Work and other updates..

Dear S

Thank you for the lovely long email. Was delighted to read it and be updated on all your happenings. Things have been really busy here. The continuation of my part time job in DB via the branch in London did not work out. I went through the screening, got my offer etc, and in the last minute they retracted citing some compliance issue. I was a bit disappointed to be honest, but it was good for me to spend more time at the girls school, volunteering for school trips, meeting the teachers and other parents etc. I’ve now got a temporary 3 month role, again in DB, but in Credit Risk and not in Wealth Management (which I was doing in Zurich). I’m quite happy about this since Credit Risk is what I was doing in Mumbai for many years and is the part of banking I most enjoy. I was hoping that it would turn into a permanent role, but with Brexit happening and also DB committing in its annual plan to reduce costs and cut jobs (doesn’t it all sound very familiar) I don’t think they will be able to justify a permanent increase in the headcount. I started the job just 2 weeks back, and the upshot is that the timing is really bad- it will be throughout the girls summer holidays (starting this Thursday) and when they get back to school, the role gets over. Never mind. I’m glad for the experience. And my parents are coming for one month during the summer holidays so the girls would be well looked after.

Did you already finalise your house- are you looking for something near the school, or do you plan to drive the boys to school?  The academic level is pretty high here and the girls have been struggling to cope, to be honest. S had an end of year exam in maths and English and they look at these results on a national level. She’s doing well in English but maths needs some improvement. I think I will try to spend a little time with her over the summer focusing on  Maths. It’s the opposite for A, she enjoys Maths and is finding the level ok in class. English reading and writing is going a little above her head and there have been quite a few instances of tears in school when she’s not been able to do stuff. The teacher is very kind and doesn’t put any pressure on A, but she is really very sensitive and when she sees her classmates doing stuff much more easily and she’s struggling with it, I think she feels sad. I’ve told her not to worry, but I thinik this summer I’ll need to concentrate on her English. The thing is A doesn’t really like reading and S doesn’t enjoy maths so there’s always complaints and moaning when I ask them to come and study those subjects with me. Please give me some patience and forbearance!

 Thank you for all the photos on snapfish... Its amazing to see the kids grow up from small babies (A, LF and T were so small when we first met) to such independent children and for the older ones to become mini adults (or rather mini teenagers!). I think we won’t be travelling anywhere during the summer break this year. Due to the short term nature of my contract I don’t think I will be able  to take more than a couple of days off so no long distance trips. N has taken 2 weeks off in end July, but I think he will either stay in London and do day trips with the girls or just some 2-3 day trips to the country. London has a lot of stuff we haven’t seen yet so maybe N will take the girls to the museums for a couple of days. I’ve booked two shows for the girls in August – Charlie and the Chocolate factory and Gruffalo. We saw a lovely play- Running Wild in the open air theater in Regents Park. I guess I completely misjudged how cold it gets in the evening – other people had come with blankets and caps and scarves and we were all shivering in our spring jackets. But it was lovely, the whole experience. I really miss the beauty and calm and ease of life in Switzerland, I think the only thing to kind of make up for that is the cultural and food scene here! You’re so right about being in Zurich being a first class experience and how we all need to move to economy now. Only positive being I could get used to the economy cost of goods and service here. For eg, I can easily afford to go every week to the hairdresser and have my hair washed and blowdried here at a fraction of the cost in Switzerland ( I won’t of course, but maybe for a very fancy occasion J).

I’m overall finding the experience of moving quite underwhelming. I think with the kids school and house stuff there’s so much to be done when you move that it takes away the excitement of going to  a new place. Also it takes time to make new friends and settle down and sometimes (very often) I feel it would have been much simpler if we had just managed to stay back in Switzerland. Am hoping this feeling does not last too long. Does not help that the weather is damn awful here.. some sunshine but mostly cloudy and rainy. But its amazing how people take the rains with a pinch here – it was raining quite heavily on the day of S’ sports day and I expected them to cancel the sports day. But they didn’t. It ended up being sunny later, but I was quite surprised at the school’s decision and how all the parents didn’t seem too worried! Next task is to buy a nice rain jacket for myself! I think the summer dresses and shorts will remain in the cupboard this year!

That’s it for now. Hugs to the boys!

Best

R

Cornwall : Day 4 and back home

The fourth day was our last day in Cornwall and we decided to see one place and then drive back to London. It is a long drive back (about 5-6 hours) and we wanted to reach back at an earthly hour this time!
We decided on the Lost Gardens of Heligan and it turned out to be an excellent choice..
http://heligan.com

We were again very lucky with the weather and it was lovely sunny day. Its an amazingly beautiful garden with lots of children's activities in the outdoors and huge trees and plants for us to see and walk through. The girls were delighted by the sleeping giant and other statues and spent quite some time on the adventure trail - where they had to crawl through tunnels, swing on rubber tyres, climb, squeeze through ropes etc. The highlight for A was to roast marshmallows on the bonfire..and for S was the rope bridge across the stream...

                                                                   Exploring the trees

The adventure trail       

The weather turned bad after our barbecue lunch, it became extremely windy and a rainstorm hit as we started driving back. It was back to London and gloomy cold rainy weather..

More about what else we did in the half term break in the next post...

