Oh well. I probably won’t be getting much sleep anyway thanks to my third blocked duct in five days. At least it’s a different side tonight for a change but it’s proving to be a hard one to shift. Oliver and I worked together all day and I worked on it alone for two solid hours before turning in for the night but to no avail. Sigh. I’m now hoping that the sleep fairies will vanish it away by morning. But I suppose that can only happen IF THE BOYS IN THIS HOUSE WILL STOP SNORING. GAH!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as And in return

1) After we introduced the kittens to Chester, Chester lost his voice, started to gag. Rushed him to vet thinking something stuck in his throat. No sign of irritation. Was told it was likely furballs. Seemed reasonable as ever since the kittens moved in he’s spent every waking hour licking them. Bought furball food and kitty grass, found grass-filled cat vomit in hallway next day (nice) but no sign of fur.

2) The next day Chester gets diarrhea, OH NO, made even more OH NO by the fact that he likes to wake me in the morning by sticking his anus in my face. If a cat-anus-alarm-call isn’t bad enough as it is… yes, you get the picture. I spend a whole day chasing him round with toilet paper after I’d heard him scratching in the litter dish. Nice.

3) By evening Chester is completely mute. And tired. Relaxing for me as he normally likes to give me a running commentary of his day (OHMYGOD), but pitiful at the same time. And comical. And sorrowful.

4) Google informed me that it was likely an upper respiratory infection, or worse, WORMS. And we all know that google is always right, ahem. Now, the vet had done a fecal screening in the kittens and it came back negative, but then google informed me that there is such thing as a false negative, and it’s pretty common. And that almost *all* kittens are born with worms (I did find it rather odd that he didn’t worm them as a precaution given that I already have a healthy cat PLUS A SMALL BABY IN THE HOUSE).

5) Marched back to vet, asked for worming treatment, battled with the vet as he said that the screening was negative, so then played the Small Baby Card, and left the vet considerably poorer but with three doses of worming medicine in my hand. Returned home, dosed the cats.

6) Cats a bit grumpy that night, but the next day all three cats are completely hyperactive (and have been that way ever since; makes me think I was right). Spend next three days shovelling and replacing cat litter like a woman with OCD so that they wouldn’t get them all over again. Then read on google that they would also purge the worms, so delegated the task to DrMrNin.

7) Chester’s voice starts to return. My quiet time starts to leave.

9) Where are we up to? Oh, ok. Over the past few weeks my back has been progressively stiffening up from all the baby lifting and the ever increasing boobage etc. Monday night I roll over awkwardly in bed and pull/strain some muscle around my right shoulder blade. OMG the pain, I was WRITHING. Now I have a pretty high pain threshold (17 hours of back labour, natural childbirth, no drugs) but this I could not take. Was like back labour all over again, but like one big continuous contraction with no respite, spasm after spasm after spasm. I classed it as #2 on my overall top moments of pain, of which CHILDBIRTH IS #3. You get the picture. FYI #1 was post-childbirth when the swelling aggravated an old coccyx injury and they had to shoot me up with morphine, but I digress. Yes, the upper right back pain was so bad I had to resort to double strength Vicodine which I was told to take during my post-birth recovery. Yes, narcotics are bad whilst breastfeeding, but it was the same decision I had to take during those moments writhing in hospital following birth: take some so I could breastfeed, or not be able to breastfeed at all. Decision made. Besides, still not as many narcotics as an epidural so hopefully Oliver’s exposure wouldn’t be too great after just one pill. Punkin needed to eat, after all.

10) The next day get marched to doctor’s office by concerned husband to get referred to physical therapy. I described to the doctor the physical pain and how it was #2 on my list of all-time pain, and he shot me a look as if to say OMG YOU ARE SO WEAK and I could see flashing through his mind the likes of here’s someone who demanded a needle in her back two minutes into labour when she was only one centimetre dilated (I’m just trying to make the point that I have quite a high pain threshold). Here’s another thing: I’d only seen him a couple of weeks earlier too as I kept getting hypoglycaemic. So in addition he must have thought I was a hypochondriac. Whatever. All I wanted from him was to find out what drugs I could take to manage the pain to prevent it getting to that AWFUL stage (800 mg ibuprofen), and he referred me to PT three times a week for the next month. Apparently it’s very common for mothers around this four-to-six month stage to start experiencing back pain. And it’s also common for new mothers to experience big drops in blood sugar. All that breastfeeding….which makes sense.

11) Anyway, whilst there DrMrNin enquires if they have the H1N1 vaccine and yes, it was delivered yesterday. The nurse walks off, comes back, can’t find it after all so maybe she was wrong as she only glanced quickly. Leaves room again saying that she was sure she’d seen it so goes off to look again, and it turned out someone had moved the box (to a safe place). Not many vaccines delivered apparently. Small box. So one minute they want me to have it, the next minute I’m not, then they want to give it to me again. Now I AM NERVOUS ABOUT VACCINES as almost every time I’ve had one I’ve had a pretty big reaction to it. I’m sensitive to chemicals in general- whenever there are ‘potential side effects’ listed on the box of anything, sure enough when I feel in any way not right after taking something, I read the box and right there in plain type my ailment is listed. It is for this reason that I have to be really REALLY suffering in order to take something. Here’s another example: I had teeth removed once with nitrous oxide and I was throwing up for an entire week afterwards. No, anaesthetics aren’t that great for me either. So anyway, despite my reservations and protests (I don’t exactly mix with the general public right now as it’s sniffle season so I’m deliberately being antisocial, so my only exposure would be my husband, and on the whole I’m rather fit and healthy and besides, I NEVER GET SICK) I get guilt-tripped into it, take it for the baby and all that. But I might react, I plead and then finally acquiesce to them. Take it for the baby and all that.

12) Next day, back still stiff. Can barely move. Picking up a baby isn’t an option. DrMrNin stays home from work in the morning to be my hands. He goes into work in the afternoon only to receive a phonecall from me whining that in the process of doing a diaper change whilst attempting not to strain my upper right back, I manage to have now strained my upper left back too. He comes home.

13) Morning comes again, whole upper back now completely stiff. Spasms have stopped but only because it’s so stiff that I can’t perform any movement to bring them on. Stiffness and pain now extending down my upper arms. Did I mention also that ever since I put my right side out of action it hurt to breathe? I can’t believe I missed that part. So basically it hurt to be alive, and was spending days dosed up to the eyeballs with ibuprofen, and the shallow breathing was making me all spaced out and light headed. Fun. The physical therapy I hear you ask? Scheduled for Monday, they were one member down as she’d just had a baby so there was a bit of a wait. And yes, once again my nice husband arranged to work from home to be my arms as I was not in any state to do any lifting. And he also had to take the kittens to the vet for their follow up boosters. (Me, heavy Oliver in one hand, heavy cat carrier in the other, I don’t think so).

