A's first presentation

So A had her first presentation at school. I kid you not - it was to be made on power point and presented to the class. You could make a poster if the child was uncomfortable using power point but it was preferable to use ppt.
Well i did not use ppt even in business school (it was OHP for us all the well) and I thought this is wonderful for A - she can go straight from year 1 to becoming CEO of a business (she already shouts when she doesn't have her way and delegates all her work to S so she's nearly there).

The first step was choosing the topic. There was a list of topics to chose from and one day while waiting to pick up A from school i glanced at them. I found Gobi desert and thought to myself, what a good way for A to learn about the desert in Rajasthan and learn about India. Clearly I don't know my geography. WE got home and I told the hubby we have to make a presentation on Gobi desert and then found it's in Mongolia. Never mind, Looks like I need geography lessons more than A!

So the hubby sat with A over a couple of weekends and they got some good stuff on the Gobi desert from the internet and put together a simple presentation. A chose the pictures, typed in the words on the slides and the hubby was responsible for the pasting and the formatting. I then did a surreptitious spell check on the words :)

A practised a couple of times and then was ready for her presentation at school. WE gave the presentation on a USB drive to the teacher at school and printed out a copy for her to read from while the ppt was on the screen behind her. She even learned the tough words like T-rex and Hadrosaurus!

The presentation turned out well i believe. She was able to present without becoming too shy and answer some of the questions. It amazes me how quickly technology moves forward at such a rapid pace and how we have to keep up. My first presentation was in business school and was a SWOT analysis on POSCO in the steel industry. It was on OHP and certainly did not involve any power point.


Here is A's first presentation...wish I had kept a copy of mine!

First few weeks in London

Again captured from emails with friends...goes backward in time to keep it more interesting :)
This weekend we got a lot of stuff done around the house so it's finally looking liveable. The girls trampoline is up and so is the garden shed where we can store the cycles. Our gym room is also set up. I'm meeting our neighbour for coffee on Friday when I'll discuss about our noisy treadmill and inform her that we would be making a lot of noise 3-4 times a week on the treadmill. Hope she doesn't freak out! Girls are finally going to school tomorrow. I can't say they are looking forward to it but over the weekend we met by friend in Hampstead who has a son A's age and the downstairs children who are all very nice so I told the girls that the children in london would also be nice. Keeping fingers crossed that they get nice classmates and teachers! We saw jungle book in 3D yesterday. It was excellent. N is travelling from tomorrow afternoon to Saturday - I think I'll use the time the girls are in school doing all the routine stuff - bank account, registering at a GP etc. would also like to walk around the area and figure out where stuff is. It's impossible to go browsing in a shop with the girls. 

Hello hello finally a sunny day here in london. Our treadmill is still not set up so I've started running on the road - from home to regents park, half a round there and back. It's about 6.5 km I think. It's much tougher to run on the road than on the treadmill I find, with the many ups and downs. The first 2-3 times I had to take many breaks but now I'm slowly improving. How is your jogging going - will you start again or is your knee still paining?


Today we went to the Hampstead Heath park which is about 1 mile from our house. The girls took their scooter but it was quite a steep climb up to reach the park. The park is lovely with a mini zoo with deer and rhea and kookkoburras. After that we had an Indian lunch and are back home and relaxing 😊 I went to open a bank account and they said they would not accept the lease agreement in nikhils name alongwith our marriage certificate and a declaration that we live together !!! I have to get a utility bill in my name..highly frustrating..

A random piece of info for you - I can throw all my recyclables - plastic glass cardboard etc into the green wheelie bin outside my house and they will pick it up on a weekly basis. No need to press and wrap the cardboard, lug the glass bottles to the recycling and go to coop with the plastic bottles 😊 I hope you are not sending glares my way now...

I must say its much colder in london than zurich - inside the appartment because of the single glazing and also outside its much more windy than zurich...

