Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Easter 2008 - Day 1
In front of the Cottage


The Cottage - Rear View


The cottage we stayed was on top of a hill kinda area. It had 5 bedrooms - three in the first floor and 2 in the second floor (loft conversions). We stayed in one of the two rooms on the second floor.The ground floor has a patio and 2 reception rooms and a large kitchen and dining area. Outside the house, there was a large caravan permanently fixed.This was more or less not usable, but it gave us a chance to have a look at how a carvan would be from inside. The cottage had large space by the side and the backyard had a view of the entire town that was at the foot of the hill. It was a very calm area. Thank god there were no house nearby at all.We would otherwise have been served ASBO orders for being such a noisy neighbour.



Our Room




Inside the Caravan


Piano Inside the Cottage


The Kitchen

Dining Area


With just around 2-3 hrs of sleep, woke up and quickly gobbled the sandwich that Preethi had made and a fantastic tea.



With our initial plans going for a toss, we wanted to make sure the next one doesnt, so started our trip to the Skandavale temple in Carmarthen. It was a little more than an hour's drive from where we were. The ride passed through lots of villages and the last 5 miles was the most exciting as it was not a pukka road and it was a single track which we need to share with the on coming traffic also.

After a nice drive reached the temple on time for the pooja. The pooja was for a good 2 hr plus and we were in for a pleasent surprise as all the poojas were done by the locals (The welsh). It was so nice to hear them sing bhajans and they were taking intricate care in every aspect of the pooja. The different 'Abhishekams' and the 'Alangarams' were done to the tee. Naresh's cousin, Srikanth joined us here.The pooja got over around 12:00 we were told that the lunch would be served only after the Lord Murugan pooja at 1:30 PM. To kill time, we had some wonderful teplas that Hethal had brought for Montu as he had special dietary restrictions and we took a small trek to the Maha shakthi temple at the top. It was a good 20 mins climb and the passage was very scenic. On the top there were some animals that were brought up by the Ashram. We took some photos on the top and started the decent for us to attend the Murugan pooja. The Murugan pooja also was done by the monks. At the end of the pooja, we were given a fantastic lunch as prasadam. We had our stomach full of the lunch and shortly after, started our way back home.


Lord Ranganathan



Lord Shiva


Lord Murugan



Cows in the temple


After a drive home, we had a refreshing glass of cofee and to kill time till the other group come home, we saw the "Pink Panther". What a hillarious movie it was.. Once all the group was back, had a good round of fun and dance. After which, watched Oceans 11 on DVD. Kamal had made lovely Mutter paneer for dinner and we had it with a sumtuous quantity of Paratas.

Post Dinner had another round of dancing and off we were to the bedroom..
zzzzz....

 
posted by Santosh Subramanian at 8:00 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Easter 2008 Weekend - Day 0
After my Easter trip to wales last year as a single, decided that this Easter, it has to be wales too..This time though was not single. I had my sweet wife with me..So its kinda special this time :-)

As the post lunch period..started feeling the excitement awake..Had Yash and Preethi come over to Staines to do some shopping. The plan was to pick them up on my way back from work. Ladies are ladies, they had done close to 2 hours of shopping and their shopping bags at the end was not very impressive enough to tell a tale of a mega shopping session.

A quick zip to home and found that a bit of packing was yet to be done. When the packing was all over, the clock was showing 07:10 PM. We were scheduled to meet up at Naresh's place at 07:30 and start off right away. Now i had two jobs yet to be done - Leave Yash back at the Hotel and buy some last minute groceries..Had Preethi to do the grocery and the me do the dropping job. So after the last minute tensions and screamings, reached Naresh's house only to see that things were no where near to hitting the road. The plans had changed by then and now we had a round of dinner and loading of the baggages before we hit the road at around 9:30 PM.

When we started, the news about the M4 was already haunting us. But we had no choice but to take it by the horns if it does..As we took the slip road into the motorway, things were looking alright. Our first sigh of relief..Was praying that this continues further..Our prayers were answered..Surprisingly, for the entire stretch till we hit our destination, queuing never affected us. We were zipping through the motorway without any problems.

Missed seeing the wonderful sight as we passed the tolled bridge into Wales. Decided that we should cross this bridge on our way back in broad daylight. At last got into Pembroke area, where our cottage was, around 03:00 AM. We were longing to have a quick sleep and start again to the temple for the early morning pooja. Finally our tom tom showed us the cottage based on the postcode. We were making huge noise as we were to start unloading the stuffs from the boot. A sleepy face appeared from one of the windows of the cottage. After a few minutes, a man opened the door of the cottage and only then did we realise that we had been taken for a ride (just less than 1/2 a mile extra) by tomtom. The cottage we were to stay was around less than 1/2 a mile away and since it was an area full of big farm houses, they all shared the same post code. What a learning at the wee hours of the day.

Took a left turn on the main road and now finally reached the right cottage. Now our next task was to find the key to the cottage. It was like a treasure hunt session at early morning time when all of us were already half asleep. After a good long time searching for the key using the hints given, we finally found it. The time was already close to 4 AM and we were not sure if we would be able to attend the early morning pooja on time. We decided that we shall take a quick nap and attend the 9 Am pooja instead. We had our round of pondering with the different equipments in the household. All was set except finding where the switch for the central heating was. After a good hour of experimenting with different possibilities, we decided that enough was enough and its high time we go to bed.

Moved our bags to our room and before i could realise, i had crashed in the bed and was straight to a tight sleep.

zzzzzzzz...
 
posted by Santosh Subramanian at 7:45 PM | Permalink | 0 comments