14) Kittens go to vet. Chester goes into a grump and whinges.

15) Kittens return from vet, a little quiet, but Chester happier (and peace and quiet for me). They are promptly licked all over by The Large White One to cleanse them of all things veterinary.

16) Start getting really tired and headachey.

17) Wake up next morning (Saturday, Halloween), don’t feel like I’ve benefited from sleep at all, keep taking the ibuprofen. Spend whole day feeling cold. Notice that by afternoon I’m starting to get headachey again and out of interest take my temperature. ONLY A 101˚F FEVER! What on earth??? Brave it out during the evening, watch husband get all excited when trick or treaters come to the door (they were out in full force, I’m telling you!). Go to bed.

18) Wake up at 2am, completely burning up. Have managed to sweat through my pyjamas so get up, change, and settle down for the night in the guest bedroom as I didn’t want to wake the others up and I could have more control over the bed coverings. Settle down to sleep. Woke up again with a start. This time I’m FREEZING. Spent rest of night with a poorly tummy with very restless sleep, fluctuating between boiling hot and shivering cold. Sweated through second pair of pyjamas.

19) Spent most of today in a similar state, in the guest bed, except my tummy has calmed down. I’ve also ditched the ibuprofen for tylenol as I think it works better for me. Back spasms a bit better at least which is either from not having lifted anything for the past few days, or because muscle aches have gone, but my temperature is fluctuating between 100˚F and 104˚F. What on earth??? Did I mention that I never get sick?

20) Google this afternoon informed me that the H1N1 vaccine has side effects and what do you know….

The following are common whole-body side effects occurring in response to either [of the four different brands of] H1N1 vaccination[s].

• Headache
• Malaise (feeling out-of-sorts)
• Muscle pain
• Chills
• Nausea
• Fever
• Vomiting

Read more here

Even the US Government’s Center for Disease Control state these side effects too. Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? But is that not what I’ve been having?? Plus I found out today that a friend of mine and her son are also a bit poorly after having had their vaccines too. Of course I can’t be sure that I am having a vaccine reaction as I have no laboratory proof and I could have some completely unrelated bug, but I can’t help but wonder. Anyway, at least Oliver will be safer after all of this and that’s what matters (I am in fact pro-vaccine, but support a person’s right to choose).

So yes, quite a lot has been going on. The upside of all of this is that Oliver’s got to spend some rather quality time with his daddy and it’s really been incredible to see. He enjoys himself so differently when he’s around his father- I’m there to nurture and soothe, DrMrNin is FUN DADDY. It’s the cutest, most heartwarming thing to see. I never imagined that parenthood could be this awesome. Plus all the rest and relaxation has given me a bit of a break from all the baby chores and I’ve been able to sit back, recharge and clear out some mental cobwebs. At long-last I feel like I’ve stepped off the fatiguing treadmill that is new motherhood and in my mind I’m a lot more chipper and beginning to feel like my old self again. See, I even had time to get a new theme up and running on here- the old one although pretty with the big pictures was a bit hard on the eyes, especially when there was lots to read. Again, all part of the mental cobwebs that got cleared up as it’s been on my To Do List for yonks.

And that brings us to now, Sunday night, me sitting on the couch bundled up in layers of knitwear trying to keep warm whilst DrMrNin sits there in a t-shirt commenting about how mild the night is. But I have made progress- earlier I was in a long-sleeve t-shirt, my old faithful cashmere cardigan and dressing gown under two blankets and two feather duvets YET I WAS STILL SHIVERING. I even had blue lips at one point. How cool is that? Not. Obviously. But I’m feeling a bit better now and my fever seems to be stabilising at around 101˚F. Unfortunately I have to postpone tomorrow’s physical therapy that I have been waiting patiently all week for, but best be safe than sorry- if I have got some nasty bug, I don’t want to go spreading it around. If I’m still feverish tomorrow it’s back to the doctor for me to get tested for H1N1 itself just in case that’s what I have as I may have contracted it before the vaccine kicked in as if that’s the case, DrMr has to be quarantined at home for the duration of the incubation period as that’s what the rules are where he works.

So there we have it! I did warn you it was going to be long, but at least things are pretty much now up to date on here, hee hee! And now I’m heading back to bed. Where I should be. To sweat it out and hope that I will feel better tomorrow as DrMrNin has to return to work (exhibiting ‘social distancing’ as his work rules like to call it) so I’ll be back on baby duty tomorrow.

At least Chester is now fully better xx

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as What an awful lot going on

Perfect. I had a couple of hours to kill whilst DrMrNin was in a meeting before we would set off driving all over the Bay Area to attend our respective Dr appointments- me with my OB-GYN, he with his surgeon. Buying my coffee, I had happy visions of all the progress that I would make with my latest knitting project except I discovered that pregnant people who knit in public tend to attract rather a lot of attention. Every other passer by wanted to ask questions and chat, and consequently about a third of my progress became casualty to polite conversation so I spent about as much time unpicking as I did knitting. Lesson learned: next time I knit outside I will wear large headphones, and next time I shall choose to take a more simple project that doesn’t require so much concentration.

Next stop lunch, then the OB-GYN. It was the usual routine- pee-ed in a cup, got weighed, had blood-pressure taken, exchanged a few pleasantries and questions and then listened to the wisha-wisha-wisha of the foetal heartbeat before being told to come back in another two weeks. All is fine. Turns out I managed to gain SIX WHOLE POUNDS IN THREE AND A HALF WEEKS which is rather impressive, but hopefully it means that Little Peach is plumping out as all the weight gain has been on my tummy.

Then it was back to see the surgeon as it’s now been one whole month since DrMrNin’s achilles tendon was repaired. Much to my immense delight it was time for the cast to come off which means NO MORE CRUTCHES as he can officially weight-bear on that foot now. That should make things a lot easier around the house, whooop!

Aside from the saw being INCREDIBLY LOUD, the stench emanating from his month-long-unwashed foot was ABSOLUTELY WRANK making the whole process not quite so exciting after all. Seriously, even that time we spilled a load of milk in the car (which was the worst smell EVER at the time) smelled like ROSES in comparison to this. Dear God it was foul. I asked the tech if she had sneaked topical smell blockers under her mask and she grinned which said it all. I had to resort to improvisation with a paper towel and was rather liberal with a can of hospital air freshener that I found on the counter. It was either sit in a room gagging from industrial strength lemon or sit there gagging from unbelievable stench. Obvious choice. And eeeuw his foot looked like a shrivelled prune too. Bleurgh. But at least it’s better. Hopefully he can start physical therapy in another three weeks.

