How many words?

A few weeks ago I volunteered to write an article for the Shell Expat magazine Destinations. The theme of the second issue in 2012 will be India. Shell Outpost here in Bangalore sent an email to all the Shellies to ask for contributions and I put up my hand (=replied to the mail) to write about being new to Bangalore. Then I sort of forgot about it, just to Realise this week that it has to be in before the end of the year....

So I am working on the article rather than this Blog (sorry) right now, but I will post it as soon as it is finished (i.e. I have written the right amount of words) and have found the photographs to go with it.

Yesterday my status on FB said I am having a hard time getting into the Sinterklaas-mood without pepernoten etc. My friends(?) commented that I should bake pepernoten myself (meaning by Kavitha others commented) and that was perceived as hilarious by "friend" that know my lack of baking qualities.....
Somehow nobody seems to take me serious when it comes to cooking and baking....I wonder why....would it have something to do with the fact that I emphasise my love for food but absence of enthusiasm for the preparation of it????

For Sinterklaas-recipes check out the link Cowroad sent me in her comment on my last post.

Sinterklaas

I had planned to write about day to day things that I notice here in Bangalore and that surprise me or leave me wondering 'Why?', but then I read Cowroad (Blog) and saw this:

An old postcard of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet (st. Nicolas and Black Pete).

Sinterklaas is a big thing in The Netherlands and the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. We don't give eachother presents at Christmas, but at Sinterklaas. We have special treats we eat, like pepernoten and taai-taai, and it is a real family thing. Like with Santa, small children believe it is really Sinterklaas that brings the gifts with the help of his Zwarte Pieten. Unlike Santa, Sinterklaas has been a real bishop a few centuries ago. The Zwarte Pieten are based on the Moors that used to be his helpers (maybe even slaves).

Just this morning I got 5 envelopes, filled them with 1000,= roepees each (just over 15,= Euros) and a piece of paper with a name. Tonight we will each pick one envelope and we will have to buy a Sinterklaas present for the person who's name is on the paper (not allowed to be yourself). The present needs to be wrapped nicely and preferably inside a 'surprise' and it needs to come with a poem about the person the gift is for.
On the 3rd of December we will celebrate Sinterklaas at home. The original date is the 5th of December, St. Nicolas' birthday, but that is a Monday this year. On the 4th Adriaan will play Sinterklaas for the children of the Dutch community here and my boys will be Black Peters (if they fit in the costumes).

It is hard to get into the Sinterklaas-mood here, without my Sinteklaas-cd's (all lost in Libya) and without the shops being decorated and children's programmes on tv. Maybe I can find some music online to download.

Cake for breakfast? If not, Pringles maybe??? PLEASE!

Ruben saw my blog this morning and commented on the fact that I have never asked his permission to add photos with him in them. As a repercussion he wanted chocolate cake (a second piece!) for breakfast. When I said "No", as you do as a good mum that wants her children to have a balanced and healthy diet, he said "Why not?" several times in case that might change my mind and when I stuck with NO he asked to have Pringles instead. Hmmmmm, NO again. I am a bad mother.......{Ruben: "Thats completely true"}.

Over the weekend we are usually not too organised. We do some shopping on Saturdays or go for lunch, but Sundays are usually spent at home, lounging around, reading, playing computer games and going to the pool. The boys prefer to wear their PJ's all day (much to Adriaan's disgust).
The whole week is based on a set routine so it is nice to have less strickt time keeping over the weekends. Pity there is still a pile of washing to be done and dishes to be cleaned.....

Flying home for Christmas

Today Adriaan and I went into town to book our tickets for the Xmas holiday in NL, with Emirates. After that we went for lunch. Lovely start of the weekend!

Cooking up a storm

You don't have to know me well to know I don't like cooking. I see it as my duty to cook tasty and mostly healthy meals for my family, but I don't enjoy it.
So how did I end up in a cooking-group? I was asked and it is a great bunch of women and we have a lot of fun!
Last night we had dinner at my house and the theme was 'family recipes'. Everyone of the 7 members of the group makes a dish and you can make it as easy or as complicated as you want. I made my mum's tomato-soup (from scratch, NOT from a pack) and it came out well TG.

Today I will be baking chocolate cakes with Kavitha. My sister in law gave me a great recipe so we are going to try it. It is Kavitha's youngest daughter's birthday today, that's why we make more than 1 cake.

A yummie start to the weekend.

Maldives

As promised some photos of our holiday on Bandos Island. It was a great holiday and really relaxing.

We had two of those cute beach villas and our view was the one on the bottom left photo. Adriaan and I have spent a lot of time in those two lounge chairs reading, while the boys were snorkeling. Bandos Island is only a very small island, but it is beautiful, with white beaches and lots of trees.

It was a lovely family-holiday!!!

The coral reef is only a few meters from the shore. We saw beautiful fish and lots of black tipped reef sharks. Simon and Adriaan went night fishing and Simon caught 1 fish (he called it Bob).

We went on a dolphin tour and saw lots of dolphins.

We had a lot of rain, but since we were in the water (sea/pool/jacuzzi) most of the time anyway it didn't matter too much. Saved us from sun burn and overheating ;-).

Why can't I be like them?

My daily routine, after getting out of bed way too early to get the breakfast, snacks and lunches ready and the kids on the school bus, is to tidy up the house, collect the washing and start the first of many loads of the day, have coffee with Adriaan before he leaves for the office and then start up my lap top to check my mail on 2 mail accounts, check my Hyves and my Facebook, read the news on NU.nl and check on the (17!) blogs that I follow. About half of those blogs are from people (mainly women) that I have never met. I have stumbled upon their blogs via other blogs and like what they write or like their style of writing. I have them all stored under 'my favorites' and check them at least once a day. I laugh out loud with some, shake my head in disbelieve at others, but mostly I envy the fact that they wrote about topics I would love to write about but never thought of and now can't anymore because they already did it so well and I don't want to be a copy cat. Most of the bloggers I follow write on a daily basis or at least 3 times a week and if they don't have a new entry for a few days I am really disappointed....but look at my feeble attempt to write a proper blog. I haven't written anything in a long time and soon I won't need to because nobody will follow my infrequent attempts at being a blogger worth following {snif}. It is not because nothing is happening in my life, far from it, but I can't seem to find the right mood to write something that is interesting enough for others to read or write boring stuff in a interesting way.
 This morning one of the blogs I read (http://www.smaggle.com/) was about being consistent and it said: "If you care enough about your goal you need to be consistent. Work at it every day."
So that will be my new motto, let's see how long I can keep it up ;-).

I have got my entry for today {YES} and i will work on some nice photo collages of our holiday at the Maldives to post tomorrow. In the mean time I will think of some brilliant ways to write about my day to day encounters here in Bangalore.

Only thing left is to keep my fingers crossed and hope someone will read this.......

Copied from Smaggle