Car updates from London

Mail to a friend...
We got a car 😊 N found an Audi Q5 in the company pool and it was delivered on Friday. You know how much N loves driving so he got back from India on Saturday and we were already out on Sunday driving to Brighton - about 1 hr 45 mins away. He found it a bit tough adjusting to the right hand side of the road and was going too close to the cars on the left side but otherwise not too bad. I don't feel confident at all - firstly it's a big Audi Q5 ( I miss my small Clio), secondly it's manual and thirdly some of the roads are so small here..let's see maybe after a month I'll try.. Don't need it right now for school and not planned any activities as of now.

Hello from the other side

It's been a year since I posted. I thought I would capture our move to London through a series of emails I shared with friends...

Hello from the other side (of the Channel)..

How are you ladies doing? I really really miss you all so much and the girls miss their friends...

School started last Tuesday. Here's a photo of the girls in their uniform. I must say having a uniform makes life so much easier. No more arguments in the morning about what to wear! The hats are only for show, they are supposed to wear them to school and back but they were the only girls in school with the hats on the first day, so now the hats are in the cupboard to be taken out on a special day. The school is pretty strict about tying hair back, no nail polish etc (no earrings on PE day) but the girls have been quite cooperative. 

The school is completely the opposite of ICS. Its amongst the bigger ones in Hampstead which is why i was happy the girls got in with its own playground, but really its just one building with a playground. I won't complain though - they take the girls very week to Hampstead Heath for PE (we nearly missed the bus this week since i didn't know they had to come to school early that day). There's no parking allowed inside the school and nobody hangs around after school with the girls playing. Its just come and collect and go. About 50% of the people collecting are nannies and the other moms. I was quite surprised that its an international crowd- in A's class we had a coffee morning for the moms last Friday and there was not one British mum in the 8 mums who had turned up - a mix of Italian, Japanese, South American, Indian, New Zealand etc. Also quite a bit of students joining and leaving - certainly not as much as ICS but I thought it would be a very closed school with the same class together for all the years. 

The girls are still to settle down though -they really miss their friends. I thought A was ok but she told me today that for the last two days nobody was playing with her in the playground and today she went and found Akka and played with her. The teacher said A cried in class also the last two days as she found the writing and the science a bit tough. The positive is that A's teacher is really wonderful. She is very kind and open (i requested a short meeting with her and thought i would have to sign a yellow slip (yes that's how we can meet teachers here!) requesting a meeting but she just asked me to wait a few minutes and met me immediately after school. She said she was not going to out any pressure on A in terms of studies and in her view A was adjusting well socially but she would keep an eye out.

S's teacher on the other hand is a nightmare. She is very strict and quite unfriendly. On the second day of school, S was walking down with her at pick up time and I called out to S and she came and gave me her bag. The teacher shouted (yes shouted!) at S to get back in line and made her come back to me and take back her bag and blazer and I had to go to the hall after 5 mins to pick her up in the correct way! Seriously, for a new child? S was crying on the way back home. also when i asked her for a meeting to discuss how S is settling down she said she's very busy and not really spent much time with S yet so only after a couple of weeks more. Very reassuring!!

So when i asked A who S was playing with in th playground today when she went to her she said no one, and I could imagine the two of them playing by themselves in the playground. I felt bit sad but also glad that they at least had each other for company :)

Ok enough about the school. WE are slowly settling down here. setting up the house took a lot longer than expected. We are 80% there now - its livable but still too many things lying around the house and cluttering up all the rooms. We have a small garden area at the back where the girls now have a trampoline. Surprisingly the weather in London has not been that bad- its hasn't rained THAT much so the girls are able to jump on the trampoline at least every alternate day. The school is a 1 km trek from the house so I get a good 4 km exercise daily! For free :)

I like our neighbourhood. Its very close to the Finchley road high street and we have a tube station, bus stop and overground station all within 5 mins walk from the house. There\'s the O2 centre which has tons of eating places and a cinema and a gym/swimming pool and Sainsbury's also about 10 mins walk from our place. On the other side is Hampstead village which is very quaint with a village atmosphere and beyond that is the Hampstead Heath which is a lovely huge park. There are supposed to be very nice pubs around this area which we haven't got around to exploring yet- maybe when you guys come visit us :)

It's only been a week since the girls are back at school and i've been spending my days doing exciting stuff like getting a bank account opened, getting a mobile phone connection (I was rejected for a post paid connection since I did not have 5 years residence proof in UK so I've settled for a prepaid connection). I've also started running on the roads here- Regents park is about a 3km run from the house and Hampstead Heath is 1.5 km so its quite good for running. I met some of my old college and school friends. The moms in the school are not super friendly and as far as i know there are no school parent clubs like the book club etc which we had in ICS. Never mind. Maybe ill start my own book club :)

That's it for now. Do write back and keep me posted on the happenings in Zurich..