By everyday standards it wasn’t an entirely strenuous day, but when we got home I was completely exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as I sat down on the couch. And it probably also explains the complete dead-end day that I’ve just had too for I couldn’t muster the energy for anything. We were supposed to go out with friends tonight, but instead I stayed in and barely just managed to drag myself into the kitchen to create something vaguely edible to put in my big, fat, tummy.

Apparently it seems that I now have limitations. A couple of weeks ago this schedule wouldn’t have challenged me at all, but it’s coming to the time where everything is such an effort that it’s just down right exhausting. I think I’m going to start taking it easy from now on, kick my feet up every now and again and make the most of having a bit of free time while it lasts. And take a moment to enjoy saying ‘my free time’ as I know for certain that I’m probably not going to have that for very much longer, so everyone at Starbucks kept telling me..

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Apparently I have limitations

and 2) Because last week is all over and I can finally relax…a bit

Warning: a  long post as there’s a lot to catch up on, so you might want to grab a nice cup of tea and a sit down for this one.

Next time I claim to be busy, I shall certainly think twice as to whether that trully is the case as I think the past seven days might have amounted to one of the busiest times that I have ever experienced. Yes, it even ranks up there with the final throes of grad school and THOSE times were BUSY. Last Thursday in particular proved to be especially emotionally draining. In the morning, we said goodbye to Toby Kitten, in the afternoon DrMrNin had surgery for his ruptured achilles tendon, and in the evening we closed escrow on the house. Whew. But they say things happen in threes.

At least the surgery gave us something else to think about aside from Toby Kitten

It was all very straightforward- a nice clean break in the tendon which was easy to fix. DrMr had his first ever general anaesthetic, plus a nerve block below the knee which made him nice and numb for a good 30 hours, so by the time he came round after the operation he wasn’t really in any discomfort. Just a bit groggy really.

Not only did he get given crutches which made me a little envious as it’s always been a secret little ambition of mine to have them myself (but I’m not at all interested in the injury that comes with them), but he also got to be pushed out of hospital in a wheelchair which made me even greener. Yes, I’m a little bit odd.

Moreover, he even got to ride in the electric cart at Safeway which was just taking the biscuit.

Muh! But then again I’d *much* rather be healthy and in good physical form, so I shouldn’t whimper at all really.

So anyway, yes, the deal that we had with the Title Company was that we had set up a getout clause so as to avoid closing escrow and lumbering me with a great old mortgage in the unlikley event that something should have gone wrong with the surgery. So as soon as DrMr was out of the OR, I had to make some calls to give authorisation to close the deal. I had until 4.55pm that afternoon to make the call, and he didn’t get out of surgery until 4.40pm so I was cutting it rather fine….

8am the next morning, the Title of ownership (or whatever it’s called) got transferred over, and we legally came into posession of the house. From start to finish (putting the offer in, to close) the whole process took just 21 days which was all rather fast as normally it takes 45-60 days. Snaps to our realtor and mortgage person, they really did stirling work.

As you can imagine, the rest of the week was spent pretty much like this:

Boxes, boxes, everywhere…

…As we tore apart our apartment and got everything packed.

Considering DrMr was on crutches and not able/allowed to bear any weight on his right leg (and was supposed to be resting for 3 days post-op), coupled with the fact that I’m currently six and a half months pregnant and waddling around looking like a beached whale and not able to lift anything, we did an incredible job of getting everything packed up. We did it ALL BY OURSELVES, WITHOUT ANY HELP WHATSOEVER. Granted we had a lot of it done before his surgery, but even after his surgery we still managed to get world’s heaviest mattress off the bed, and our giant Cal-King sized bed dismantled. And everything else left that still had to be packed up into boxes.

Poor Chester Kitten was extremely confused. What a hard week for our little furry boy But hed enjoy the new places that could be explored.

Removal day was arranged for Monday and we really had no choice but to spend more money and pay people to do it. In hindsight it was probably a blessing in disguise as to have moved it all ourselves in a rental truck even without feet in splints or pregnancies would have been horrendous.

The day proved to be so distracting and action packed that it didn’t occur to me at all to get my camera out, but I can show you some of the things that we had delivered the other week (the seller allowed us to get some things delivered at the same time as the oven)…. including our yummy outdoor furniture set which I CANNOT WAIT to  use, and a nice big armoir for our wine fun, squee!

And of course the much talked about appliances…

Believe it or not, getting an oven installed was actually part of the requirement to close escrow on the house which was why there was that big rush to choose one. Despite the very difficult decision and the change of heart at the very last minute, I remain extremely delighted with the range/refrigerator combo that I chose. Here’s the fridge coming through the door…

EEPS! I love it, it’s big inside, and makes its own ice. And is my very, very own xo

So which range did I pick??

Any ideas yet?

Why, it was the AGA Legacy 36 of course

And it’s BEEEEYOOOOOOOTIFUL!

Thanks everyone for helping me choose xo

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as And now for a deep sigh of relief

(He chose ‘Great White’ – never heard of them myself, but he told me that I probably wouldn’t have liked them.)

It is indeed ruptured all the way through – the arrow on the photo on the left points to a squiggle in the tendon that shouldn’t be there indicating a breach, and the arrow on the right points to the rupture with the surrounding fluid.

To quote the surgeon we visited “I can’t believe you are able to walk on that!”. His surgery is scheduled for Thursday next week, and then he’ll be on crutches for about six weeks after that, and will then go back into the aircast for a couple of months, depending on how long it takes to heal.

The timing isn’t perfect, what with us moving house in about 10 days time, but at least I’ll have him around the place for the next few days to help with the packing, even if he has to do it whilst sitting down!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as His achilles tendon

I think it must be well before Christmas since DrMrNin got a haircut. Actually coming to think of it, I think the last one that he got was for my big sister’s wedding back in September of last year. Wow, six months ago. Doesn’t time fly? Since then he’s been keen to let it grow and grow, and over the last couple of weeks has been increasingly teasing me that he intends are to let it get long enough to put it in a ponytail. Over. My. Dead. Body. Now I like men who are hairy (clean-shaven has never really done it for me), but I don’t like them that hairy. Besides, there’s nothing like an overgrown haircut to add extra pounds and years to to a person.

Finally this past Sunday we had a bit of time to spare so I got my scissors out and trapped him on the patio. And here’s the result: instantly 10 lb lighter, and 10 years younger compared to the day before!

Much better in my opinion. I hope this is a routine that we can keep up- I’ve always enjoyed cutting hair. And I like being married to a young man *girly giggles*.

Incidentally, not 30 minutes after these pictures were taken, he tripped playing basketball and messed up his achilles tendon. Ouch!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as The first of The Great Haircuts Of 2009

I decided this lunchtime that I couldn’t be bothered to resist it any more, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. So come on cold, I’m all yours, hit me with your worst shot…..

(just as long as you’ve gone by early next week as that’s when I have my immigration medical and I want them to deem me fit and healthy…)

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Oh go on then….

