UK - City of Bath

Bath was founded in 1 AD, and gained UNESCO World Heritage title. It is a small city, best explored by foot; it is filled with history and culture everywhere you turn. Bath is one of England's prettiest, sitting on the banks of the River Avon. The city of Bath is so named because of the spas that were developed around Roman times. 

We stayed at Tyndall Villa Boutique B&B. I highly recommend the place. It was quaint, cosy and clean. 

Must see:

1.Bath Abbey

A Gothic-style building, one of England’s finest medieval churches. It took 120 years to build and it shows in the level of fine details, both inside and out. It reminded me so much of the church in Siena, Italy, a medieval town.. I have shared some pics of the church, both inside and outside, though I could not capture the church in entirety. 

2. Bath house/museum

This bath house is thousands of years old, from anvient Roman time. An audio guide is provided.

3. Pulteney Bridge (pronounced as Putney)

Pulteney Bridge was built in the 1700s, will remind you of Ponte Vecchio of Florence, Italy. Do check out the shops and charming cafés on it, that many don’t realise it’s a bridge. The river runs through a weir next to the bridge, which creates a cascading effect. Apparently, it is romantic when lit up at night. 

We missed seeing it. 

4. The Circus

If you have time, stroll across and you will be able to see the Circus, a historic ring of large townhouses in the city of Bath, Somerset, England, forming a circle with three entrances. Designed by architect John Wood, the Elder, it was built between 1754 and 1769, and is regarded as a pre-eminent example of Georgian architecture. 

UK - Windsor Castle & Bath

We landed in Heathrow airport after 24 hrs of flying, including transit of 3 hrs in Singapore Changi airport. Thanks to Singapore Airlines, we landed in Heathrow surprisingly fresh. We had booked for a car there and took off to Bath from Heathrow. En route to Bath, we saw boards for Windsor Castle and decided to take a detour. We were certainly not disappointed. 

The town of Windsor was quaint. Most of the current town's streets date from the mid to late 19th century. However the main street, Peascod Street is very ancient, predating the castle by many years, and probably of Anglo-Saxon origin.

River Thames runs through the town, offering boating facilities. The river was flocked by swans and ducks. 

Coming to the castle itself, it stood tall and majestic from all angles. It was saud that William, the Conqueror chose the site for Windsor Castle, high above the river Thames.

Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world and has been the family home of British kings and queens for almost 1,000 years. It was an official residence of Her Majesty, The Queen. It is still very much a working royal palace today. Her Majesty was buried next to her husband Prince Philip here at St George's Chapel. She was buried with only her wedding band and a pair of pearl earrings, despite owning a collection worth millions of pounds - food for thought!! 🤔

St George's Chapel would not be open to public on Sundays; since HM The Queen was recently buried there, the chapel was open for public to pay their respects to her. 

About the castle itself, the current lavish state apartments at Windsor Castle were created in the late 1600s by King Charles II. They contain many outstanding works of art by masters such as Canaletto and Rembrandt. You can view them and enjoy many glittering and wonderful items from the Royal Collection. The castle has over 1,000 rooms, and houses a substantial portion of the Royal Collection, including furniture, paintings, and armour.

Because it is a Royal residence, Windsor Castle is guarded by a detachment of Guards in traditional red tunics and bearskin hats. The Guards are active soldiers temporarily granted the honour of guarding the Monarch. 

How to get there from London? 

Though we drove from London, I later found out that Windsor Castle can be reached from Waterloo station in London.

#25daysofwriting; #Day6; #giving

"Your hand should always be on top"

Meaning, one should always be the giver and not the receiver.

A very noble sentiment without a doubt. In fact, it has been a way of life, I have always wanted to emulate. 

I have always wanted to be the giver and not the taker. Truth be told, there have been occasions when I have been silently proud of being the giver. Silent because I have not wanted to be considered proud.   

"வலது கை கொடுப்பது இடது கைக்கு தெரியக் கூடாது"

Since this was a message that had been ingrained from childhood, I had not thought much about it till a couple of days ago when I read an article. And for the first time in my life, my mind rejected it. 

The first thought to cross my mind upon hearing this was, 'Should we be teaching our children that 'giving is good' while being in a position of receiving is bad and/or humiliating? 

There could be many reasons for me thinking thus - probably the strongest one is that I have been more of a receiver than a giver all through my life. For the first time when I became a receiver of physical & emotional supports, I felt overwhelmed and humiliated. Receiving help has not been an easy process - I have had to give up my ego. There sure is a difference between ego and self respect, but, the line can be very blurry at times. My emotions have ranged from self pity, sadness and of shame that I would not be able to return the favours physically, to gratitude and sense of indebtedness for life.

Luckily, I have maintained to keep my hand up when it came to giving financially. This does not mean I am rich; just that, I am happy to share whatever little I have. It gives me immense pleasure.

Becoming a receiver has taught me humility. And at a life lesson level, it has taught me that one's circumstances or conditions will not be the same always - one can not have the upper hand at all points of time. 

Can we teach our young ones that being a recipient? 

More importantly, can we, as adults, accept that it is okay to be a recipient every once in a while? 

What do you think? 

#25daysofwriting; #Day3; #resilience

I read somewhere that a drama student set out to follow the footsteps of Grace Kelly and Robert Redford, when she started at the New York acting school they attended. She faced stiff competition – and never let a rare, incurable condition, gastroparesis (means she can’t eat solid food and must be fed via a tube into her intestine for 10 to 15 hours a day) come in the way of her dream. She’d feed herself at night, so that it didn’t interfere with her day-to-day life, as it was difficult to be connected to a machine on the main supply and can’t move. Adding to that, it was difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

When others face such daunting challenges, we look on and admire their fortitude. I have looked upon many such individuals with total respect and admiration, some are my very good friends.