Happy Birthday dear A

For A’s birthday, there was a choice between having it at a trampoline place or having it at home. Final headcount made it a better idea at home as there are only 5 girls in A’s class and two she knows well in the other class, and not enough for a party in a trampoline place.

A wanted a ‘Little Pony’ themed party so the planning was all pony/horse based starting from the Little Pony cupcakes (the cake lady  is awesome, she made cupcakes with the individual pony icing on top), party plates, Pinky Pie Pinata made by the hubby and girls, pin the tail on the Pinky Pie etc… its amazing the stuff you get on the net.

The party was on Saturday afternoon from 2 pm to 5 pm, and finally only 4 girls ended up confirming as it was ski weekend and two of the girls were out skiing, and one mom never got back to me despite me sending  her three emails and putting a card in her daughter’s backpack! But A’s best buddy L was there so she was happy enough J

The party was a dress up party so we had two Elsa’s, one Rapunzel, one pirate and one fairy (A). S did not dress up but declared herself responsible for helping conduct the party

The games were :

1.     Pass the Parcel : We wrapped a small prize in each layer of the parcel, and whoever got the parcel would get the prize. There were no punishments as A insisted that she and her friends are too young to do the punishments!!

2.     Musical chairs: This was so funny. Clearly S and A had got a lot of practice from playing since at S’ birthday party and despite repeated whisperings from the hubby and I to S, to let A and her friends win, S continued to dominate this game and in the end it was her and A running around the last chair.

3.     Musical Statues, or Freeze Dance : The hubby and the girls had been doing some research on this for the last one week leading up to the party and had the favourite dance music for the kids ready and stored on their favourites on You Tube. They found a couple of cute numbers like ‘I’m a gummy bear’  and another which I can’t remember the name, where they had kids dancing to the song and the kids could copy their steps. Whenever the music stopped the kids had to freeze and whoever was the slowest at freezing was out. We had bought small prizes for everyone who got out (no losers in the girls birthday parties…)

4.     Pin the Tail on Pinky Pie : The birthday party was Little Pony theme so we had Pin the Tail on Pinkly Pie and cut outs of pink tails for the kids to stick with pink tac. S organized this completely, and would blindfold the kids and then lead them upto the blackboard and help then with pinning the tail!

5.     Lemon and Spoon race : The hubby had got some Cadbury crème eggs so we had a variation of the lemon and spoon race with a chocolate egg in a spoon. There wasn’t enough place in the flat for all the girls to run together so we split them into pairs of two, and they had to make one loop around the flat without dropping the egg. A refused to participate so I had to step in for her!

6.     Wild hitting of the Pinata : We ended the games with a home made Pinata. The girls and the hubby had over the last week crafted a home made Pinky Pie  piñata and stuffed it full of sweets. It turned out to be quite strong  and the girls had many chances to hit it until it finally burst!

In addition to the games we also had some activities/crafts to keep the girls busy

1.     Painting and colouring a take home party bag: The girls could chose between felt colour and paints and colour these cloth (take home ) party bags

2.     Painting and decorating ‘My Little Pony’ : Crayola has this awesome Pony handicraft where you can join two halves of a pony together, paint it, decorate it with stickers, braid its hair and stick clips etc in the hair. We got one for each of the kids, and asked them to design their own favourite My Little Pony. We had a rainbow dash and a pinkie pie etc etc by the end of it

3.     Face painting : S was responsible for making little designs on the kids faces and she supplied them with hearts, diamonds etc

Food was a simple affair as it was between lunch and dinner. Everyone chose their favourite Pony cupcake and had popcorn, chips, fruits and juice alongwith it. After food everyone relaxed on the mattress to watch an episode of My Little Pony.