I’ve been having intermittent migraines since I was about seven years old and remember clearly the first – I had no idea what was wrong with me and naturally thought that I had been stricken with some horrible illness and was going to die. I was a hypochondriac even back then. But all these years on I now know how to recognise them and how to deal and ‘survive’. They usually creep up over a couple of days and I usually feel a bit off and don’t know why. Then on the morning of, I wake up and usually something is WRONG. This time for instance, I woke up and practically had to prise my eyelids apart from all the crusted goo. It was absolutely not usual and clearly very WRONG indeed. Naturally I thought I’d come down with some form of (probably life-threatening) eye infection, but to my disappointment nothing really came of it after that. Instead, a couple of hours later it took ten minutes for my face to turn green, followed by disco lights strobing in my peripheral vision and then slowly but surely everything in my right eye started to go white. From experience I know that by this stage I usually have an hour before the nausea sets in. As you can imagine this isn’t very convenient when you’re more than an hour from home, but thistime I was in the kitchen. So I quietly finished my ironing, gulped down three big mugs of very strong but very milky tea and headed to bed to go to sleep. Given that migraines cause the blood vessels in your brain to overly dilate (which causes all the trippy weirdness) and that caffeine causes them to shrink, I thought up this little home remedy in the hopes that they’d cancel each other out and it seems to work….well for me at least. Anyway yes, then after that I went to sleep for about ten hours. Sleep, I hear you cry, after three big mugs of tea? Yes, sleep. As any migraine person will tell you, you get overwhelmed with a wave of exhaustion (which if you time it well it means you can sleep through the other nasty side effects), and it’s this exhaustion which tends to linger on for up to a couple of days….well for me at least.

But all is better now and finally I have got around to sorting through the photos that we took last week. What with there being 750+ (the curse of the digital camera) this was by no means a quick task and I’m about 90% there now. But for the most part there are enough to show you what we got up to for the week.

Firstly, this is where we called home for the week. We were in the end cottage on the right which was right on the shore of Coniston Water and absolutely lovely. There was an original slate floor in the kitchen, real wonky ceilings upstairs and a real log fire in the hearth. That’s our front door with the ivy around it.

And in the front was a nice garden that we shared with the four other cottages. This was the view out of the front door, we were right on the waterfront, it was idyllic!

Although I had ideas of us doing nothing all week, we actually were rather busy in the end and were out sightseeing every day. There was so much to see up there… we saw ancient stone circles…

Pretty lakes…

More wildernessy lakes (that’s England’s highest mountain by the way)…

Really tall forests…

We went for nice walks…

We drove over mountain passes…

We drove over even higher ones and took pictures at the top… (you can just about see the windey road; this one had nasty steep drops on one side and sharp switchbacks and I had to drive up in first gear)…

We climbed up the peaks…. well DrMrNin did, whereas I sat in the car eating fruit cake to calm my nerves at having to take on the 33% gradients that were ahead of our drive…

We saw waterfalls…

And took full advantage of the nice photo ops there, and for all the girls wherever we were…

We met the world’s most friendliest sheep…

We rode our bikes…

We saw pretty sunsets…

Dramatic sunsets…

And drank lots of tea in historic tearooms…

Cecily got a little bit homesick one night…

And Scarlett cried a little bit on the walk as she was tired and thought we were lost…

But apart from that everything was lovely, and we had a throughly relaxing time in our little stone cottage in the Lake District

When I’ve got all the photos sorted out (there are all the other pics of our outings to the other lakes, all the Beatrix Potter things, John Ruskin’s house, and a visit to the slate mine to name but a few) I’ll put them all up in a slideshow if anyone wants to see more… I know our family does. Cumbria really is a special place and well worth a visit.

Oooh, before I forget, we also stopped at Blackpool on the way home, it was one of England’s first holiday resorts and a bit of a national treasure. This is the pier which alongside Blackpool Tower are probably its most famous landmarks.

It wasn’t really Paige’s sort of thing – loud amusement arcades and little ears don’t really mix – but she agreed to have her photograph taken in the end…

And now I have to keep my end of the bargain and make her some more clothes

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Finally…pics from our trip

I Am A Sickly Person.

Last night I was up and down like a yo-yo literally every thirty minutes or so. I have no idea what is wrong with me, but I know that there is definitely something that is pushing me off kilter. Ughh. I want it to just go away so that I can feel normal again. My tummy is achy and bloated and has seemed to have settled into its own little routine of cramping and spasming that is so regular I’ve stopped looking at the clock. In some ways its behaving a bit like a two year old child, desperately trying to remain the centre of attention. Occasionally just when I have grown accustomed to its antics and don’t really react so crowd-pleasingly to its latest acrobatics, its taken to impersonating labour pains so that it can take center stage again. I have no idea just how good this impression is not having been through the real thing myself, but it certainly gets my attention focused back on my tummy again, and generally involves me having to stop what I’m doing, bend double as I wince in pain, and usually there is some form of painful yelp as an audio accompaniement. All credit to my tummy, it puts on a great show. I should start selling tickets for it. I will spare you the details of the ghastly toxic odours that are coming out from me, that's just too much information.

But I think my head might be starting to get a little jealous and is starting to put on its own Look At Me show. This morning I awoke to a headache so blinding that I had to feel my way to the bathroom. Not only that, but my eyes were so sore, that it pained me to allow them to move within their sockets. But anyway, I wasn’t about to move if I could help it anyway as each time I did, my insides crunched with pangs of nausea that really didn’t feel very nice.

I’m not even going to talk much about my achey lower back, that I’m still not sure if is to do with something muscular, or if it’s something kidney-related. I don’t know if I can deal with yet another malady that is possibly being thrown at me.

I mean, I love Sri Lanka and all (tourist prices aside for one second), the scenery is beautiful, the people are friendly, and there’s so much to see and do, but I get the impression that it doesn’t really like ME an awful lot. But I’m still enjoying myself, and it has been an absolutely lovely honeymoon so far and will hopefully continue that way for the last couple of days. In keeping with the extravagant honeymoon experience, MrNin and I have decided to make full use of the ayurvedic spa that is here at the Saman Villas so we’ve booked ourselves in for some nice treats to enjoy, thanks to some of the monetary gifts we recived at the wedding- what better way to spend some of that money on, right? And now I must finish this post abruptly as another wave of body-doubling nauseating pain spasms through me that demands every ounce of my concousness to prevent me from wanting to die…… uuuuuuuuuuuurgh.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as EEUUUUUUUUURGH!!!!

