Entertaining Diversions

March 7, 2020 (Saturday) We had an evening gathering at Kanu’s house in New Providence Wharf. It started off on the right note, as I was able to get free parking (using Shobhit and Swati’s unutilised parking space) whereas in the last couple of years or so I have had to pay (£10 for over 4 hours). The guests today were Kunal, Ashwani, Kaushal (KT), Ankur, Vasu, Sneha, her friend Manan who is visiting from Mumbai, and Mishti and I. The food selection that was spread out was lavish and customised, and would have alone been enough to make it all worth it, even if a single word had not been uttered all evening. And this in spite of Kanu stating that she hadn’t gone the whole hog this time and kept it simple. There was fresh edamame for starters, along with French Fries, dahi wada and feteer like the ones we had had in Jordan recently. Then there was vada-paav, with the right chutney and masalas to remind us of Mumbai. It was a meal fit for a king, or at ...

Day 4 26 May 2019 (Sunday) The driving jokes kept coming thick and fast. Kanu asked me to reverse the car from the parking bay while they could commence and complete their breakfast. The jokes were steady and plentiful. The reassuring thing was that they were not treating me differently after my eye injury i.e. they were being mean as ever. Reversion to the mean, to coin a phrase! The plan for today was “Bohinj lake: Hike / Vogel cable car / Savica waterfall” before driving to Croatia (3 hours) and staying in Hotel Mariana & Rastoke at night to check out Plitvice Lakes National Park tomorrow. We ate leftover pizzas from yesterday, batata vadas and poha and checked out at 10 am and drove to Lake Bohinj (which, after learning that j is pronounced as i in Slovenian, Ashwani calls Lake Mohini). We took a cable car to the top. This is part of Julian Alps and it is also a ski resort in the winter, although there appear to be only a few slopes here. Th...