Solstice

It was recently that time of the year again when some friends scratch their heads and wonder what would make an appropriate gift. More often than not, my response would be to either name a DVD that I’ve had my sights on or just laugh off the suggestion, finding the whole idea rather amusing.

This year, I had actually entertained thoughts of having a little dinner party. But such ideas rarely come into fruition when you’re a Sagitarrius, as most people tend to go away during the winter. And nobody in their right mind would think of ‘going away’ to the cold wintry welcome of Cumbria.

Radzi did make his annual visit though, and it was to great delight that I greeted my gift as well. I have to say I didn’t really try my best to sell the county (we limited ourselves to chatting and eating); after all we stuck to the city centre and there was no way in hell that I’d venture out to the countryside during this time of the year. We did get into the Carlisle Castle though, and the only positive experience of that was the fact that I now have a clearer idea on what instigated the English Civil War back in the 17th century. Yup, we didn’t gain much.

B’day itself was relatively mundane as I was on-call. But it was one of the better one-calls, with me having to clerk a measly 6 patients. And there was a lovely surprise at the end of the day as well, as Omar drove me on the fog-covered roads over to Priya’s for a little dinner for three. A perfect ending. The perfect beginning was getting to chat with Sweetie for some time in the morning. Actually no, the perfect beginning would be to have her around in person, but that’s not quite possible as the poor dear is stuck in the jungle where she’ll make an exit sooner rather than later, hopefully.

Am on-call this weekend, but hopefully the patients would try to prevent themselves from dying, it being the season to be jolly and all. Won’t be working over the bank holidays and but I don’t actually have much planned, except for the possibility of a day trip to Glasgow for a touch of shopping. Am also thinking of taking a trip to Europe in January, but the when and where is yet to be decided.

Rindu

Can’t say I’ve been in much of a mood to write in my blog for the past couple of weeks. One naturally has too much of a fun time whilst being back home, and my arrival back in Blighty started with a mild feeling of depression, followed by a chest infection for which I was chased from the ward last week. Ahh…it would appear that there ARE benefits to coughing up yellow phlegm.

It would do my trip back home a disservice if I were to attempt to catalogue the various on-goings that occurred, so I won't even try. In the end, I managed to do what I had intended to do with this trip, but not without consequences and not according to plan either. But although I wasn’t able to socialise as much as I wanted to, suffice to say I had an amazing time with Sweetie.

Seeing her in person on arrival was one of the most pleasing sights I could ask for, and that warm feeling didn’t dissipate throughout my time there. Although Sweetie wasn’t able to take time off work during the first week, we still managed to sneak in a few meals and coffee together, along with visits to various places like the Aquaria (where we managed to gawk at the various species of fish and insects on display) and our new favourite cineplex, the Cathay theatre off The Curve (The Prestige was definitely one of the better movies of the year). I must say I did eat quite a lot too, which was evidenced by my more ‘tembam’ look on arrival.

We did have quite a few yummy meals, from the relatively routine dim sum buffet at chinese restaurant at the PJ Hilton to the mexican delights of Mezquite at the recently refurbished Heritage Row at Jln Doraisamy, to the magnificently opulent and candlelit Ferringhi Grill, where I had my first taste of Wagyu beef, amongst various other happenings.

We managed a road trip to Penang with some of her friends as well, which bore a strange resemblance to a previous road trip I had taken. But it was even more fun and definitely more memorable this time round. We even managed a few hours in a spa, which was rather therapeutic and relaxing and I think we’re both kinda addicted to spas now i.e. we’d get a session booked every now and then. One of the only downsides was the extremely rude and unprofessional manner in which the staff at the Sri Sayang apartments behaved.

So with such exciting events unfolding, it’s no surprise that life seems almost dull in comparison at the moment. It’s good to be back in a way, and I routinely go through this phase. But I’ve got things to sort out and things to plan, and with the ST applications coming up, it’s time to plan for the future.