So, how does a young person keep going? How does the mum having chemotherapy for a life-threatening cancer, get up, make the packed lunches and take the kids to school? How do parents who have lost a child, go to work and get back to normalcy? How does a person who has lost his or her whole family in the blink of an eye, cope with the losses? How did I, having been verbally taunted as a new bride at the age of 18, cope? How did I cope up, all alone, at the age of 23, in an all new foreign land, when told my child’s life was in my hands and I had to call the shots? How do/did I cope with all verbal abuses, hurtful remarks, few close calls with health, back stabbing, having been cheated on financially? How many times I have had to pick up myself?

What keeps us going at testing times? What helps us get up, try again, fight back, build ourselves from scratch? Is it resilience? Whether it’s dealing with a life-threatening diagnosis or the loss of a loved one, we are remarkably resilient as a species. We don’t fully understand the science, but we know the support of others is crucial. Is it the inner strength we never knew existed in us? I personally think it is bit of both. Adding to that, hope is another strong one that helps us get back on track once we are back on our feet.

Each of us, as parents should teach our children to see adversity as a challenge. You should tell them to react to adversity by reaching out. Suffering in silence isn’t resilience – it’s just suffering.

Resilience isn’t just about the individual having to deal with adversity alone; it’s about the family, friends, community that surround us. We need to overcome the idea that one must be brave, stay calm or bottle it up and eventually we would get over it all. I have done that many times in life. Trust me, it was not the best way to go about handling adverse situations; Surely it has affected my health and made me dwell in self-pity for a while. When I reached out and sought out help, I could deal with my situations better, knowing fully well there was someone to lend a hand emotionally or physically, to pick me up or sit beside. Bouncing back becomes easier then.

A comment made by an elderly person, that she admired my fortitude, made me feel good about myself, made me realise how far I have come in life, how I am perceived by others, some of whom might feel inspired by a normal lady like myself. Who knows who you might inspire!

What I learnt is, that the harder life gets, the stronger and more resilient we become!!

#25daysofwriting; #Day2; #etiquettes; #Valliyoor; #early1970s

First, let me give you an introduction to Valliyoor. Though it's a shanty village with people in farming and herding, people of Vallioor are known for their business acumen and high standard of education. It was a small town in Thirunelveli district with only 2 main roads, with 4 streets that cut across those main roads, with one of them that goes around the main temple for Lord Murugan with his consorts Valli and Deivaanai (Devasena). This temple has a rock-cut sanctum carved out of a hill and several mandapams surrounding it. At the time we were living there, there would have been less than 5000 residents. 

I started my schooling in Valliyoor. What does hashtag "etiquettes" have to do with a shanty little Valliyoor, you may wonder. Well, that's were I started my education. My year 1 and 2 were in a Christian mission school. That was the only school in the whole town. It may surprise you to hear that's where I learnt table manners, rather, floor manners, on how to eat with a spoon and with hands. Every student was made to sit on the floor with their lunches, most of them were given food at school; some like me would carry our lunch bags; in it, would be tiffin carriers, water bottles, cutleries, if any, and of course, a towel to spread on the lap while eating. Half way through lunches, every day a teacher would check each child's palm. There should be no food in the palms. Those that did, would get smacked on the knuckles. Also, we were taught to never eat with our mouth open. No matter whether there were delicacies brought from home or midday meals provided by the school, treatment was the same; etiquettes were the same. Random, unlikely place where I learnt my most valuable table manners :)

Do share the most random place where you learnt something valueable. What did you learn?

#25daysofwriting; #day1 #Nostalgia

Nostalgia, “a sentimental longing for the past”, as defined in the New Oxford dictionary of English, is an ambivalent,  though mostly positive emotion. 

I am a huge sucker for Nostalgia.. Those who know me well would know how excited I get, how my face would light up when the topic happens to be nostalgia.

Some of the things that we commonly look back on are:

*Our own past, through photographs, newspaper cuttings etc

* Food

* People - old friends

* Places - that we visited when we were children

* Magazines and comics

* Films

* Sports

* Classic toys

* Music

* Radio and TV programmes

* Jingles on radio or television

* Books we read years ago - in particular, books we read as children

I'd say my strong, favourite ones would be music, books, experiences – (both good & bad), and smells, food in particular. 

I am planning to give you a peek into my childhood in the  coming days. I will try to make them interesting for you.. Some of you may be able to understand, but, I doubt anyone would be able to relate. The reason for me saying is that, my childhood was unlike what many of you might have experienced. I was brought up in very, very small towns (?) or should I say villages or pattikkaadu.

What are you generally nostalgic about?

#25daysofwriting #forminghabit

A dear friend of mine, Kamala Aithal has taken up 100 days of writing. Well, she is almost nearing the finish line. 

I love her simple, relatable, no fluff added, sweet write ups every day. When she stops, I will surely miss them.

Penning something every day is not easy. One requires dedication, and of course, sheer commitment. 

It takes about 21 days to form a new habit. According to health psychology researchers at University College London, a new habit usually takes a little more than 2 months, 66 days to be exact, and as much as 254 days until it's fully formed. If you care to ask my husband, he'd say, "if there's anything Devi dislikes immensely, it is routine". Every time, I was tempted to follow suit, my husband's laughing face kept flashing in front of my eyes, going buhaha 😈😈.. 

What do you all think? Should I start? If you do, say yes in comments section below and I shall share..