It is the war of the pigeons. The locals are trying to move in. My balcony has become the target. Each morning I get up each morning to the sound of nest building. There is a very nice niche on my balcony, perfect for a nest. I find sticks and feathers there each morning, and each morning I carefully remove them. These pigeons are persistent, they do not get the message.
I am a nature lover, I would never interfere with a nest normally and if I found a fully constructed nest I would not touch it. But, they are so damned noisy. They are very welcome to build a nest anywhere except where they can wake me at dawn. They usually wake me anyway, but if I let them nest there it is a guaranteed wake up call every morning. I just can let them take a foothold, I would never be able to get rid of them.
And they trample my flowers.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Pigeon Porn and Spiders
I like to sleep on the balcony, it is very comfortable at night, due to the cool night breeze. I prefer this to the air conditioning and fan inside which cause me to wake up with a stuffy nose and gummy eyes. Sleeping on the balcony, I have learned has Its drawbacks too. For one thing there are the pigeons. The balcony is enclosed, it has a roof and windows all around, outside the windows are black security grid that form a nice platform for my flowers. This part has a metal roof that serves a nice dance floor for the pigeons. It is also pigeon mating season and they like to get down and dirty on the dance floor. Dawn seems to be an auspicious time for pigeon porn. The next drawback, I learned the night before last, is spiders. I awoke, about three in the morning, hot and bothered with pain in my right arm and leg. It looks like the summer is now too hot to sleep on the balcony anymore. But anyway, I awoke to find my right hand and foot had doubled in size, and my elbow and knee were burning in pain. I found two angry lumps, on on my forearm and one on my thigh. I thought mozzies, but then remembered that mozzies don't normally have this drastic an impact. I took two anti-histamines and turned on the AC and waited to see what would happen. I fell asleep, but awoke the next day to discover the swelling and pain had gone. I mentioned this to a friend yesterday and he said it sounded like I was bitten by a spider. I can only hope my sister Siobhan never learns of this, as it would surely mean her never visiting the country, never mind the flat!
The little monster
I have become one of those girls who squeals at bugs, I hate it! I was happily asleep as usual the other night, when I was awoken by a gentle tickling on my leg. This in itself is unusual as I sleep like the dead and a loud explosion would not wake me normally. I opened my eyes and instead of scratching the spot, I looked down. I saw the biggest cockroach imaginable making his way up my leg. He was big, really big. This cockroach would not fit comfortably inside a cigarette box and he was taking a stroll up my left thigh. I screamed and jumped and promptly fell off my bed in my panic. The monster, ran up the curtain. I tried to get him into a tupperware box that was at hand, I recently emptied it of tasty biscuits. I failed miserable at this, because as soon as the beast moved, I screamed and fell off the bed again. So I did what women the world over do to my scorn, I reached for my phone and called my boyfriend. He answered blearily and I garbled something about a bug the size of a kitten in my bed and he did what boyfriends the world over do, he laughed and said, 'kill it'. This course of action had not actually occurred to me. The sheer size of the thing prevented me from realising that it was just a bug, and I could, in reality, kill it. Of course as if it had read my murderous thoughts the animal hid inside the timbers of my bed. Damn. Now what do I do. I thought for a moment and then ran to get the bug spray. I would smoke him out! Ha! So I sprayed and sat cross-legged in the centre of my bed waiting, spray in one hand, shoe in the other, just waiting for him to come out so I could get him with the shoe. Thus I waited for four hours. Four hours in a state of cat like readiness. Twitching at every noise. Four hours, from One to Five am and the little bastard never came out. I slept on the balcony.
I think you ought to know, I'm feeling very depressed.
I am recovering from a particularly nasty belly bug, I really believe I have expelled my own bodyweight in sweat, vomit and ... well, you can imagine the rest for yourself. I cant seem to physically drink enough to get rid of the dehydration that makes my fingers and toes swell up. (I have monster munch toes! He he he!)