But anyway, once the novelty of the car in front had worn off, we were back to looking out of the window of the pretty scenes that passed. Down here in the south is nothing but mile after mile of verdant paddy fields, with big open blue skie above. It was most idyllic indeed. Although our route from Yala Village to Bentota would broadly hug the coastline, for the first part of the journey we headed inland for a bit, bumpity bumping down the uneven roads. Much to my delight, we saw lots of water buffalo along the way. Of all the animals we have seen on our honeymoon, the water buffalo have been by far my favourite, they have such friendly faces. I mean how could you not like something that has a sweet face like this?

See what I mean?

This was a day for passing things along the road… there was so much to see! Once out from the paddy fields, we passed beautiful, BEAUTIFUL tropical beaches where the water was as blue as the sky…

We saw the biggest and juciest tropical fruit that was sold in the many little stands by the side of the road…

Upon spotting a lady with coconuts at the side of the roa, Palitha suggested we should try some. He explained that the average Sri Lankan drinks about two king coconuts per day, and we should not go home without trying one ourselves! He also mentioned that they were very good for your tummy, and by this stage I was willing to give anything a go (I still feel completely awful, but at least the pain and discomfort are at a constant now, so I’ve kind of got used to it). The little boy at the coconut stand took great enjoyment at watching us try to drink without using straws.

Palitha explained that there were three different types of coconut, and that this one was the kind, the king coconut, was used for drinking and cooking. After finishing the milk (which was about double the volume I needed and I just knew that we’d be looking for a bathroom 30 minutes later), he got the lady to split the whole thing open, and showed us how to get the white goodness out from within, which is what they used to make those nice creamy curries from.

Personally I’ve always liked the milk, but I’ve never been a fan of the actual coconut itself, so i gave mine to MrNin to have. He was already full himself, but it would have been rude to leave it, so he force fed himself my coconut too….as if it were some husbandly duty of his, hee hee!

Being by the coast, and in an area especially known for its fishing, we also saw lots of fish stands by the road. Note how the fish was just laid out on the table, no ice or anything, and it was a blazing hot day! No doubt it was extremely fresh though.

In fact, the fish had most likely been caught just a couple of hours previously, the smaller ones perhaps being caught by the famous stilt fisherman that the town of Weligama was so famous for. Now stilt fishing is touted by the guidebooks to be one of the most photogenic things that you can ever see in Sri Lanka. At certain points along the coastline, you could see group after group of perches sticking up from the waters upon which men would sit with fishing rods, hoping to catch the many sardines that swam beneath. But what the guidebooks don’t really tell you is that the stilt fishing only really happens at dawn, and at dusk when the sun isn’t quite so cruel for the perched men fishing.

However all is not lost for us tourists as during the daytime, there are men sitting at the side of the road who are all too willing to dash out to their perches for a quick photo opportunity, before dashing back to the roadside where out their hands will stretch for a colourful rupee note. So make sure you enjoy this next photo….look at it hard, I want to get my moneysworth!

The details give it all away really- the fact that there are only two of them in the picture instead of about 20, and the fact that the stilts are set up so close to the rocks instead out in the water where the fish are more likely to be. Ho well, it still makes for a pretty picture.

What we also witnessed today was some pretty hot bus on bus driving action. We’re not talking incompetence here, oh no it was nothing like the other car driver this morning, no these bus drivers were probably skilled enough to win any Formula One race presented to them…

In Sri Lanka there are two types of buses that one can catch: the red government buses, or the white private buses. The white buses appeared to outnumber the red buses at least two to one in most places, and they were also prettier to look at as they were often festooned with ornaments and painted brightly in prettu colours. I meant to try to get a photo of one of these pretty ones, but going back through all the pictures I’ve taken I can only find this one that looks really rather tame. But at least it gives you an idea of what Sri Lankan buses look like.

These buses are usually spilling with passengers too, and it’s this volume of people that is of such great importance to the drivers. According to Palitha’s explanation, the drivers of these white buses get a cut of all the takings for that day’s travel and so this can probably explain the road-rage type behaviour between all them on the outskirts of every town. It’s always the same way- one minute we’re driving along peacefully, the next minute there’s the honking of horns, the flashing of lights and the waving of hands as the buses try to get past. And then the buses go up against each other honking their horns as they go, with the bus in front usually pulling out into the middle of the road to try to stop the one behind from passing. It’s actually rather comical (once you’re used to it and have blocked all thoughts of danger from your mind). I should point out that it’s mainly only the WHITE buses that behave in this way- the red bus drivers are all paid a flat wage by the government, so if you’re thinking of travelling to Sri Lanka and making your own way around, use this information wisely!

The further we drove around the coast, we also started to see other interesting features, like this sign, for example, stating that this place was an Austrian beach resort.

“Oooh” I commented, “Is this where all the Austrians come on holiday, and the place where we’re going to next is a british resort?” But Palitha explained that it was due to the Tsunami. Apparently each resort along the coast had been assigned to another country who would sponsor the clean-up effort, and some countries had chosen to publish their support on signs such as these. After a brief respite this morning, we were now heading back into tsunami territory, but this time we were heading into the heart of it.

No words will ever be able to explain what we saw for the next hour of our drive up the coast, nor can photos show the extent of it. We also took some video of the horror that we passed, but the pictures just don’t reflect the reality or express the sheer extent of the amount of decimation that we saw. We felt numb, we felt strangely guilty for not being there ourselves to assist, and even though we’d given money in the past for the relief effort, 2.5 years on and we felt completley helpless.

This 30 second video clip pretty much sums up some of our emotions.

Palitha told us how on the day of the tsunami, he had been at the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage, about 1.5 miles inland from Colombo. Had the tsunami struck the following day, or even that afternoon, he would have been in one of the areas worst affected. He may even have been one of the ones lost. He explained how after that day his company abandoned all the touring around the island, and sent all their drivers to the south to get all the holiday makers out, and drive them back to the airport in Colombo via the inland roads, as the coast was impassable. He told us of the things that he saw, his memories of the places that had been lost, and what life was like here in the aftermath. it was heartstopping stuff, we didn’t know what to say.From the window of the car we saw house upon house that had just crumbled and was now left abandoned.

We saw the remains of houses that had almost been washed away completely…

It just went on, and got worse and worse to see…

At one point along the coast, we drove for what must have been ten minutes, and all we saw was ghost town. In fear of another big disaster striking, the government issued new regulations that in certain area, so buildings could be erected less that 10km from the coastline. This seems a long way inland, but when you hear that the tsunami waters reached 30-40km inland, then it’s nothing really.

Here, we could see a boat that had been swept about 200-300m inland, and was now stranded in a stand of palmtrees in between two houses. Even though I saw it with my very own eyes earlier today, here I am right now, just a few hours later and I’m finding it difficult to imagine.

Everywhere we looked, it was just total armageddon. It was heartbreaking. We sat in the car in silence, not knowing what to say at all. One of the hardest parts was passing by a memorial where thousands of people had lost their lives when the surge of water washed a train off the tracks. That, I was horrified to think about, as having been on a train earlier in the week, I found it easier to imagine.

