Sunday 6 October 2024

Autumn in Cornwall 2024





I have happy memories of growing up in seaside town of Mombasa (Kenya) and dreaming of similar seaside resorts when I moved to Midlands with my family in 1963. I finally made to the Cornish coastline numerous times during my early years of  growing up and working in London. 

Last week, I decided to go down the memory lane and visit some of the  popular sites. Though the county of Cornwall is going through some rough times ( unemployment, drug addiction, closure of mines etc) the county is still very much alive for the tourists. Charlestown is popular with the film industry, Rick Stein with his famous restaurants has helped to put Padstow on the map of England and Newquay is haven for sea suffers. Little coastal town of Mevagissey welcomes everyone with car park where you are served by a car park attendant rather than by a machine! 

Lovely memories and beautiful coastlines. 


Sunday 5 May 2024

Post card from Emerald Island…Ireland

 




 I visited county Wicklow in Ireland last week in hope of finding some traces of my past during my first ever solo trip there 5O years ago! Nothing much I saw brought back any memories of my past experience. At the age of 24 I remember I was given a room for a night by complete Irish stranger in Dublin!  I remember hitching a ride having lost myself and staying in B&B somewhere in County Wicklow with a family of visitors from Belgium. 

Fifty years later I found the Emerald Island continues to look green however its green land has been broken up by massive network of highways which are mostly empty ! The food and goods are expensive and the ferries are bigger and modern than the ones I had sailed in before. 


Huge amounts of investments by the big tech companies such as Microsoft, Apple , Google and Amazon over 20 years have helped drive the economic growth. Ireland is still a member of E.E.U. which brings in more European travellers than ever before! 


Before returning home to England , my last stop was in Dublin. The city is known for its long literary tradition, its culture and I found lots of art etched on the streets of Dublin to make me feel very nostalgic about my whole short trip! 


Tuesday 5 March 2024

Postcard from sea around Britain September 2023

 



Experiencing the sea life around Britain has been on my wish list since I had seen the famous White Cliffs of Dover. In September 23 I finally took the plunge and embarked on eleven days cruise journey from port of Southampton. 

The day after the ship sailed, we arrived at St. Peters ( Guernsey). It was hot and I couldn’t wait to go offshore to feel the earth underneath my feet! Very impressed with the welcome by the local people and as I walked through the town, it’s life unfolded infront of me like children’s pop up book! The journey continued to St. Mary’s ( Isles of Silly), Belfast ( Northern Ireland) and slowly through scenic Scottish Isles towards the port of Stornaway. Unfortunately due to very bad weather conditions, our trip to the most Northern destination, Lerwick ( Orkney ) was cancelled! 

Disappointment for all of us, we all returned home to Southampton via Kirkwall and Invergorden.


 The best experience of the whole journey was waking up at dawn to watch the sun rise and see the dolphins accompanying our ship. There were wildlife experts on board to help understand the bird and sea creatures.  I was full of nostalgia when I returned back to all the ports where I have been before many moons ago. ( by road) There was some brilliant evening entertainers on the ship which I shall not forget for a long time. The journey was worth it even though I am not keen on cruising! 

Monday 4 March 2024

Post card from Newfoundland 2022

 



The visit to Newfoundland was inspired by a musical I had seen in London called COME FROM AWAY.. in 2019 . The play  was based on the terrorist attach of 11th September 2001 when Gander and the surrounding communities welcomed, housed and fed nearly 6700 unexpected guests for upto 5 years when all North America air space was closed. 


My trip to Newfoundland was booked in 2019 and due to lockdown in 2020 the earliest I was able to make the trip was in summer 2022. Despite the chaos at the airports from and to Newfoundland,  I did have great experience while travelling in the vast landscape of Newfoundland where highways were traffic free ,  lots of wildlife and extremely friendly people seen in the musical mentioned above. Journey worth waiting for! 

Postcard from Icebergs from Alaska 2017



Arrived at the Heathrow airport on my 67th birthday to start my long journey all the way to see the icebergs around the bay of Alaska! The first leg of the journey was from Vancouver with a group of travellers to experience the Great Rocky Mountains by rail, visiting places which included Kamloops, Banff , Lake Louise and Whistler. The journey covered landscape areas with gigantic mountains, pristine emerald blue lakes and forests as far as my eyes could see! After two weeks I was back in Vancouver to join a cruise ship which took us all the way to  Alaska ( USA ), stopping at places of interest such as Juneau, Skagway and the final destination was the Glacier Bay where icebergs were found to be melting away! Yes, I can’t help but agree that the climate change is real. All of us on board witnessed the thunderous sounds while the icebergs melted down infront of our eyes!