I woke up this morning feeling very depressed, I was bored, feeling a little like a failure that I still haven't managed to get myself a job and doubting my ability to ever get one. Generally feeling very sorry for myself. I have several to do lists, sticky notes and such things full of things to fill my time, but do I do any of them? Of course not. This mornings depression shook me a little. The prospect of lying on my bed for the whole day complaining silently about the pain in my back (the back pain is actually caused by my lying in bed all day, by the way) and listening to Harry Potter Audiobooks, (Read by Stephen Fry, I love them!) was not at all inviting. Leaving the house is not an inviting prospect either. It is very hot here during the day, I'm still not in the whole of my health and I believe one hour outside could require drinking vomit inducing amounts of water to restore my feet to normal proportions.
So I decided to do some things I have been putting off. I called three people I have been in touch with about getting a job. I have been putting off these phone calls, not really wanting to admit this to myself, because I am afraid they wont work out well. This all ties in with the confidence crisis induced by living in a place that sometimes feels so alien and inhospitable I can't go outside to buy a picture frame alone, let alone do anything remotely productive like get a job, a flat, a bank account, health insurance etc. Also the small matter of getting fired from my last job, I thought I was doing spectacularly well, then they went and fired me without an explanation. This tends to lead to a certain level of self doubt.
Anyway, I called three people and made two appointments for tomorrow and the third guy is calling me back. How encouraging! (Maybe I am not so useless, at face value?) Of course, if and when I do get a job I will have to deal with this fear and self doubt all over again, no matter how well I do, I will always wonder, will they fire me again? But that is for another day, I have to get a job before they can fire me, don't I?
I woke up this morning feeling very depressed, I was bored, feeling a little like a failure that I still haven't managed to get myself a job and doubting my ability to ever get one. Generally feeling very sorry for myself. I have several to do lists, sticky notes and such things full of things to fill my time, but do I do any of them? Of course not. This mornings depression shook me a little. The prospect of lying on my bed for the whole day complaining silently about the pain in my back (the back pain is actually caused by my lying in bed all day, by the way) and listening to Harry Potter Audiobooks, (Read by Stephen Fry, I love them!) was not at all inviting. Leaving the house is not an inviting prospect either. It is very hot here during the day, I'm still not in the whole of my health and I believe one hour outside could require drinking vomit inducing amounts of water to restore my feet to normal proportions.
So I decided to do some things I have been putting off. I called three people I have been in touch with about getting a job. I have been putting off these phone calls, not really wanting to admit this to myself, because I am afraid they wont work out well. This all ties in with the confidence crisis induced by living in a place that sometimes feels so alien and inhospitable I can't go outside to buy a picture frame alone, let alone do anything remotely productive like get a job, a flat, a bank account, health insurance etc. Also the small matter of getting fired from my last job, I thought I was doing spectacularly well, then they went and fired me without an explanation. This tends to lead to a certain level of self doubt.
Anyway, I called three people and made two appointments for tomorrow and the third guy is calling me back. How encouraging! (Maybe I am not so useless, at face value?) Of course, if and when I do get a job I will have to deal with this fear and self doubt all over again, no matter how well I do, I will always wonder, will they fire me again? But that is for another day, I have to get a job before they can fire me, don't I?
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Indo Irish Christmas
So, I know its March now, but I'm catching up!
Christmas this year was great! First off, Johnny and Lindsey (my brother and his wife) came home for a week before Christmas, they were in great form, dealing with the cold! Mum and Dad were made up, all of us home at once! We had ‘Christmas Dinner’ early, about a week before the actual day. The whole family was there, and Granny arrived later too.
Johnny and Lindsey were due to leave on Christmas Eve, so they could be back in San Diego for Christmas with her family, and Sid was due to arrive the day before Christmas Eve. I was very excited, I had not seen Sid since my abrupt departure from India in October and I missed him terribly. I couldn’t wait for him to meet the family, see where I grew up and generally introduce him to Ireland.
I called him as he was leaving for Mumbai, the first leg of his journey. He was to fly to Dubai, then London then Dublin. He made it to Dubai. He went to check in to the London flight and was told his visa wasn’t right and he would not be let into the UK, even though he was a transit passenger and he had transited through London a few weeks before, this time he needed a different visa. Aggggghhhhh!
