Rasamali Saga

The day we moved into this new house we went shopping for a lot of general stores as now I have to rebuild my larder. The Indian shop in Wentworthville is apparently the largest in Sydney and so of e went to have a potter there. This shop reminded me of Daddo’s which used to be on Ealing High Street.

There is a counter for take away and sweets. There are so many ready cooked meals, spices, sauces, snacks and from a lot of companies I had heard of from my friends in India but never seen. My favourite Bhujiya form Haldiram’s is in a huge packet – none of this diddy packs that finish before I am satisfied. One guy peeped in my trolley and said gosh where did you get that large pack from? And when I pointed to the lowest shelf he dived into his trolley and pulled out the small pack and stuffed it back in the top shelf in exchange for the large one. Oh I can carry on about the fun I have in this shop but the story is about rasamali.

I found a tin of rasamali and thought I love it and so maybe good to have a tin of it to have one evening. These days I tend to have some fruit after dinner but can always make an exception for rasamali. Then on Saturday I had soaked red beans for dinner on Sunday. As I was soaking them I thought now it would be a lovely end to the dinner to have rasamali after rajamah and rice. So put the tin in the fridge as I love the rasamali to be cold.

Come Sunday I made the red beans and rice. There was some cabbage left so made a stir fry with a pinch of salt and turmeric. The meal was delicious and my mouth was watering in anticipation of the chilled rasamali to come. The tin was so cold and damp that it was hard to get a grip to open the plastic top. The can was to be opened with a ring pull tab and so that was not hard. But ohhh what is this? There is a sugar syrup in which the rasamali are floating. Now there is plenty of rasamali to satisfy my greed but where was the milk in which it normally sits? Quickly tried to hold the can up, put my glasses to read what the instructions were. Damn damn damn have to make the milky sauce! Had to put the lid back on and return the tin to the fridge.

Since we had already bought our weekly groceries on Saturday and there was no full cream milk or tinned milk in my larder, I decided to walk to the local shops to get some this afternoon. First of all the walk did me good especially as the sun was shining and nice warm weather. The price of the milk was high to put it mildly. But I got a litre of fresh full cream milk as I could not find any condensed milk. Walked back and chatted with a man washing his car. He offered to wash my car for me! Then I put the milk to simmer and reduce. I actually stood by and frequently stirred it. Had a rummage in the cupboard and found some almonds and cashew nuts so chopped them up and added to the milk. Now the milk is reduced and the nuts slightly softened. Have set it aside to cool. After it cools the instructions on the tins says to drain the rasamali form the sugar syrup and put some of that syrup into the milk to sweeten it. Then soak the rasamali in the milk and put it in the fridge.

Now the rasamali is on the menu for tomorrow’s dessert. All those wishing to have come can pop over and maybe I shall provide dinner too… Happy rasamali eating!!!

Should I have stayed in bed?

I woke up all calm and collected this morning, determined to have a better day than yesterday. Well not that yesterday was a bad day but it was just a tiring day. Sometimes the day of having Methotrexate is fraught with lethargy, fatigue, nausea and the runs. Yesterday was hard with the runs in the morning and nausea in the afternoon. I could not seem to get warm either despite of sitting in the sunshine on my new sofa. Feet did get warm eventually and I kept 3 layers of clothes on. I lazed all day and it was felt in some quarters that I had not done anything worthwhile for the day.

However, I was optimistic that today would be better as I opened my eyes. Had my morning cup of tea and sent the Man of to work. I really do not miss the days when I had to get up early and drive 40 miles to work at 6 30 am. The sun had already come out even though it was forecast as rain all day. I had a small debate with myself as to the wisdom of washing my hair. You see I had decided to hike down to the nearest doctor’s surgery and book myself in. When I called them the day before I was informed that one just has to show up, there is no appointment system here. Yesterday as I was not too good, I had decided to postpone my visit.

Well seeing the sun and that outside was generally warmer than inside I boldly washed my hair. Now I do not wash my hair more than twice a week as with all these drugs it falls….. Some days I have nightmares of becoming bald. But wash I did, even though using a bucket and small jug is harder than the shower. Well the shower does not have pressure in the hot water system as it is ancient and on the first day in this house, I scalded my chest and head while frantically trying to mix the cold and hot water. Today I went for my jeans and fleece top on which I would wear my jacket so that I would be protected in case it rained as forecast. Seems that I have lost a wee bit of weight since I reduced some of my drugs. This thought cheered me up no end. I started of jauntily down the road at 9 am. Now the surgery is not far by car but I had to walk this distance. I mark the distance by first I reach the auto repair shop a couple of blocks down, then 2 blocks down is the biggest meat shop (Ham and Bacon) and after two more or so blocks it is the 7eleven shop and petrol station. This is the end of Bungaree Road. I have to cross over the road and across the railway bridge to get to exactly opposite the petrol station.