Cornwall Day 3

The third day was an especially sunny and nice day and we decided to do more cycling. I had read all about the Camel trail at Padstow

http://www.padstowlive.com/things-to-do/the-camel-trail

While I was in the local library helping S and A borrow books i came upon a holiday book on Cornwall. It was really good and helped me with good ideas for all the days. I guess i really missed that in Zurich - being able to go into a local library and get books in a language to understand. Its really good for the girls too. In the school library in Zurich the girls could borrow 5 books a week and S used to get through them pretty fast. Here in her school library she is only borrowing 2 a week and after 2 days she has nothing new to read. I guess i should take S once a week to the local library but right now it's in a  3 week pattern.

We drove to Wadebridge and parked our car there. Then we rode the bikes along the Camel estuary upto Padstow.

http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/The_Camel_Trail_-_Padstow_to_Wadebridge-Cycle-Route-243.html

It was a beautiful ride with the river alongside us and finally opening out into the sea. We had plenty of breaks along the way- it was the first time the girls were cycling such a long distance (it was 8 km each way) but they were pretty good about it. We had lunch at a lovely italian restaurant in Padstow. The hubby and I had carried only 30 pounds between us since we left our wallets and phones back in the car so we had to share a pizza while the girls had their kids meals. A good way to save on calories. Energised after the margarita pizzas the girls were ready for the 8 km back to Wadebridge.

We reached back in the middle of the afternoon and decided to explore the Tintagel castle which is close to Padstow

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tintagel-castle/

It is the ruins of a castle, where legends claim King Arthur lived. Its location is breathtaking- on top of a cliff overlooking the sea on all sides. There is a cave below the castle where they have carved the face of the Merlin the wizard on the rock face and the girls were thrilled to hear that a wizard used to perform magic in the cave. It was a steep climb to the top of Tintagel castle but the girls and activities to do -they were given a map with things to find at each place (such as statues, hidden tunnels etc) and were happily climbing up and looking around.

                                                  View from Merlin's cave at Tintagel

                                                  View from the top of Tintagel Castle

We were quite exhausted after all the cycling and climbing and collapsed into a beer garden on the way back from the Tintagel castle to our car park. The beer garden had a lovely playground and grass area where the girls could run around and play noisily while we enjoyed our beer in the sun. There were horses and sheep grazing in the meadow next to the garden and it was as close to perfect as could be...

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant 'Asha' back in Falmouth. It turned out to be a Bangladeshi restaurant and the food was not that great but we were too hungry and tired to be fussy. 

Cornwall Day 2

The second day we hit the beaches in the beautiful town of St Ives. We spent the morning in two beaches - the girls were playing in the sand, making A into a mermaid, climbing rocks, building castles (with all my packing i forgot the sand toys on a beach holiday!!! so they were just using their hands) while the hubby and I lazed around watching the beautiful waves.

We walked around the old town area - very quaint and full of beautiful shops and had lunch in a seafood restaurant (i got some veg soup and salad). We went back to the hotel for a short evening siesta and then set out to explore the city of Falmouth where we were staying. They had a festival in the city centre with street food, a live band and lots of beer. All the restaurants were full so the girls had pizza and we had some indian food from the stalls. We then walked down to the beach, but it was a rocky beach and not a sandy one so we could not go right out into the water. We found many interesting rock pools on the rocks and the girls were thrilled to see the crabs and other sea life in the rock pools..here is a close up of a rock pool - can you spot the crab?

Trip to Cornwall : Part 1

So we had our first holiday after moving to London and went to Cornwall for the girls half term break in the first week of June.
We left late Friday evening and drove halfway through the night to reach our hotel in Falmouth at 2:30 am! It was Bank holiday weekend and there was a lot of traffic getting out of london so we decided to leave in the evening after the girls dinner so as to avoid the traffic and also to have the girls sleeping for most of the journey.
I had done a ton of packing as I wasn't sure what weather to expect. We had one suitcase of rain stuff -boots, jackets etc and sweaters for cold weather. Swimsuits and shorts in case it was sunny..so really the gamut of the stuff.
We were very lucky with the weather - it was sunny all the four days we were there. Many people were swimming in the sea but it wasn't warm enough for us. We had our fun playing in the sand and sitting on the sand watching the waves come in.
The first day of our holiday we drove to Penzance and did the cycle trail upto Marazion and back

http://www.cycleroutesuk.com/cycle-route/south-west/penzance-to-marazion-and-st-michaels-mount.html


It was our first time cycling together as a family (i got a cycle- yippee) and apart from a few whinings from A when the path turned gravely it was fine. We had a lovely view of the beach on the right while cycling on a traffic free path. What more to ask for.

WE parked our cycles at Marazion and walked upto St. Michael's Mount. It was low tide and we could walk across on the stone path. The girls were intrigued that this path was covered by water during high tide and A was quite worried that it should not become high tide before we left. I explained to her that it didn't change so fast but I think she was only reassured once we were back at Marazion!

After Penzance we drove to Porthcurno upto the lovely Minacks theatre - an open air theatre with a lovely view of the Porthcurno beach... (ok below picture is how it would be on a very sunny day)..it was still foggy when we were there but the view was not too shabby.....see second picture below...

we couldn't resist going to the Porthrcurno beach and it was really beautiful. A few days ago sharks had been spotted in this beach..we were lucky to see a seal swim by...

the girls got busy making a castle in the sand..

we ended the day at Lands End - its right at the tip of England literally where the land ends and from there its all sea and ocean out to the Americas...the view was just amazing...the hubby and I relaxed in a restaurant overlooking the Lands End with a glass of wine and some beer while the girls had their dinner of chicken..so all happy...

well that was day 1..more in the next post...

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...