So he went to Frankfurt, the Germans are not so anal with the transit visas. At this point I was distraught. I was afraid he would be sent back to India, or get stuck in Germany or worse get arrested for being in Germany with no visa! But no need for the distress, he arrived safe and whole in Dublin only twelve hours later than expected. After a long fretful wait in the arrivals hall, imagining all kinds of terrible things with the immigration authorities, we had a happy, tearful reunion!
Unfortunately due to the giggery pokery with the flights, his bag got left in Frankfurt. (Has anyone seen ‘Meet the parents’?) So we had to swing by Tescos on the way home, it was late and tescos is open 24 hours, to pick up some essentials, fully expecting the bag to arrive on the next day. Ha!
Anyway, he was here and that was all that mattered to me! He had brought a little bit of Indian life with him, we realised when we had no water the next morning! The water was gone for different reasons than in India, the pipes were frozen outside. We got on with it anyway, and started to relax into Christmas, while also making numerous calls trying to locate his bag and trying to convince him that a shopping centre was the last place we wanted to go on Christmas Eve morning. (He wanted to get some clothes) The weather was Baltic! Icy cold with roads to match. I had fun telling him that everything will be closed on Christmas day, he didn’t believe a word! He couldn’t grasp the concept that everything would shut down, even the airport, The Airport! How? Why?
Christmas Day dawned bright clear and beautiful, there was a heavy white frost that coated everything and turned Kildare into an Icy wonderland! We had no water again, but no matter we can get by! We went off down to Granny's house, as is our custom, for tea, cocktail sausages, brown bread and something stronger. The place was packed with family, and Sid did a great job as the newcomer. Mark, my mildly autistic nephew, spotted Sid immediately, he stood in front of him, pointed his finger at him and asked the room in a loud voice, “Who is that man?”.
I told him, this is Sid, he is my boyfriend and he is from India. Mark has a huge amount of curiosity, this combined with his loud voice and lack of social skills made for a very funny encounter. Sid was solid as Mark bombarded him with questions such as “are you christian or muslim?” and “what are the main differences between Arabs and Indians, skin tone, religion or culture?”.
What do you say to that, on Christmas morning in a foreign country in the bosom of someone else's family! I have to hand it to Mark, he asked all of the questions everybody wanted the answers to but were afraid to ask. Intelligent questions too. He would have been there for hours had his mum not come to rescue Sid! Mark came by the house later in the visit to question Sid some more about India and the world in general. As I said he is an intensely curious young man!
Anyway, we left Grannys house, full to bursting of sausages and brown bread, paid a visit to the graveyard, as is not our custom, but we did it anyway as I had made wreaths for Grandad and Granny Swords. Turns out it was Sids first visit to a graveyard, he enjoyed it immensely! It is a pretty graveyard.
We arrived home, and dinner was started. It didn’t get going though, as the electricity went with a bang, leaving us ovenless. Damn.
The turkey was half cooked, having been on since morning. We waited and tried to find out what happened. We discovered, through phone calls, ESB maintenance van spottings and gossip that the transformer in the field next door blew up. damn damn. The word was that they had to go into Dublin to get another one, the roads were icing up fast and it would be at least four hours before the power was back.
Luckily my sister, who lives next door, still had power. So after several trips across the garden with various oven dishes of turkey, spuds and stuffing, the dinner was ready! There were Mum, Dad, Richie, Penny, Donny( Penny’s Brother), Granny, Sid and Myself. We had a lovely candle-light dinner and we were mildly disappointed when the power came back half way through! Siobhan and family arrived just in time for desert, as is their custom and we all exchanges gifts. The kids were in great form, and we were in great form, the wine was flowing along with the laughter.
It will go down as one of the best Christmas Days!
Christmas this year was great! First off, Johnny and Lindsey (my brother and his wife) came home for a week before Christmas, they were in great form, dealing with the cold! Mum and Dad were made up, all of us home at once! We had ‘Christmas Dinner’ early, about a week before the actual day. The whole family was there, and Granny arrived later too.
Johnny and Lindsey were due to leave on Christmas Eve, so they could be back in San Diego for Christmas with her family, and Sid was due to arrive the day before Christmas Eve. I was very excited, I had not seen Sid since my abrupt departure from India in October and I missed him terribly. I couldn’t wait for him to meet the family, see where I grew up and generally introduce him to Ireland.