But amongst the destruction, we did manage to catch a glimmer of hope- for those people who had lost their homes entirely, the government and the aid agencies had distributed building supplies so many people were re-building themselves homes that were far better quality than the ones they had lived in before.

And the government was trying to attract people into these villages to boost the population by offering large parcels of available land. It’s said that it hit the middle classes the hardest- the poor who lost absolutely everything got given money for whole new houses, and the rich were so rich that they just went to live in one of their other residences and barely noticed the financial losses. But for those people whose houses managed to withstand the beating of the waves, if the house was still deemed habitable, then that was the house that had to move back into, and from the government get absolutely nothing.

I think today I saw some of the saddest things I have ever seen.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as From Yala Village to Bentota…..via the tsunami aftermath

MrNin has always been a CHAMPION sleeper. He takes after his mum. He has been known to have on multiple occasions spent a Saturday afternoon in bed until around 4pm, before rising briefly for a spot of nutrition, and then returning once again to the refuge of his duvet where he will remain happily for the rest of the day. Trust me, I’ve seen it with my own eyes! The man likes his sleep, and god forbid anyone or anything that tries to deprive him of it. Tiredness does not a happy MrNin make! Therefore when ten minutes after climing into the car this morning he plugged himself into his eyepod and closed his weary eyes, that was the signal for him to have his sleepy alone time, and for me to keep my distance. Even as we passed all the pretty scenery that I would normally have pointed out to him, I knew it best to leave him be (see what a great wife I’m already making?!). But pretty scenery it was though…Oh boy did he miss some great views!

As we drove down the windey narrow roads, the view from the window gradually changed from steep-sloped farms and small-holdings…

…to flatter, more open fields. We also started to see palmtrees again, so familiar of the past couple of days, but pretty much absent from the high hills of tea country.

I overheard another guide tell his clients (not Palitha, who was still rather reserved with fountaining his information to us) that back in the days, when the British expats started to feel far away from home, they would drive up into the hills to Newara Eliya for comfort and relief. It was clear to see why, it certainly had the look and feel reminiscent of the WestCountry that even fooled me for a little while. I’m sure the drizzly weather we had had the day before had aided this illusion, but I think for the most part it was down to the vegetation. Seeing all the palmtrees start to reappear again was like a jolt back to the reality of where we really were.

Palitha suggested again that we have another massage as we were passing what he described as “the best ayurvedic massage place in the area“, and at $25/person we thought it foolish to refuse, so we obliged eagerly. It wasn’t quite like the place we had before though. The treatment recipe was essentially the same – indian head massage followed by back and shoulder massage, full body massage, then sauna – but the rest rather wasn’t. Although the massage was pleasantly vigorous, the plain wooden benches that we were lying on provided little comfort for all the kneading and rolling. I’m certain that I could hear my hipbones crunch as they were being ground against the wood, and my leg was twisted into such an awkward angle at one point that I had to rapidly retrieve it from the clutches of her oily hand at one point…on each leg. After that we had what I refer to as the ‘coffin saunas’, exactly the same design as at the last place we went to. Except this time they didn’t add any moisture inside. There might actually have been something wrong with the one that I was in as they kept putting their hands inside by my neck, then talking amongst themselves, and fiddling around with something underneath. Their solution to the lack of moisture in my coffin was to turn the burners up higher to get more heat…..Bear in mind that I was still feeling rather awful and uncomforable from my digestive issues, but being cooked at a slow roast inside a wooden box really was the last straw for me, comfort wise. Add to that the efforts involved with trying not to emit any noxious fumes whilst in there which would fester inside until the coffin box was re-opened, and you can understand that I really couldn’t relax at all. All I wanted after that was a nice shower to get the curry-scented oil off my skin and out of my hair, but you’re probably not surprised when I tell you that there were no washing facilities. They had made us wear our underwear throughout too (other places had allowed us to wear cloths, or given us paper panties), and by this stage, they were a bit sweaty and oily, so we had no choice but to go commando for the rest of the day. I felt rather abused after the whole ordeal really. I managed to get a lot of the oil off with babywipes (which went yellow, bleurgh!), but I couldn’t do anything about my hair, and I subsequently felt dirty and revolting. I wanted to cry. We both remained rather silent in the car after that as Palitha drove us down to Ella Gap for lunch.

The town of Ella is said to be the most beautiful in Sri Lanka, and the view of ‘Ella Gap’ one of the most magnificent. It certainly didn’t disappoint. The place where we stopped for the view also conveniently had a restaurant there so we also stopped for lunch.

Both of us felt a bit better after that. I suppose the massage might have been more ‘authentically’ ayurveda (i.e. more of a therapy, rather than a treat), and my tummy did feel a little bit better afterwards (and after the food), so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Continuing on, we passed a rather lovely waterfall next to the road. Just like the rednecks like to congregate in the Merced River by El Capitan at Yosemite National Park with their rubber tubes and dinghies, their Sri Lankan counterparts liked to do the same thing right here.

Click here if you don’t believe me!

This spot was also a haven for conmen- nothing but people coming up to you wanting foreign coins which they could then sell back to other tourists for rupees, or people trying to sell you chunks of semi precious rock that they claoim to have extracted from beneath the falls– I mean really, if there were precious minerals in such a abundance, would the waterfall not have been closed off and had had a mine buiit next to it???

Thereafter, out of the hills, the scenery began to change dramatically. It took on a very tropical feel again once more.

And as we moved closer and closer to the coast, we passed yet more scenery changes. All of a sudden this enormous lily pond just appeared outside the window of the car, it was beautiful!

Eventually we reached Yala Village, our destination where at the hotel gate we were met with the most amazing refreshing (or the most amazingly welcome) moist towels I have ever encountered. We checked into our room which was a stilted chalet next to the ocean, which was accessible via a path through the bushes. We had arrived shortly before sunset, so all the lovely colours were taking on a striking muted tone.

Given the events of Boxing Day 2004, we were interested to see how this area had managed to escape the devastating tsunami that had more or less ruined the other areas along the same stretch of coastline, and had even wiped out an entire hotel just a few short miles down the road. It turns out that the sand dunes here by Yala Village had been highly effective at absorbing the wave energy of the hit, and so as a consequence, the water didn’t really come on land here very much. But we did see an occasional break in the bushes coupled with a gullied ground, which could have been caused by nothing else but the giant wave of water.

Like I mentioned, we arrived at the beach shortly before sunset, just at the magic time when the light gets really, really pretty, so I ran around the beach pretending to be Annie Leibovitz, trying to get some nice photos of MrNin!

He wasn’t exactly in the greatest of moods to have his picture taken (lack of sleep the previous night, perhaps?) but I managed to get a couple of pictures that I liked.