 

Friday 1 March 2024

My little ME story


 


How often do I tell my own stories? All the time I tell myself. when I talk to myself or to others in my daily life ! I tell my stories through having conversations, by sharing photos and by writing them too.

My personal story I am compelled to tell by writing about it is based on my family photograph taken sometime during early 1950s in a small town called Nanyuki (Kenya). I can’t remember this photo ever having been taken and certainly have not seen it until few days ago when my youngest sister posted it to me via email. My youngest sister, sixth down the family tree had the actual photo in her possession for over 50 years but she is not even in the photo and hardly recognises anyone in it ? So why and how did she get hold of the family photo ? She left the family home in a hurry at the age of 15 with very little personal possessions? 


The mystery is yet to be solved but the subject of my story is naming all eight members of my extended family in the photo, four young teenagers boys and four girls. The three boys wearing turbans were my three older brothers, Balwant , Joginder and Pritam. All three were once without turbans not long ago before this photo was taken. I know this because I have seen another family photo of all three in it. In this earlier photo the youngest one had short curly hair, middle brother’s hair was plaited and the eldest one was wearing a hat over short curly hair . My father who was originally from a Hindu background , converted to Sikhism. The story I heard why he became Sikh and started wearing a turban was because he wanted to give up smoking cigarettes. In Sikhism, smoking is taboo! It worked for my father, I have never seen him anywhere near a cigarette even when he emigrated to UK in 1960 and gave up his turban and went back to shaving his beard and wore short hair. While growing up in Nanyuki, all his three sons had no options but to take up Sikhism and follow their father’s religion and I believe that the above photo was taken to show off their new looks? The fourth young teenager looking Danny with his short hair and holding on to a cycle was my cousin Updesh.


 The three young girls sitting down who are all wearing their Sunday best clothes no doubt, with beautiful combed hair braided into plaits are:  my eldest cousin called Mashi ( far right ) and her younger sister Arun and finally my eldest sister Krishna on the far left of the photo. 

The fourth girl of three years of age is held back by my eldest brother Balwant and she is looking down rather than at the camera like the rest. I like to believe that this person is little version of ME ? Sadly my brother Balwant and  all the other boys in the photo have passed away who might have been able to help me identify the  little ME in the photo! 

 That photo of little ME, looking down on the ground, seems to have bad hair day, looking bit wild and ungovernable? Yes that is definitely little ME. 


Friday 1 May 2020

My Story in 2020








MY STORY AT 70 .


I am alone, lockdown in my own home.
Last week,  I celebrated my seventieth birthday in a style unimaginable, indeed!

My husband passed in 2002 and to escape the family limelight on my birthdays, I found a novel way to dodge the family glare by experiencing adventurous life abroad ! One of these exciting occasion which immediately comes to my mind was in 2009. A car journey to Death Valley of California through the treacherous mountainous region. Stopping over for a night in a motel, I found a bath full of colourful balloons and birthday cake for breakfast! A big birthday surprise discretely conjured up by my companions. The following year,  I found myself in Bangladesh for charity work and to my surprise my  birthday celebration went on for a whole week! As I travelled from one village to the next I was showered with unwanted gifts, birthday cakes and a jack fruit as a special treat!

This year, as the news of this invisible monster,( under the official name of Covid19) was rapidly reaching our shores , my  plan to travel abroad was quickly replaced  by a plan to spend, few days by the sea side in UK. A month before my big day, the news of the  lockdown , quashed all my hopes of even, leaving my own front door ! Alone and in quarantine , I  found that I was unable to escape the family spotlight to mark my big day. On my birthday, I woke up to floods of telephone calls, video links, smiling faces at my window, greeting cards and gifts , including , canned food, loo rolls and soap were left in my porch!  At the end of the day I was exhausted but felt extremely overwhelmed by the whole day’s experience.

Like the rest of the country, I am  patiently waiting for the invisible monster to vanish from our shores. However, my life , in quarantine has given me plenty of time to reflect on my novel birthday adventures . In the years to come, I wonder if there will be any listening ears for my mythical tales of my very exceptional birthday bash of 2020?