The party was fun, and best of all A enjoyed it J Only learning is that next time I’ll oragnise it only for 2 and ½ hours, the last half hour was a bit of a stretch as the games and activities and food only lasts for about a couple of hours.

Till next year…

Dubai vacation

Just back from an awesome one week vacation in Dubai. It was a continuous party from one moment to another and a total overload of all senses ! The best part was that we stayed at the Atlantis the Palm, which is on an island near the Dubai Marina. Its an amazing property and I would highly recommend it for familities with kids. Its so kid friendly, that for once I did not have to nag at the children to walk around/talk softly. It has its own water park, beach, dolphin bay, kids club etc so do I need to say more? We were at the water park nearly every other day.

Our action packed schedules went something like this…

Thursday : Fly out with the girls from Zurich to Dubai. The hubby was already there on work and was waiting for us at the hotel. Luckily he had insisted that we avail of the Marhaba service as the airport was totally packed when we landed. Even with the Marhaba queue it took us more than half an hour to clear immigration. We asked the hotel to send us a taxi which was also great because it would have been a struggle to find a taxi amidst all that crowd. We finally reached our room at 11 pm Dubai time (9 pm Zurich) and settled down to a nice dinner of pizza (for the girls) and fatoush (my favourite!!)

Friday: We had a late lazy morning on account of our jet lag and long travel the previous day. We did venture out around 11 am and went straight to Aquaventure, the water park. As a resident of the hotel we have unlimited access to the water park which is good as it meant we didn’t have to spend the whole day outside in the heat. We were a bit disappointed with the 1.2 m height restriction on most of the water rides which meant that A could not come on most of them .She seemed to be happy playing in the children’s splash area (which also had quite a few fun slides) and going about in the lazy river while the hubby and I took turns going with S on the water slides. We went together on two family tubes on the lazy river, but the hubby and S were not so lucky on the Rapids (they both fell off) while A and I were a bit luckier. We came back to the room for an afternoon siesta – we had also decided to have breakfast everyday in our room – we had carried cereal, bread etc and also one more meal in our room, otherwise we end up putting on a lot of weight eating out in holidays (and we have the city run/marathon coming up in a few weeks). In the evening we went to the Souk Madinat  Jumeirah – a lovely shopping mall near the Burj Al Arab.  I got some shopping done, the girls got some photos taken holding a falcon and we had a nice Chinese dinner at one of the restaurants. It felt great to be able to 

step out in our sandals and without carrying jackets,caps, gloves etc….

Saturday :  We had booked the dolphin encounter in the morning in the dolphin bay of the hotel. We all changed into wet suits and got instructions on how to behave with the dolphins. The encounter was in the shallow water of the dolphin bay and our dolphin was a young 5 year old named Butter Lily. We were thrilled to touch her, kiss her, rub our noses against her and I danced with her, while the hubby and the kids played with her (threw a ball for her to retrieve). It was a magical half an hour and S is more convinced of growing up to become a dolphin trainer than ever before! We went back to the water park and tried out some of the water slides and reached back to our room for a quick lunch. The kids went to the kids club for a couple of hours while the hubby and I just lazed around. In the evening we went to the Wafi Mall in Dubai  -the mall itself was nothing great but it was built in the shape of a pyramid which looked amazing. The hubby had booked us for an early dinner at Qbara, a Lebanese restaurant near the Wafi mall which is one of the best Lebanese restaurants that I’ve been too. I  did full justice to the fatoush and the chick pea/couscous main course

Sunday : I finally got around to hitting the hotel gym. The weight machines were so amazing I literally could not tear myself away. So many different machines for the arms, legs etc.. We spent the day in the hotel – at the swimming pool, back to the water park etc. In the evening we took the hotel shuttle to the Dubai Mall and boy did I totally fall in love with the musical water fountains outside the Bhurj Khalifa or what. We were able to catch the  7:30 pm, 8 pm, 8:30 pm , 9 pm and 9:30 pm shows and we all agreed uunanimously that the Thriller show was the best. The girls totally loved it. We were able to get a table at a Lebanese restaurant overlooking the Burj Kkhalifa and the water fountain display so I could enjoy my favourite fatoush and humus while watching the sites, and I enjoyed the experience so much 