As for that music that woke him up so rudely this morning? It emerges that there was some event going on at the nearby Buddhist temple that morning, so there was a lot of loud drumming and singing (these Sri Lankan Buddhists seem to be quite a noisy lot!), and immediately following, there was the Muslim call to prayer. Clearly MrNin is not suited to either of these religions.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Another day, another change of scenery

But as far as feeling ok is concerned….well, that’s a whole other issue. Something’s definitely not right. I feel malaise, I feel listless, and I feel generally rotton and sorry for myself.

Yesterday morning, we left the comfort and serenity of the Kandalama Hotel and began our journey southwards toward Kandy. First stop was the Dambulla rock caves, which are said to be the largest painted rock surface in the world. Like the day before, it was a World Heritage Site. Like the day before, there were also about 2000 stairs to climb. Sri Lankans like to build things at the top of hills.

To be honest, I don’t recall an awful lot about the caves. I think that was partly because I found them slighltly underwhelming relative to their reputation. They weren’t really caves at all, just a ledge of rock that had had walls put in to divide it into several caverns, and the purpose of the cave-making was merely to increase the wall area against which more Buddhas could be installed. It seemed that each and every King of Sri Lanka had tried to out-Buddha his predecessor, as the newer Buddhas each got smaller and smaller, yet greater in number, and had been sqeeezed into every available nook and cranny in there. Goodness knows what the third King from now might have to do- he might have to blast more rock and make a whole other cave to fit all his in. It was all a little bit gaudy in places…..is that a bad thing to say?? All in all, we don’t think it was worth the $20 per person entry (although if you were a local you got in there for next to nothing, if not nothing at all).

Besides, I was more distracted by looking for a bathroom up there, which turned out not to exist (do Buddhists not need the bathroom??). I was so distracted by this that I didn’t even pay much attention to all the sweet monkeys scampering around, although it was hard not to notice when a couple were having an argument which involved one throwing the other into the lily pond. It was A-DORABLE! And as all of this was happening, another monkey saught refuge by clinging to MrNin’ leg which we thought was the sweetest thing EVER until we remembered that it might be riddled with disease and parasites. Euuw. Enough was rapidly enough for MrNin when the monkey started to investigate what was up the leg of his shorts and started reaching for his pocket. We think he was probably after food….nuts maybe? (sorry, hehehe).

But we thought monkeys were sweet again when we saw this little mummy on the way back down to the car.

I never did find a bathroom at the Dambulla Caves. Upon descending the 2000 steps again, Palitha informed me that the bathroom probably wasn’t clean, so I had to wait until we passed a hotel where we could stop. It was not a happy journey.

After napping in the car (so far we have not been able to stay awake for more than about 20 minutes- I don’t think it’s jetlag though, i think it’s just being in the back of a car), we woke up to a change of scenery. Outside the car window, the view had changed from dusty plains to an explosion of lushious tropical vegetation- we were now in the spice garden of Sri Lanka!

The roadside was flanked either side by spice farm after spice farm, all with tourist cars and coaches parked outside. Eventually we stopped at one of them, so obviously where there was an arrangement with our tour operator. We were initially filled with feelings of dread when it emerged that we would have our own personal guide taking us around as it would require us to switch on our full attention and think of questions to ask, but it actually wasn’t that bad. It was even rather interesting. We were astonished to realise just how few peppercorns are yeilded from any single tree, which gave us a whole new appreciation for how much they cost in the grocery store. And the three different types of peppercorn are actually all and the same, just at different stages of ripeness.

One cookery demonstration, two unavoidable back and shoulder massages, two cups of spiced tea and hot chocolate, and one failed hard sale of strange and heavily overpriced ayurvedic treatments later, we were ushered into the shop at the end where our guide tried one last time to sell us a $46 bottle of liver tonic that would “clear your libber for 10 year“. We compromised with the packet of garam massala though, as that did smell good. Although quite how a relatively small bag could cost $6.50 was quite beyond me (the bigger bag was a whopping $14!!!). What made it all the more interesting was that the GIANT bags of regular curry powder were all about $3. And we couldn’t resist the bargain vanilla essence (about the only thing that was cheaper than home), so all in all I think our spice guide was happy as he would have got his commission. OK so maybe he wasn’t thrilled as we didn’t buy the liver tonic, but it’s not like we left empty-handed.

We arrived in Kandy around lunchtime to the noisiest hotel reception imaginable.The music was so loud the walls throbbed, and there were people running around laughing and shouting, and lifting fellow partygoers up on chairs and thrusting them around the room. It was a wedding in full swing. It was actually a Bhuddist wedding in full swing, which made me feel completley ignorant as I always thought that the Bhuddists were quite a quiet group and didn’t really go in for anything raucous that drew attention to themselves from the general public. That just shows how much I know.

After a spot of lunch, we climbed back into the car to head out and about around Kandy. Palitha informed us that we were bearing too much flesh for the Temple of the Tooth, so instead he took us for a little drive about town, and we visited a gem museum and store (no commission for anyone there!!) and then onto a batik factory.

We went in there swearing blindly that we wouldn’t come out with anything, but our hearts got the better of us and we ended up coming out with a little batik of elephants. We thought we did really well as we had managed to haggle the price down from 27 to 15. But here’s the thing…..we were haggling in thousands of rupees, whereas the people in the shop were haggling in US dollars. Grr. But we were trapped in the sale before we could get out of it, and it was hardly breaking the bank. I really hate feeling stupid like that. Between the two of us we have five university degrees, three of which are graduate level, so it’s not like we’re not the sharpest tools in the box. How can we not even handle a simple sale?? GAH!

Later that night, we sat on our balcony and drank (well, I sipped a small glass) of Laurent Perrier pink champagne to toast in my thirty years, and attempted to tackle yet another honeymoon welcome basket of fruit before heading down to dinner.

The buffet at the Mahaweli Reach proved quite a contrast to that of the Kandalama. We had just come from the most gourmet buffet imaginable, with chefs at every food station, and an outdoor kitchen where they cooked up customised dishes of the day with big woks over roaringingly hot burners. And in the backgound, a man wandered around playing a wooden pipe, so every now and again when the wind blew in the right direction, you could hear gently music wafting in through the door. Here, the concept was the same (a buffet, and a kitchen station, and music in the background), but it just didn’t compare at all. The food looked all slightly more mass produce, and tasted a bit less, and where things weren’t contained within the big metal warming pans, they were covered in plastic wrap. They even had ice cream out for dessert……still in the big plastic container from the wholesaler. Things could have been improved with the kitchen station too- the basic setup was all there, but instead of providing the chef with a couple of nice looking woks, we was using a pair of rather beaten up looking aluminium pans. The musical entertainment was all rather comical really- it was a pair of men, one on a keyboard with a drum machine and the other with a microphone and a tambourine, and the music of choice was the hits from the 80s. It was just a different class of hotel altogether (complete with power cuts, but I think this was more to do with the weather), and we had very much been spoilt by the Kandalama. The interesting part was that both hotels had almost cost the same to stay in!