I called him as he was leaving for Mumbai, the first leg of his journey. He was to fly to Dubai, then London then Dublin. He made it to Dubai. He went to check in to the London flight and was told his visa wasn’t right and he would not be let into the UK, even though he was a transit passenger and he had transited through London a few weeks before, this time he needed a different visa. Aggggghhhhh!
So he went to Frankfurt, the Germans are not so anal with the transit visas. At this point I was distraught. I was afraid he would be sent back to India, or get stuck in Germany or worse get arrested for being in Germany with no visa! But no need for the distress, he arrived safe and whole in Dublin only twelve hours later than expected. After a long fretful wait in the arrivals hall, imagining all kinds of terrible things with the immigration authorities, we had a happy, tearful reunion!
Unfortunately due to the giggery pokery with the flights, his bag got left in Frankfurt. (Has anyone seen ‘Meet the parents’?) So we had to swing by Tescos on the way home, it was late and tescos is open 24 hours, to pick up some essentials, fully expecting the bag to arrive on the next day. Ha!
Anyway, he was here and that was all that mattered to me! He had brought a little bit of Indian life with him, we realised when we had no water the next morning! The water was gone for different reasons than in India, the pipes were frozen outside. We got on with it anyway, and started to relax into Christmas, while also making numerous calls trying to locate his bag and trying to convince him that a shopping centre was the last place we wanted to go on Christmas Eve morning. (He wanted to get some clothes) The weather was Baltic! Icy cold with roads to match. I had fun telling him that everything will be closed on Christmas day, he didn’t believe a word! He couldn’t grasp the concept that everything would shut down, even the airport, The Airport! How? Why?
Christmas Day dawned bright clear and beautiful, there was a heavy white frost that coated everything and turned Kildare into an Icy wonderland! We had no water again, but no matter we can get by! We went off down to Granny's house, as is our custom, for tea, cocktail sausages, brown bread and something stronger. The place was packed with family, and Sid did a great job as the newcomer. Mark, my mildly autistic nephew, spotted Sid immediately, he stood in front of him, pointed his finger at him and asked the room in a loud voice, “Who is that man?”.
I told him, this is Sid, he is my boyfriend and he is from India. Mark has a huge amount of curiosity, this combined with his loud voice and lack of social skills made for a very funny encounter. Sid was solid as Mark bombarded him with questions such as “are you christian or muslim?” and “what are the main differences between Arabs and Indians, skin tone, religion or culture?”.
What do you say to that, on Christmas morning in a foreign country in the bosom of someone else's family! I have to hand it to Mark, he asked all of the questions everybody wanted the answers to but were afraid to ask. Intelligent questions too. He would have been there for hours had his mum not come to rescue Sid! Mark came by the house later in the visit to question Sid some more about India and the world in general. As I said he is an intensely curious young man!
Anyway, we left Grannys house, full to bursting of sausages and brown bread, paid a visit to the graveyard, as is not our custom, but we did it anyway as I had made wreaths for Grandad and Granny Swords. Turns out it was Sids first visit to a graveyard, he enjoyed it immensely! It is a pretty graveyard.
We arrived home, and dinner was started. It didn’t get going though, as the electricity went with a bang, leaving us ovenless. Damn.
The turkey was half cooked, having been on since morning. We waited and tried to find out what happened. We discovered, through phone calls, ESB maintenance van spottings and gossip that the transformer in the field next door blew up. damn damn. The word was that they had to go into Dublin to get another one, the roads were icing up fast and it would be at least four hours before the power was back.
Luckily my sister, who lives next door, still had power. So after several trips across the garden with various oven dishes of turkey, spuds and stuffing, the dinner was ready! There were Mum, Dad, Richie, Penny, Donny( Penny’s Brother), Granny, Sid and Myself. We had a lovely candle-light dinner and we were mildly disappointed when the power came back half way through! Siobhan and family arrived just in time for desert, as is their custom and we all exchanges gifts. The kids were in great form, and we were in great form, the wine was flowing along with the laughter.
It will go down as one of the best Christmas Days!