that I made the hubby agree that we need to come back another day

Monday : I finally got to eat my much awaited rava onion masala dosa from Sarava Bhawan. I had been pestering the hubby about this for ages, so he finally figured out that there was a Saravana Bhawan near the Gold Souk so we combined the two. The girls were amazed to see such a huge display of gold ornaments and precious jewels and I was more than happy to eat my south Indian dosas and vadas. It turned out to be quite a hectic day as we had booked the desert safari for that afternoon. We were picked up from the hotel in a private Range Rover and driven out 1 and a half hours into the desert. There the driver took us sand dune riding/bashing/falling where he drove the vehicle steeply and sharply up and down the sand dunes. Totally thrilling. Then we saw sunset on the desert and went to a desert camp. We went on a camel ride and the hubby and S tried some sand surfing. A did some sand tobagonning. The girls are I got some mehendi on our hands and ate some more yummy Lebanese food while watching some live belly dancing. We got back to the hotel pretty late and quite tired.

Tuesday : We took the shuttle into the Dubai Mall in the morning as we had booked tickets to go up the Burj Khalifa at 11:30. The lift was super fast, it felt like we reached the top within. I am pretty sure the lifts in my office are slower. The view from the top was amazing – we could see the island on which the Atlantis was situated, and all around we could see so much of construction work going on,. Looks like the city never stops constructuring. We had a nice chaat lunch at the food court and took the afternoon bus back to the hotel.  After a quick turnaround we went to the Dubai Marina where we tried our hand at waterskiing. It was much more difficult that I had imagined. I had to lie in the water, with skis on my feet, and my legs straight and get up when the boat started moving. I managed to get up and ski, with some help and the feeling was great. I was unduly worried about falling so I kept gripping the rope tightly, but in the end I fell and it wasn’t so bad after all. The water was nice and warm in fact. Next time I won’t be so worried. The hubby was not able to get up on the water skis s I think we will need to go again here in the Schweiz or elsewhere on holiday. After we returnbed back to our holiday I was very keen on enjoying one drink by the sea so we sat at a bar by the beach and I had a couple of wines while enjoying the view

Wednesday : We spent the day enjoying the swimming pool and the water park. We took S on most of the water rides, and A relaxed on the lazy river/children’s play area. The hubby and I were brave enough to try the Leap of Faith (it was so scaaaary) and the children finally got to eat the chicken nuggets and fries they has been eyeing for ages. In the evening we took the bus into the Dubai Mall for another experience of the dancing waterfalls. It was truly magical, I don’t mind going back there yet again…

Thursday : We woke up to a huge sandstorm. The sky was covered in sand particles. We decided to make one last trip to the waterpark. It was a bit cold without the sun, so we just did the lazy river and a couple of water slides and then went back to the room to check out. In the afternoon we had hired a taxi to take us to Abu Dhabi where we wanted to visit Ferrari World and meet up with the hubby’s uncle and family. Ferrari world was very disappointing as they had a height restriction of 1.2 m on most rides and 1.3 m on some rides.  We didn’t want to again leave A out of all the fun stuff, so we decided to spend the afternoon in the mall. Luckily we came across FunWorld in the mall – which had a lot of fun rides, video games and activities for children of S and A’s age. They spent a happy couple of hours there and then we finally met up with our relatives for dinner at Asha’s ( an Indian restaurant started by Asha Bhosale, nice food). It was nice meeting up with the hubby’s uncle and family – it had been more than 4 years since we last saw them.

After dinner we set off back to Dubai and directly to the international airport. The flight was delayed a bit due to the sandstorm (uncle said it was the worst he had seen in 15 years!) and we finally took off only at 2:30 am. The hubby was in business and he smuggled A into the empty seat next to him, so we had 3 seats in economy where S could sprawl out and sleep so overall a comfortable journey back home.

A lovely holiday and someplace I definetly won’t mind going back.

Happy birthday Dear S

Come December and January and the main discussion at home centres around how do we celebrate the girls birthdays. I’m all for a big celebration with the girls, when I was growing up we had a party at home on the terrace for each of my birthdays and I still look upon those times fondly. These stopped after I turned 11 and then it was just maybe lunch out with friends, or cutting a cake at home. So while the girls are still young and want to celebrate with their mom and dad around why not make the best of it.