As for me, I was really feeling rather grotty by this stage and was struggling being in such close proximity to food, so ended up leaving dinner early to have an early night in the room. Just as I was leaving the bathroom in my underwear, getting ready to change and settle in for the night, I heard activity outside in the corridor. It was lucky I thought to look outside as I saw MrNin and two other people with what looked like something on a tray. So in my delicate state, I then had to bolt back into the room, fight with my clothes to get them back on quickly, before appearing at the door with a big smile on my face, and eliminate any sign on my face that would give away that I would rather die than see any more food.

It turned out that whilst we were at the gem shop, Palitha had arranged for a cake to be presented to me at dessert, but as I had left the table and not come back, it had sent the wait staff into a blind panic, and MrNin had to arrange for it to be put onto a plate, and taken up to the room, and also find a member of security to come and let them through the door as I had already taken the key. Bless them all, I was very touched, even though the last thing I wanted to do was have any of that cake go anywhere near me.

It turns out that there’s not an awful lot to do in Kandy so Palitha didn’t arrange to pick us up until 2 o’clock this afternoon. It coudn’t have worked out better actually, as I needed nothing less that some time in bed. We’ve had some really early starts the past few days, and what with the bulld up to the wedding, and the 13.5 hour redeye flight, we’ve both been pretty exhausted. And I wasn’t really feeling up to a lot of walking around anyway. First stop was the Royal Botanical Garden. About two minutes through the gate, it started to pour down with rain so we sought reference in the orchid house whilst the worst of it blew over.

I wasn’t about to let water get into my Nikon D80, so I did what I usually do with my precious handbags, and wore it underneath my raincoat. For some reason this attracted rather a lot of attention from our fellow park attendees, they all found it most curious.

Ooh, I don’t look healthy at all in that picture. Anyway, the rain calmed down a bit after that, so we wandered around the rest of the gardens, taking cover when necessary underneath the giant bamboo from Burma.

Later in the day we went to the famed Temple of the Tooth which is where Budda’s precious tooth relic is guarded under lock and key. This is thought to be only actual relic in the world (although I’ve heard that claim from other countries too). Buddhists regard the tooth as being the living Buddha, so they prepare him meals three times a day (including over 30 different types of vegetable), and deliver him packages of clothing, shaving supplies and all things like that. I didn’t really get good pictures from inside the temple, as there wasn’t much to see except for crowds of people offering worship and I thought it disrespectful to point my camera at them, but I took this picture from outside. Those huts in the middle are security booths with metal detectors. The security here was unreal- screenings, body searches, bag searches…. They were all extremely interested in my IBS medication that I was carrying around with me, but they let me take it in with me which was a relief.

As with all Buddhist sites, we were required to remove our shoes before we went in, and we had no choice but to leave them in a designated area. We don’t have an objection to that at all, I’ll cover myself up, remove my shoes, and I’ll even wear a headscarf whenever it’s required, but what we’re beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with is the routine that follows.

Whenever we’ve come out of temples, and believe me when I say that we’ve been to quite a few by now, it’s always the same thing. Palitha goes over to the shoe man, points at his shoes, they get presented back to him, and he is then free to go about the rest of his day. Whenever MrNin or I go to get our shoes back however, a hand gets stretched out, and we get asked for money. We’re beginning to feel a bit like walking ATM machines as a result of all of this. To add insult to injury, it’s not a small fee ‘tip’ that they’re after either, they’re after preferably a 100 rupee note (approx US $1), although they will reluctantly accept a 50. To put this into perspective, the Rough Guide states that a good average daily wage in Sri Lanka is approximately US $10, so it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that it’s quite a lucrative little business. it’s probably fellow tourists to blame though as they’ve set the precedent by tipping too much in the past…..but come on, a $1 tip for looking after a pair of shoes for 10 minutes that don’t even need looking after is still disproportionately generous even by western standards!! Not only that, but we tourists have already paid an extortionate (by western standards) fee to enter the temple in the first place! It’s just as well that this is our last big temple stop, MrNin is beginning to find it difficult to restrain himself. He offered 20 rupees to get his shoes back, more or less proportionate bearing in mind the average wage, but he had it REFUSED!

There then followed a cultural dance show at the Young Men’s Buddhust Association (YMBA!) where we saw lots of drummers and lots of dancers…

lots of fancy costumes…

fire eaters…

and fire walkers too….

Now I am absolutely ready for bed. Thank goodness this has been a relatively easy day without too long in the car, as I don’t know if that would have made me a very happy person, boo. I hope I’ve not got something ghastly wrong with me.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Happy birthday to me!!!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as I don’t think they want people to use this door…

I actually think I first acquired my injury on Memorial Day, which perhaps arose from being too overly Wii-active the week before, as my right arm definitely felt tight as I was hitting my 104 mph power serves during Wii Tennis. But this weekend, one swing of the Wii Tennis raquet, and that was it for me…shooting pains up my arm. But I wonder more if it was to do with my lack of fitness rather than my fierce game. Perhaps with the new version of Wii Tennis, they ought to program in a Wii Trainer to come into the court during injury time. After all, Wii is surprisingly authentic (impressively so), and so surely that would make it even more like the real thing? Speaking of which, it’s Wimbledon soon, YAY! *suddenly gets hit by pangs of home memories of watching Wimbledon on TV with her family*. I want my mum now. And she’d know what to do about fixing my arm…..

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as I think I overdid the whole Wii-playing thing….

It happens every year about this time- he starts to scratch and scratch, and lick and scratch so that eventually he has these little sore spots under his chin, and over his back. Thank goodness he's an indoor cat, otherwise who knows what other people would be thinking about our kitty parenting skills. Poor little thing, he looks completely pathetic, but it's understandable why he can't help not scratching those itches. I got bitten by a mosquito last year and literally got to the stage where I wanted to chew my arm off. You can just about see one of the sore spots under his chin in this picture.

Awww, he's so cute!! We think it's hayfever of sorts- definitely some form of pollen allergy anyway. So C2 took the afternoon off work to take him to the vet. I of course would have taken him myself, but California law states that any person riding a Vespa needs to wear a helmet, and I just didn't have one to fit his ears. And until I get my full license, I can't take passengers. Thirty minutes and a $20 cortisone shot later, and all was fine again. He spent the next hour or so flying around the apartment, but then completely passed out with exhaustion. Again he looked pathetic, but pathetic in a getting better way.

And once again we had our happy kitty back. There's nothing like a nice little cuddle with your sister to make you feel all better again.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as The orange kitty has allergies