My side of the road did not have a sidewalk just grass. I thought about crossing but then said to myself why not walk on the grass? This was my first mistake! The ground was uneven and I twisted my foot. As I was just passing by a house where men were pruning palm trees I could not even swear loudly as this foot twisting. I quickly moved to the other side of the road and limped along the cemented path. As I walked I saw the road rise up and hoped that the climb up and then down a couple of times on this road would not be hard. As usual down by the meat shop there were many cars and all trying to park in front of each other, way wide of the pavement. Looked like housewives on the meat run!

Got to the surgery without any further injury to myself and booked in as a new patient that is filled in my particulars and contact. Now I will not bore you with the details of the chat I had with my doctor but I came out pleased to get a referral to a rheumatologist that’s not too far and I can get myself there by bus. Oh yea as I wandered down the road I saw bus 708. Now, this is another one, as previously I had only seen 711. Now I know there are 2 busses to Paramatta. Feeling pleased I walked back and both times it had taken me about 20 minutes to walk the distance. For someone who at one time could not walk to the toilet from the bedroom I have come a long way.

I rang the rheumatologist and made my appointment again giving my contact details. I was asked to contact my old rheumatologist as ask them to fax my records through before my appointment. I very happily rang the Melbourne rheumatologist and passed on the fax number and my new land line number. As I put the phone down I was struck by doubts. Had I got my phone numbers right? I had given a number and when trying to remember my mobile number I just could not think and so had told all that just use landline. I put the number I had given into my mobile and tried calling my landline. I got a busy signal. Now how is that possible? Can it be that the phone is off the base unit? Surely that does not give a busy signal? And what was my mobile number? I could not remember. What to do? After a few minutes of this quandary as now I realised I had given wrong phone numbers to every doctor’s surgery I had visited or called. While I did not expect anyone to call me I had a small panic about giving out wrong number… would they get annoyed if they tried to call and did not get me? Would I be told to go away as I could not even provide a correct contact number… never to darken their doors with my poor memory?

Suddenly I thought I need to call my husband. Even though he is at work and probably will not be happy about personal calls… he a stickler for protocol. But I had to get the right number. So I did call him and asked if he could tell me our home number. I am sure I gave a garbled story of why I needed the number. But as soon as he told me the right number I realised what I had been doing…. Giving half a number of each of my phones – landline and mobile. Why do we have to remember so many numbers? There is a number for the pin of all your bank cards, numbers for your phones (these have been a particular bother as I have been moving about and only now got my own home), numbers of different bank accounts, number for visa, number for Centrelink, numbers and passwords for the various employment agencies so on and so forth.

As I started calling all the doctors’ surgeries I found the funny side of it. Explaining that I had got the numbers of my mobile and landline phones mixed up and had given half of each was particularly embarrassing and I ended up with laughing at myself and am sure that this will make a good story for the receptionists who took my calls. Maybe I should have stayed in bed and avoided making an idiot of myself. Hey a good laugh is good for your health and I think I contributed to at least 3 people’s good health today.

Who stole my Laugh?

I used to be a fun loving person. I loved telling and listening to jokes. I was always the first to make mischief. Always ready to play pranks by myself or teaming up with friends and cousins. I remember when I finished school and went to junior college everyone thought I was naughty and playful. In Physics class I would sit right under the teacher’s nose and copy the solutions to the problems I was supposed to do as homework. I bunked class rarely but when I did it was to sleep under the tree right outside the class. Now this was possible as my college was in an old tennis club.

The college was relatively new and had yet to build up a reputation of good academics. Most people I knew were bit surprised that I had chosen to go there. The classes were actually taken in sheds with corrugated roofs. One could not hear a thing when it rained in the monsoons. The sheds had no windows or doors just bear openings. In fact once or twice my friends and I sat in the window as there were not enough chairs. The science labs were in the building around a swimming pool. The pool was always empty and the rooms which I think used to be changing rooms had been made to open spaces to house the labs. There were some trees and tennis courts as well with a house next door which was owned by a bank and used as accommodation for bank trainees. They used to come and use the tennis courts sometimes.

There was a street vendor just outside the main gate selling sugarcane juice. One day the college decided to close the gates and not allow the students to go out to buy any juice. The students got annoyed at this. The opened the gates and dragged the cart into the grounds and that’s where the guy stayed after that. This incident should give you an idea how things were in this college for young women. Despite the closing of gates there was bunking from college. Once or twice I went off for a movie but as I said before I usually lounged under the tree in front of the class and cheekily ask for attendance since I was near enough to hear the lecture!

