Monday 30 January 2012

Dear Park and Hauz Khas Village

On Sunday we went for a little walk around one of the parks here in Delhi.
They are keeping dear in there and it is really nice to just walk around ( also a perfect picnic spot for our next picnic day and it is allowed there! )

So we walked around for an hour and looked at the animals, then we walked in to the Hauz Khas Village, which is famous for their art and antiques.
We found one shop that was amazing! They had so many great tables, book cases, mirrors, boxes etc!
We are definitely going back there to buy a great piece to take back home with us! It will be a lovely reminder of when we were young and wild and travelled around India.

Further down the road we also found a art gallery so we had a look around and they had some pretty cool paintings, might end up with one of those as well!

Here are some pictures from the day.

The Dear

Peacock

Monkey

A baby, might even be Bambi!

Nice tombs and Madrasa

The park


Man on his bike, with a couple of gas cylinders at the back.

Us.

Sunday 29 January 2012

Sundays :)

This was us this morning! Breakfast on our lovely balcony!




Have a great Sunday!

Saturday 28 January 2012

Cooking Lesson in Varq

Today we went along to a cooking lesson in the Taj Mahal hotel in Delhi, which was really nice.It was seated in the garden so we had the sun on our backs, we were seated around tables in a U shape and in the middle was the Chef from their restaurant Varq. We love their food and have eaten there a few times so we thought why not learn how to cook some of their dishes!

What we didn't know was that they filmed the whole thing and we were the "special" guests along with an older lady. And the rest of the people there were from the film crew.

The Chef did a great job chopping, cooking and explaining how to do things. I even got a chance to go up and do it along with her, don't think she needs to be scared of loosing her job tho because I couldn't even wisk it properly. Not that she said anything, but she did redo it...!

Along with the lesson we had plenty of lovely champagne and got to taste everything, mmm.
And after the show we had a 4 course lunch inside their restaurant, we were stuffed!!!!

A great day of eating and drinking !


This is the set up in the garden.

Our Chef and teacher.

Plating one of the dishes.

The first dish done, tasted amazing!

Me playing chef!

And plating.

The outcome of the dish I helped with.

Chickpea dish.

Cameramen and crew.

Stephen being served Chicken.
Us in the restaurant, enjoying the meal!
All of us together!

Thursday 26 January 2012

Republic Day in India.

We have had a day of today because it is the Republic Day here in India.
Lovely! We thought we would go and see the parade but you needed tickets so we thought we would watch it on T.V instead.
This morning we had a nice sleep in so watching the parade didn't happen either way!

It is a great day, the sun is out so we walked to the market and got some food for a picnic.
Our driver Daniel took us to Humayums Tomb, which is our favourite place in Delhi. It was quite busy so we walked around the back, found a nice little spot in the sun, unpacked our picnic and enjoyed! After about 3 minutes we had 2 dogs staring us down for Stephens ham and cheese sandwich.... we managed to scare them away and kept eating but then two guards came up to us and said that no food was allowed! :( So we packed up our picnic again, not even half eaten!
We walked up to the tomb because it was quite chilly where we sat and found a lovely , wind free little alcove where we sat for about 2 hours just reading our books.
People pointed and stared as they always do and after a while a group of men came up all wanted pictures with me in them,a bit rudely they positioned me how they wanted me to stand! Stephen ignored them all , just kept reading his book, after a while I had to tell them enough! It is fun for a while but gets too much quickly!

So we just got home, had some of our left over food, but most was melted and mushy, so Stephen is now making a smoothie for us!

He just came back with it, I tried it and said:that is a funny aftertaste what fruits are in it?
He then said, pineapple,plum, banana.
Me: well that shouldn't be weird.
He: oh yes, and a wee splash of vodka, is that what you taste??

Hahahaha

Here are some pictures from today!


Our picnic, before the guards and dogs came.

Humuyums Tomb

Little boy walking in the middle of the water.




Amazing day, lovely and relaxing!

Sunday 22 January 2012

Relaxing Sunday!

Finaly we are both ok! No sniffly noses, headaces or sneezing fits! Woho!

It has been two weeks now on my diet and it is going ok, altho it is difficult to cook food without pasta, wheat, rice, potatoes etc. Add me being a veggie as well! So surviving on omelettes, veggie "bugers", boiled vegetables with cheese and today we even tried making "bread" which is basically eggs and cheese , put it in the oven and wait 30 min! turned out ok, not great...! Might give it a miss!
Anyway we stepped on the scale yesterday (we do it ones a week) and I had lost 0.3kg in the last week, not great but still lost some, so all in all happy! BUT then Stephen stood on the scales and he is supposed to have put on weight, and I am feeding him like nothing else, lots of Pasta, Rice, Sausages, Chicken, Cookies, you name it! AND he has lost 1.7kg!!!!! How???!?!?
So I sulked for a while as I am doing everything right, going to the gym, eating nothing etc etc and HE looses 1.7!!!
Anyhow stood on the scales this morning again just to check and lost an other 0.6kg so I'm happy, Stephen was still the same...hmmm think he's got worms!

