Skiing Woes

As some of you may know, we have been taking advantage of the frigid winters in New York and our close proximity to a few mountains just over the border in Massachusetts, to go skiing.  

The husband is a competent skier.  The kids are learning to snowboard and I learned to ski 15 years ago in Andorra and have not been since so I am pretty much a scared novice.

We have been a few times now and on our last trip I decided to dispense with lessons, as I felt I just needed practice and there was nothing more those fools could teach me as I was ready to go.

Of course once you make this decision, the next step is going up to the top of the mountain so you can come down it very fast on two sticks of plastic tied to your feet. Who knew?

The second bad decision was instead of doing this with an instructor, I instead chose to tackle my first big run with my husband.  

Unsurprisingly, he was initially very supportive and then highly impatient.  It was my first time in 15 years heading down a mountain so naturally I was scared and pretty much trembled all the way down.  

After a few more petrified runs and lunch, I realised quickly, I should never ski in the afternoon. For the next two hours I fell over about five times and was so worn out I chucked it in for the rest of the day but of course made some excuse about "oh well, jah, now the snow is just so compacted jah that it’s just so icy and treacherous it just you know wouldn't be very safe while I am learning and building my confidence so jah, better just take a break and pick it up again next time".

That evening I googled something like "how long should novice skiers spend skiing before they want to kill themselves because they are rubbish and want to give up but can't because they have to set a positive example of perseverance and bravery for their children?" and it answered "around 4 hours".  Morning skiing only from now on.

I then forgot all about that on todays excursion. 

Surprisingly, things were not too bad and in fact started out rather peachy.  

After numerous chairlift disasters, I have now officially mastered the dismount and come off every chair lift, European sophisticated text book style with my poles hanging off my ears while smugly adjusting my gloves as I whizz down off the little slope to a perfect parallel stop.  I then put my pole straps around my wrists give the gin and tonic sipping pretty ladies a wink and slalom my way off down the nursery slope. Chairlift dismount.  Check.

I was still extremely nervous heading up the mountain again as my last experience of afternoon crashing was fresh in my mind.  

Furthermore, it was -13 degrees celsius and a bitterly freezing wind.  Luckily the slopes were very quiet due to most people avoiding the mountain in order to keep from getting frostbite and their digits amputated.  Not us!  We took our nerve damaged noses up to the top of that bad boy and then worked our way down.

Amazingly I managed to do the run twice without falling over and occasionally not speeding and careering out of control, swearing and trembling, but that was only on the slightly flatter bits.  Flat skiing, no problemo!

Anyway, post lunch I made the cocky mistake of hitting the slopes again, forgetting Google's wise words about skiing over 4 hours. 

We hit a different run called "easiest", one of two "easiest" runs they have at the mountain, the other one I had done this morning to great acclaim. 

This second run was extremely dangerous mainly because I could see the bottom of the mountain from the top of the mountain.  I mean, what the hell is that all about? 

The first run I did in the morning went across the mountain with a few terrifying downhills and then some gorgeous flat travelator-ish bits through the woods so at no point ever, could you see the fact that you were above sea level.

Furthermore, I should have heeded the warning by the chairlift which said "Caution, Thin layer of Snow" which is polite chat for "the mountain is only covered by a sheet of ice and you are going to slice your face open when you fall.  And you will fall.  And most likely die".

But no.  We ignored that and decided to hit the new icy slope that I had not been on before.  I was back to being stressed, tense and trembling.  I made a couple of stops after flying down the hill at an insane speed in order to catch my breath and stop my heart palpitations.  It was shortly after this that things went a little wrong.

Now, I don't want to embarrass my husband, so I think it best if we just pretend that this happened to some friends of ours.  Let's call them Bob and Mindy. 

So poor Mindy was really tiring of this nasty ski run and stopped for the third time where Bob had stopped and had been waiting for her a few minutes, at which point Bob said something like: "this is all in your head and you are being silly.  You looked absolutely fine and in control so let's just keeping going".  

Poor Mindy hadn't even caught her breath and Bob was already turning to keep going down the mountain.  

Mindy does not want anyone who reads this to think of her poorly but while she does have a polite manner, if provoked or hysterical she can quickly turn into someone who works down the docks. So in her interests I am relating this story with more seemly vernacular but you can use your imagination to fill in blanks, guess the inferences or downright translate.

While managing her hyperventilating, Bob said again, "come on let's go" to which she responded "look stop shouting at me.  If you are just going to do that why don't you just be on your way".