I think the best times were in the French class. I like learning the language but strangely enough I have always felt shy of talking in French. I have no problems learning useful phrases and using them when I am on holiday of any language expect when I went to Paris. Have no idea why such reticence in speaking the language that I actually liked and learned. Also Physics class was good especially as one needed an umbrella to sit in the front row. The teacher was a young lady, very enthusiastic about her subject and got carried away talking about it, letting loose a fine spray of saliva. We also used to tease her and she never caught on the games we played. For example, one day she was teaching us about cathode ray tube. As we pretended to struggle with the concept she tried to show us practical example of the use of cathode ray tube in television. This lead to a delightful conversation for a good 15 minutes about what a television was. We showed surprise that she was telling us that we could see people on something like a box and debated how this was possible.

We had fun in English class too as the pronunciations of our teacher were hilarious. There were the quiet teachers of chemistry, botany and zoology. I liked the science subjects and kept my record work up to date but rarely picked up books to study in the year and half out of the two years per- university college. This glimpse of me in the college should give up a fair idea of the things I got up to. I loved to spend time reading books anything from romance to thrillers. Generally spending a lot of time day dreaming too about travelling and seeing the places I read about in books.

This aspect of me was recently brought up by old friends I found on the Internet. They expressed surprise that I was a serious university lecturer and talked sensibly about things. I was doing PhD when I used to hate studying and usually found with novels instead of text books. This made me stop and think … Yes… where did my fun and funny self go? Who stole my laugh? Maybe I did when I became serious about everything in life. Took on responsibility for others even though I am sure they did not want me to or did not need me to. Where did this sense of responsibility come from? I was not my sisters’ keeper and still I became one. The same went with all who I came in contact with, my students, colleagues; parent in laws, their friends our friends. Sadly concerns and care for others had me holding the world on my shoulders. This is when I think I lost my laugh. I stole my laugh by taking everything and everyone seriously. The only time I let my hair down was on holiday. I thought people always wanted me to know the answers and I tried my best to live up to that. Am not sure whether this is because I am a perfectionist or whether this made me into a perfectionist? My husband calls me ‘sensible’ and I used to feel upset at that, even though he said it was a compliment. I guess unconsciously I was annoyed at becoming this ‘sensible’ person instead of the happy go lucky person I used to be.

I want to get that fun loving person back from the mists of past and try to restore fun and laughter back in my life. I try to talk with all my friends and family on the net. I have begun to not take myself so seriously. Living life for the day and trying my hand at creativity is helping me lighten up. Writing like this helps to reminiscence about past and find the funny memories. I am not the sad individual who looks glum all the time with a worried frown on the forehead. The lips have moved upwards to produce a smile and eyes light up with laughter …. I practice that in front of the mirror a lot! I am going to steal back my laughter from the ‘sensible’ person who sadly not many people from my past recognise.

Moving States

Well moving countries was hard and so did not expect to have problems moving states. It is surprising how much you get into the system within 6 months! We had been living out of suitcases for all this time. It’s so easy to just wear the same clothes and live in a confined manner within very little means both material and monetary. Well we had sublet our home at a lovely large 3 bedroom house. Our room was big and comfortable. We had the run of the house with use of the kitchen and all its utensils plus food. I had tried hard not to get too comfortable in the situation and the locality as we were not sure where we would end up living.

Sure enough the job was in Sydney and so the move had to be done fast. As soon as he got the job we started making plans to leave at the weekend. The unplugging from this 6 months of life meant returning the library card and books; changing address with bank, telling the doctors and optician; ringing the Centrelink; organising for the luggage to be sent on once we had a address to send it to and other such tiny details. Then had a look at what I wanted to take with me! I had come with only 2 bags but somehow this had expanded to a shopping trolley, some additional clothes and linen, food items, a couple of bags of medicines and so on…. There was no way we could fly to Sydney with all this baggage. So we hired a car and decided to drive over the weekend and keep the car for a week.
Saturday morning came and we filed up the car and left just before 10 am. Being early the rush had not started on the Hume Highway. After an hour we stopped at the service station for comfort break and a drink. I took over the driving at this point and enjoyed doing it after a long time. Thought we could have a break for lunch at Banalla but ended up going past and finding a small service station which only had a MacDonald’s….. Very unsatisfactory lunch was had and we moved on. Reached Albury at about 3 ish in the afternoon and found the place we were staying at. There was a restaurant attached to the place and so had dinner there itself rather than wander about in the dark. We thought the place would be open in the morning for breakfast as there was room service… sadly this was wrong and so we had no breakfast just got a couple of cups of tea.