S has been asking for a party at home for some time. I’ve been quite reluctant since we have a flat and not a house and having 10-12 kids running around wrecking our apartment doesn’t seem like a great idea to me. But S promised to keep her friends under control and the hubby and her got into the act and started planning party games and activities with gusto so I thought why not. A was also happy to have the party at home and since there were only a few girls in her class and few girls she knew well in the other class the invite list was small for her party and we thought  we could manage it at home.

The parties turned out to be great fun, and all of us enjoyed the planning, shopping and the parties.

S’s party was held on her birthday, which was on a Friday after school from 4 pm to 7 pm. There were 11 kids in all included our 2 so quite manageable.

The games (all planned by S and arranged by her and the hubby) were :

1.     Pass the Parcel : We wrapped a small prize and a ‘punishment’ in each layer of the parcel, and whoever got the parcel would get the prize and have to do the ‘punishment’. S wrote all the punishments herself (with some friendly inputs from us!) – she had ones like ‘Sing a song in your mother tongue’, or ‘Tell a joke’ . It was great fun. Some of the kids were reluctant to do their punishment but then others offered to do it for them and then everyone got in it together. For eg for the hopping on one foot for 10 hops, we had all the girls hopping around the living room!

2.     Musical chairs: A classic and one of my favourites. I must say the girls were all quite aggressive in reaching the chairs in time. In the end there were just 2 girls left – a new girl and someone who’s been in the school since EY1. Everyone started rooting for the older girl and the hubby felt bad for the new girl and ‘rigged’ the music playing so she could win. If only life was so fair!!

3.     Musical Statues, or Freeze Dance : The hubby and the girls had been doing some research on this for the last one week leading up to the party and had the favourite dance music for the kids ready and stored on their favourites on You Tube. They found a couple of cute numbers like ‘I’m a gummy bear’  and another which I can’t remember the name, where they had kids dancing to the song and the kids could copy their steps. Whenever the music stopped the kids had to freeze and whoever was the slowest at freezing was out. We had bought small prizes for everyone who got out (no losers in the girls birthday parties…) and for this game it was bracelets and everyone wanted the princess bracelet and was more than happy to get out!

4.     Pin the Nose on the Olaf : The birthday party was Frozen theme so we had Pin the Nose of Olaf as a spin on the more traditional Pin the Tail on the Donkey. There was a big poster of Olaf, and cut outs of carrots for his nose and the kids could stick it with blue (pink!) tac.

5.     Wild hitting of the Pinata : We ended the games with a home made Pinata. The girls and the hubby had over the last week crafted a home made Olaf piñata and stuffed it full of sweets. It turned out to be quite strong  and the girls had many chances to hit it until it finally burst!

In addition to the games we also had 3 activities/crafts to keep the girls busy

1.     Crown making : Painting a paper crown and sticking jewels/stars etc on it

2.     Decorating a jewelry box: Decorating a cardboard box with sparkly stuff and ribbons (what fun). The prizes were all stuff you could keep in a jewellrey box, so the idea was for the girls to make the jewelery box and takje home their haul in it!

3.     Face painting : I had called in my nanny (she’s a friend’s nanny but sometimes babysists the girls during school holidays when I am at work) to help with the face painting and to generally help out in the party. We had bought some stecncislk to make flowers and butterflies on the faces, but that didn’t turn out so well so she just ended up drawing freehand on their face. It wasn’t very professional looking but the girls liked it.

And how can we finish without the food. Last time so much of the cake was left over that this time we instead went with cupcakes (the cake lady made some awesome ones with Anna, Elsa and Olaf figures on them) and then pizza, chicken nuggets and some treats for dinner. The girls were tired and hungry after all the games and running around and consumed the chicken nuggets and pizza faster than I could make them!

After dinner everyone relaxed on some mattresses on the hall and watched some of the Frozen movie

All in all S had a lot of fun both planning and enjoying the party. And I have to admit it wasn’t that difficult though I was quite stressed for some time before!

A’s party details coming soon...