The Weekend

Prashanth's cousin and his family visited us over the weekend. Their little girl was about 5 months younger to Aditi and they both had so much fun together. It was the first time Aditi had someone her age stay with us overnight, so she was hugely thrilled. Her friends usually come over play for a few hours or stay from morning till evening, but never has anyone stayed and slept with us. Saturday was bright and sunny, so they spent playing in the garden and eating on the slide. Prashanth was working nights, so I was in charge of showing them around. We went for a trip on the Wheel of Sheffield, returned home to have lunch and had a long nap. Aditi enjoyed the big wheel and had fun taking pictures from the top of the city. The only thing different in this wheel was photos were taken before we got on the wheel and then printed before we could complete the trip on the wheel. And as with any touristy place, we paid through our nose to get the photo pack which had a few postcards, fridge magnet, bottle opener and some matt-finish photos of us just outside the big wheel.
In the evening, Prashanth left for work, so I was the only driver. In-laws stayed at home while I drove Aditi, P's cousin & his family over to the park. Like typical girls, they giggeled and broke into peals of laughter for nothing. After an energetic 2 hours at the park and drenching themselves with the water works there, we dragged the girls home. They were pretty exhausted, asked for dinner and went straight to bed. The next morning, the first thing Aditi asked when she woke up was - "Where's Pavi?" I confirmed that Pavi was asleep and would wake up shortly. It was pouring outside that day, so we decided to stay at home. After breakfast and lunch, we headed out to Jungle Mania - an indoor soft play area for kids. The girls enjoyed themselves in the ball pit, climbing up and down the slide and jumping on the bouncy castle. After a lovely hour, we headed home and dropped the visitors at the train station. I wasn't planning to go, but just at the last minute we all decided to see them off at the rail station. The girls had so much fun together that Pavi cried loudly when she was carried into the train. Her parents pacified her by saying that we were coming on a different train.
We missed Peppa Pig's stage party in Sheffield, but I think we'll catch it at Wakefield later this month.

Honda and all that jazz

I have been driving this car for about 5 months now. And it took over 2 months for us to zero in on this one. It was a chance conversation on an otherwise normal evening, that led to the decision to own a second car. We began the very long search for that perfect car in early December last year. We decided on an automatic as it was going to be used only for city commuting and we had never owned one before - we had learnt from others how easy it was to drive and found it perfect for Sheffield's numerous hills and valleys. AutoTrader.com was the favorite website of the month and we religiously scanned the website for suitable cars in our area. We shortlisted a few and Prashanth visited the garages, but was not impressed by the ones he saw. We saw various cars ranging from Suzuki Alto to Mitsubishi Colt to Fiat Punto to even the Merc A series. Given our history of car purchases, we thought we'd be done in a few days. But how wrong we were! Our first car was bought after a single trip to a single dealer, our second one was bought after 2 trips, but this one was so different from our earlier experiences. We made a trip to Leeds, but were not happy with the test drives. We made 3 trips to Wakefield and almost finalized a Suzuki Liana, but found it was a Category D - had been involved in an accident. Various cars that we shortlisted were gone even before we could get to the garage. After about a month of not finding that perfect car, I drew up a list of cars that I thought would work for me. Toyota Yaris was my all time favorite, followed by VW Polo and Ford Focus. The jazz was added after checking out the car in London. The only problem with the jazz was the price. It was the most expensive of all as it had the 'Honda' tagged to it. The budget had more than doubled during this time and we were still on the hunt. Sometime in the last week of January, I noticed an ad for the Jazz at a garage near my house. We went to check it out the following saturday and bought it almost instantly. No second thoughts, just a nod from both of us and we signed on the dotted line. We secured it for £300 less than the advertised price and were happy with the bargain. The car was picked up in two days and is now almost always used for city driving. Prashanth loves this one for the auto gear and I like it for its made my life a whole lot convenient. Incidentally I haven't got on a bus in months and it feels wierd to not use public transport!

Adi speak

On our way back from Wales, my phone gave up its life. I have had it for over 4 years - a flip hpone from LG, which has been my good companion for a very long time. And I would have continued to live with it, until the husband got me a HTC. Back to the phone story, we had just left the cottage and I was texting a thank you message to the owner. A sudden brake, a crack on the phone and seconds later I realized the phone was broken. I still managed to use the phone successfully until we got home and my little girl tried to fix it. After about 5 minutes of fiddling with the phone, she declared -"Appa, I cant believe that Mummy broke the phone..." And before we could realize what she said, she came back with "I dont know HOW Mummy managed to break this phone...", stressing just right on where it mattered.
Aditi has been speaking full sentences for a while now, but never did we expect her to give us such blows - one after the other. She's been chatting a lot to almost everybody, but is most comfortable with people her own age. Yesterday she enjoyed with one of Prashant's friend's daughter, who had come a very long way, just to meet her. They played in the garden, on the slide, football, tennis and finally settled for painting. The girls were so absorbed in their activities that they did not want to part company. They've promised to meet each other soon.
One of Prashanth's cousin and his family are visting us this weekend and Aditi is looking forward to playing with her little cousin.