The car driving test

I have been learning to drive in this country for over a year(Does that sound too long? Not much if you consider that we are on our own here, and Prashanth works on weekends, so I only get to go when he's at home to take care of the child. Minus the 6 week long vacation to India and a total of 8 weeks off from my instructor on various holidays). I managed to take about 32 lessons when my intructor declared that I was ready to give the test. So I booked the test and awaited the grand day eagerly. We were to have an hours practise before the test and I wasn't too bad during this session. We then went to the test centre, waited for the examiners to arrive.
An elderly examiner came and called out my name. I had requested my instructor to come along with me during the test(this is optional). After the usual eye-check tests, we walked out to the car. I checked with the examiner if my instructor could accompany us. In the car, I was asked a few safety questions about the car(which I had memorized from the book) and then we started. The test itself lasted longer than usual for about 55 minutes. I was told it would be around 35-40 minutes. The test was really difficult going by normal standards as we hit around a dozen or more major roundabouts, hit the motorway twice and drove at around 70mph, went through the dual carriageways(@60 mph) and I thought I would almost fail the test, when I had to turn right at the roundabout, and a long queue of cars were coming from the right. I simply could not move to the right lane, but at the last moment, I somehow managed to squeeze in. Another one that I thought was a major mistake, which turned out to be a minor one was stalling. We were on a slope waiting at a pedestrain signal and when the lights turned green, the car in front of me stalled. It took me a while to realize and I stalled right behind him. I chose the test just after lunch around 2:30 when I thought the roads would be reatively quiet, but that day seemed quite the opposite. I also had to stop twice for school patrols, and wait for children to cross the road. We finally returned to the test centre and I waited for the examiner to reveal the result. I was shocked and surprised when he remarked that "I am pleased to tell you that you have passed the test". I wasn't sure if I had heard it right, but was grinning from ear to ear. After completing a few more formalities/paper-work, I got out of the car and my driving instructor congradulated me. I still could not believe my ears, but kept questioning my instructor, who remarked that all my blunders were minor and although I was not satisfied with the test myself - it was definitely not one of my best trips - I have passed the driving test. Yaaay!!!

Pa's birthday

This year Pa's birthday fell on a sunday. And the best part was he was not working - long day or night and was very much at home. So we got to enjoy the day. It fell on the day after our trip to London, so we were pretty tired. Me and amma woke up as usual and went about with our breakfast. Then amma asked me to wake up Pa - as is usually the norm on weekend mornings. She also brought this lovely musical birthday card and gave it to me to gift it to Pa. I opened the card to see what the huge smile on amma's face meant and was pleasantly surprised to hear the 'Happy birthday' song. Amma had been preparing me for over a week about Pa's birthday, but I was only interested in singing the birthday song to myself. Pa as expected was all smiles when he heard the song , jumped out of bed and called everyone at home and told them about my special gift. The cute thing about the card was that 'Zappy' sings the song. And the third line goes Happy Birthday from ....Zappy, which sounded so much like my name that Paa thought that we had somehow added my name into the card. So there goes my gift to Paa this year - sponsored by mom of course. Amma made the usual payasam and a typical sunday meal. Then we went out to get some chocolate and strawberry cake rolls for Paa and his friend who had come home that day. I thoroughly enjoyed the choco cake, but did not like the strawberry one. Plans to dine out at restaurants have been banned by mom until I am a little older cos I give her such a hard time that she cannot enjoy her meal!! I spent a lot of time playing with Paa and generally having fun which was nice.

Party time in London

Lets blame it on work that this blog has not seen any updates for many weeks. About a month ago, one of my cousin called me to say that his daughter's birthday party was planned for the second weekend in november . Although London is only about 200 miles from Sheffield, we hardly go out to London, unless our presence is mandatory. We had not met them for over a year and so decided to make this trip and enjoy the party. This post is about an interesting day spent at London partying and lots of eating and generally having fun.
Me and Aditi left on Friday night for the capital city(Why Prashanth did not join us is another story).I was expecting Aditi to sleep after a long day, but I was terribly wrong for she was extremely excited. She was manageable for most part of the journey and spent the first 2 hours, chatting away to other passengers. We walked a bit and a trip to the cafe on the train was the best as she walked abt 4 compartments, stopped to talk to babies/children and others on the way. We landed in the newly built international rail station arnd 10:15pm. My cousin A, accompained by their family friend had come to pick us up. Aditi slept during the 45 minute ride on the BMW, where my cousin's wife B and her friends were waiting for us. It was past midnight when we all finally slept, tired after a long day and the journey to London.
Early next morning, around 5:30 am, I was woken up by giggles from the next room. Turned out that my cousin's child V was excited about the party and was giggling away with her friend, who had quietly slipped into bed beside her the previous night. I tried to help B in the kitchen the next morning, but Aditi kept me busy. B is a great cook, wonderful and yummy are her dishes always - one of the prime reasons why I decided to take the trip. We had rava idlis for breakfast, followed by spring rolls, aloo tikkis, rotis, palak panner, aloo matar sabzi, vegetable rice and peanut salad. I can sense mouths watering, but hold on - I had enough of them even on behalf of you.
Prashanth joined us just in time for lunch. He was not supposed to be working the previous night, but had swapped with a colleague many weeks earlier and had forgotten about it, until Monday. Hence he came over arnd noon on Saturday to London just in time for lunch. There were about 20 of us in all. Aditi enjoyed for a little while with the children, but was stuck to me like glue most of the time.
V was lovely as usual dressed in a cute Ballerina costume and playing and entertaining the others. After lunch ,there were lots of games, for children and the parents, and we had an enjoyable day. V cut the blackforest birthday cake and Aditi enjoyed the cake, eating every little piece that was on her plate. Some families left after the cake cutting and we enjoyed another round of games and had fun. This was followed by a round of tea and feeding Aditi her dinner and we left home arnd 7pm. Again A and his friend dropped us at the St.Pancreas international station, which was a good one hour drive from their home and we had a comfortable journey to Sheffield. The trip was a good change and all of us had a wonderful time at my cousin's place. Here are some pics to prove that.