Next morning filled up on petrol and off we went again. The drive on the second day was good too. There was not much traffic and the countryside kept changing. There were hills or wide spaces, empty land or gun trees. The sun shone and skies were big and blue. Today also I drove for a couple of hours and did not feel any stress. Today we went off the highway to have lunch at Gundagai. There was a fairly large service station with various food places and even a shop selling fruit and veggies plus jams and pickles and souvenirs. Took pictures of the pickle jars which were labelled Bum Hummers! This is a brand of pickled onions. I had a good laugh and made Paul take a snap to put up for the girls to see.

Then we drove on to Goulburn where we stayed overnight. It started raining as soon as we turned into Goulburn. The room had free WiFi and so we caught up on the mails and family in the evening. It poured all evening and so it was nice not to go far for dinner. On Monday morning we were guaranteed breakfast as the room was bed and breakfast. I actually could have the toast and so it was not too bad. We left at 9 30 am and were on the last leg to Sydney. Got off the Hume Highway at Preston and drove towards Paramatta. My nephew stays just before we get to Paramatta and we got there right on the dot of lunch.

Thus, started the proper settling down period for us. Since we had the car for a bit longer we managed to find our way around the area. Looked up the way to Paul’s work, shopping centres, car showrooms, Havery Normans etc. Had to spend a fair amount of time specially on Saturday to look at all these houses for rent. Seems that apartments and flats are most popular, being newer and compact, with low maintenance since there is no garden. Most of them are on the first or second floor and we really did not want to live in a flat again. We did manage to see a couple of houses and these were spacious enough to take our entire luggage (when it came). However there was another house which was not for viewing and we managed to see it on Monday. Nice 3 bedroom house with a garden and plenty of light. We fell in love with it and asked that our application be put forward for this house. Then we went to Harvey Norman to look over the fridge freezers and washing machines. While on the way there we got a call that the landlord had agreed to our application and we could pay a deposit by the evening and sing contract on Friday. Thus we found our home in Toongabbie. Shall not bore you with the details of getting furniture and white goods along with our luggage into the house. Slowly the home is taking shape… will put up some pics once it gets done. We have finally arrived in Australia as I do the census tonight!

Today's Word - Rangas

Well last night I was watching Can of Worms . It is a controversial program asking for the views of people on some more than other dodgy issues. One question came up in relation to the topic of body was - can you make fun of rangas? Now this word is new to me and means nothing. However there was a lot of hilarity and answers were yes you can make fun of them. I guessed that it was some sort of physical attribute that was being ridiculed.
So this morning I decided to look up this Aussie slang - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ranga
Yes it is rude as in the terms is used to denote a red haired person and is derived from the word 'orangutang'. Am sure the red heads of this world would love yet another slang term to ridicule them!! Notty..

‘Fruit Fly Exemption Zone Ends’

We were driving from Melbourne to Sydney over a weekend as after 6 months n Melbourne the job hunt ended in Sydney. Even though we had come with 2 bags only, over the 6months we seemed to have gathered bits and pieces and some food stuff as well. So we decided to drive down leisurely and make a relaxed weekend drive. Just a few miles before we left the state of Victoria we came across this big billboard - ‘Fruit Fly Exemption Zone Ends’.

Now I did not know fruit flies could read and that they were aware that they could not enter the state of Victoria. They also seem to be able to understand English….. educated little flies, I am assuming. If they did happen to fly over the state line would they be prosecuted? If so was there a fly court with lots of bug lawyers? Who would be the judge of such a court? A bumble bee? Would these errant fruit flies be attested by fly patrol? Would there be fruit fly smuggling into the state set up by other bugs? Does this mean there is some sort of attraction for the fruit flies to be illegal aliens?

A mile or so later there was another billboard stating that ‘Do Not Bring Fruits on Your Return Journey’. Aha so people did people smuggle apples or oranges or bananas in to Victoria? And inadvertently brought in the fruit flies… Why only fruit flies? What about house flies? Horseflies? Deerflies? Butterflies? Why this serious discrimination against poor fruit flies? Being persecuted for their race… Maybe I can start Fruit fly amnesty!

Today’s words ‘pollies’

We the 7 PM Project on Ten was 2 yeasrs old and so they had a week of politicians as guests on the show. They had the Prime Minister Julia Gillard as well as the opposition leader Tony Abbot. It was interesting to see them having a light hearted banter…

These politicians are called ‘pollies’ in Australian.. short note today…
Maybe the crown prosecutors are called ‘crownies’ as that the name of a new tv show. The police seem to be the usual ‘copper’ or even ‘bobby’ when talking about police in UK.