Anyhow we have been planning a big trip in April, it is Stephens birthday and probably our last big holiday in India before I go home to organize the last bits for our big wedding!
So we have booked the most amazing trip to Nepal! the 2nd of April - 11th of April!
We have some of the best hotels lined up in a variety of locations, in Kathmandu with tours of the valley and even have a flight over Everest planned! Then we are going to the Chitwan National Park and stay in a lodge in the middle of the Jungle.  Where we will go on elephant safaris trying to spot tigers and indian rhinos.  One night Stephen has persuaded me to sleep in a tent in the jungle (only one night, as I'm not that keen on tents = spiders, snakes, who knows!) To finish off staying in a secluded mountain lodge to do some treking.
It is gonna be supercool and Stephen is like a little boy waiting for Christmas!
We bought a guidebook of Nepal yesterday and have been flicking through it!

We also have one more trip planned, the 18th of Feb we are going to Chennai, to celebrate our first wedding anneversary! Lay on the beach for a few days, yeay!

Other than that we have no other trips coming up! We did so many last year so we are taking it a bit easier, saving up a bit more for the wedding...

My friend Caroline has booked her ticket over here in March,so that should be fun! Just need to see what she wants to do and then organize it!

Again have no pictures...!
Will upload all our pictures onto my new computer and do a medley of the best pictures from 2011 in the week!
Here is one of me sitting on our balcony one sunny day this week.

Tuesday 17 January 2012

January.

We have been back at work for two weeks, it is going ok.
Stephen has been ill for the last month and is now ok but now I've got a cold! Would be nicer if we were ill together! so I'm home today working from my bed!
I have also managed to get back into going to the gym! It is not good tho when your personal trainer has got your number on speed dial!!
I tried Zumba last Friday, it was really fun! I recommend it to all my friends who love to dance!

I wasn't the best in the class ( my first time, so give it a few goes :) ) but wow were there some people who did not have a bone of rhythm in their body! So much fun! Could not move on Saturday tho! So guess I tried hard :)
I am on a diet at the moment which means that I am not eating pasta, rice, bread or potatoes because it is less than 7 months to our wedding in Sweden and i want to look really good!
Over Christmas time we went home to my Grandma and Grandad ( Farmor and Farfar ) and they love to feed us, my grandma had baked 10types of small biscuits and two cakes!!!! We had to try all of them of course but as I said it is only 7 months to the wedding...!
Stephen is also on a diet, we are trying to fatten him up!! So I am buying him extra meat, cooking him lots of nice yummy pasta and even bought him cookies! He is enjoying eating all these things in front of me, well I just need him to visit the gym as well now to build some muscles! His trainer has texted him non stop since September, but Stephen pretends he is still away! Shame I met the guy at the gym the other day and told him he is only hiding , haha!

We have no pictures yet as we have not had time to go anywhere but hopefully we'll get ut of this house next weekend and I will update you!

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Christmas, New Years Eve and now back to Delhi.

We are back in Delhi! It is as cold as we remembered it!! But at east now we have a duvet to sleep under during nights, we had to bring an extra bag just to fit it in.

It was really nice to be home to see family and friends, we spent Christmas with Stephens family and the children was super excited when Santa had been at Stephens parents as well as his sister!

We spent three whole days in Sweden  and it was a difference of 35 degrees from last year, it was plus 10 this year and minus 25 last year!
Last evening and night we slept in Copenhagen, we met up with my friends Emelie and Charlotte. We haven't seen them for ages and it was lovely! Great food and nice drinks!

New Years Eve morning we flew back to London and checked into our London residence, The MayFair!
We walked around and did some shopping and then our friends Frances and Chris came and had dinner with us! Even tho we didn't get our champagne drinks until ten past twelve it was fine , the food was amazing and just kept comng. After that Frances had to go home but Chris took us clubbing to some cheesy music, great fun!

New Years Day was lazy and we finally went home to our house :)
The fist week in January Stephen went to Norway to work and I packed up and cleaned our house. ( we are renting it out as we are not gonna be there until 2014 and our friend moved out)
So Stephens parent came over to fill their car up a few times with our things to put them in their garage.

Finally on the 7th we flew back here and it was an ok flight, we managed to get four seats between us so we could lay down durning the night.

So now we are here and we are back at work!

At the bar, Stephen didn't get my shoes in the picture!

Stephens rose drink

Edible flwers with the dessert.

Best photo I had of the New Years Eve , sorry!