Indian Security
I am sitting in a coffee shop in a mall close to my house. My flat is being de-bugged by two very friendly pest control guys, so I am spending most of my day here, happily drinking cold coffees and doing bits of work.
There are security guards at the doors into every place now, especially at places frequented by westerners such as myself.
Since a bomb exploded in a popular western food joint in the city, not far from here, killing 11 and injuring many more, security has been ramped up and there are now additional guards and in depth ‘bag checks’ everywhere.
I recently ate in the Hard Rock Cafe, here in Pune and to gain entry I had to fill in a security log, name, phone number, photo ID type, passport number, company name and nationality. I had to produce said photo ID for inspection and smile for a security camera as well as have my handbag and pockets searched. These measures would be a good thing if the people doing the searches had any training, or the information given checked in any way. I could write any number, name, nationality in the log because the guy there didn't even look at the picture in my passport, never mind checking the number against the one I wrote in the book!
As I write this, I have two bags with me, both are full of electronic equipment, cables and thick books. the guards at the door looked into both and didn’t even ask what they were.
How nice it would be if we could have confidence in the security provided for our ‘comfort and safety’.
There are security guards at the doors into every place now, especially at places frequented by westerners such as myself.
Since a bomb exploded in a popular western food joint in the city, not far from here, killing 11 and injuring many more, security has been ramped up and there are now additional guards and in depth ‘bag checks’ everywhere.
I recently ate in the Hard Rock Cafe, here in Pune and to gain entry I had to fill in a security log, name, phone number, photo ID type, passport number, company name and nationality. I had to produce said photo ID for inspection and smile for a security camera as well as have my handbag and pockets searched. These measures would be a good thing if the people doing the searches had any training, or the information given checked in any way. I could write any number, name, nationality in the log because the guy there didn't even look at the picture in my passport, never mind checking the number against the one I wrote in the book!
As I write this, I have two bags with me, both are full of electronic equipment, cables and thick books. the guards at the door looked into both and didn’t even ask what they were.
How nice it would be if we could have confidence in the security provided for our ‘comfort and safety’.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The run up to Christmas
As you may know, I had to leave India fairly abruptly due to visa issues arising from my previous boss not wanting me to work anymore. So home I went, back to a life of playing with my sisters babies, eating all round me, attempting to learn Hindi and generally having an easy time of it. I got another Visa with no real drama or hardship, caught up with some old friends and planned for my happy return to Indian soil.
To make my return less stressful I decided to embark on a little enterprise making and selling holly wreaths, as my sister has done for years. I hoped to make enough to pay for a few months rent and some other set up costs, so I aimed to make 100 wreaths and sell them at 15 Euro each over a weekend just before Christmas. So after a good few cold hours in the garage, a few trips to the canal bank to liberate some holly and two trips to a florist supply shop, I ended up making 80 very nice wreaths if I may say so myself!
To sell them, I packed up Mums car, (thanks Mum!) and took over my sisters regular spot on the side of the road in a nearby town. 5 days I spent sitting in sub zero temperatures trying to sell the dam things. I started out hopeful, but my sister had warned me that day one is always slow. Not one did I sell on day one, only 5 on day two and after dropping my price to 12 Euro, six on day three.
Day four, a Saturday, brought a surprise in the form of another seller! Another girl arrived and set up at the other end of the bus stop! The cheek! She was selling wreaths too, but not holly wreaths. she put up a sign saying ‘only 10 euro’, bitch! So I dropped my price to 10 Euro. It worked out very well for me, people saw her, slowed down and pulled up to me! I sold about 30, and I think half were due to her!
One woman even stopped and while looking at my wreaths said:
‘competition for you there’
‘not really’, I said ‘she has no holly in hers, and anyway me and my sister have been selling here for 20 years, we get the odd competition now and again but they never last’
‘Well’, she said, ‘in that case I’ll take two from you!’
I was delighted! It warmed my heart, but not as much as when various family members arrived to let me run off and pee! Mum even brought me chicken soup! I got so cold during those days that when I got home in the evenings my whole body hurt to warm up. It was like a full body bruise.
It was all worth it when I took my hard earned bundle of cash to the bank!
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