

.....(contd in next blog ...)

note: i dont have a proper camera. this is my sony ericsson v800 mobile phone camera.