At which point Bob "went on his way".  Now, while Mindy had been very irritated with Bob, she was now absolutely livid that he had abandoned her on the dangerous, icy, terrifying north face of the Eiger even though she told him to "kindly take off".  

He was not supposed to do that.  How on earth was she to find her way down that horrible green run.  It is supposed to be the easiest but remember green is the colour of someones face before they puke.

She still had a long way to go down the mountain and she was very scared.  She decided that she just had to get on with it so took off once again tearing down the mountain looking pretty slick but screaming in her head the whole way down until she came to a rubbish stop just before she nearly plowed into the trees.  

At this point she fell over in anger, took off her skis in a fit of rage and decided she would walk down the mountain.  Unbeknownst to her, it is not possible to carry your skis and poles and walk down a mountain in ski boots.  She then fell over again and slid for 200 metres down the mountain on her bottom all the while looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody was watching this tragic state of affairs.

Eventually she came to a stop and realised she couldn't go all the way down the mountain like a dog with worms and besides she was going to endanger people coming down the run who couldn't see her body surfing in snow.  So she crawled over to the side to try to get her skis back on.

This is impossible. She knew how to do it having learned the theory in Andorra 15 years ago but in practice it is "jolly well" impossible.  

Mindy didn't bore us with the details of how to do it but she tried for nearly ten minutes to get them on, failing and failing and failing to the point where she was about to cry and once again felt very cross that her "naughty" husband had left her to fend for herself in this terrible moment of need. 

Finally, she managed to get them on and then started to head down the mountain again at out of control sound barrier breaking speed but it was okay because she looked like she was in control and very soon she would be at the bottom and the nightmare would be over.  

At this point as the speed reached G-force she hit a huge patch of ice and went tumbling over, hurt her leg, neck and arm and lost a pole and a ski.  Mindy was trying very hard to blame Bob for this but had to cast that aside when a nice snowboarder came by and gave her back her pole and ski.

She was back to square one.  Another ten minutes of trying to get her skis on and Mindy had murder on her mind.  She was about to cry again because she just could not get these "darned" things on standing on an icy steep slope.

Mindy could see the end of the run and decided, "never mind this", she was just going to walk her way down even if she had to shuffle little by little or head down on her posterior again.  She kept to the side and began to take little steps down.  

Next thing she knew, Bob came skiing up to her making a textbook stop like George Lazenby and asked her if she was okay.  She said very calmly, "no I am not okay I am afraid.  I fell over twice and I cannot get these gosh darndest skis on, so please kindly remove yourself again as I am a little embarrassed and I would rather you were not here.  Thank you so much".

Poor Bob went away as Mindy had asked him to "politely".  

Mindy finally managed to shuffle her way to the bottom of the run and got to one of those orange netting things they have at ski resorts held up by an orange stake.  She held on to the stake and tried for the third time to get her skis on.  

Finally, as she was on level ground she managed to get the skis on after a few tries.  As she skied away she realised that her pole had got stuck in the net so she got jolted back.  Luckily she didn't fall over again.  She unknotted the ski pole from the net and tried to ski off and then found her left ski stuck in the base of the net.  She then held onto the orange stake that was in the ground to brace herself while she pulled the ski out.  Once she did this she tried to ski off but couldn't because the same ski pole had got stuck in the net again.  Mindy said lots of bad words.

Bob had walked up to her by this point as she left the pole in the net and started to ski off saying to him as she went past with two skis and one pole "please don't worry about that silly pole.  Do leave it.  It does not have to be your concern". 

Bob disobeyed her in an effort to be kind and ran after her to give her back her pole and asked if she would like the car keys so she could put her stuff in there.  She said "No thank you.  Go away please".

She left her gear at ski rentals and got back into civvies and sat in the sun in -13 degrees celsius waiting for Bob and the kids to reappear.

Luckily Mindy had the good sense to apologise to Bob later for being "snippy" even though he had been a bit of a "bottom cavity" by leaving her on her own when she was a novice.

Everything was fine and when she related the story to her children over supper that night they all had a hearty laugh and Mindy reassured her children that she was only being moody because she couldn't get her "naughty silly billy" skis on and falling over is just part of learning and not to be afraid of coming down the mountain because it really is a "piece of urine".

Poor old Mindy.  What a day she had.  

I advised her against ice skiing and perhaps heading to Canada where apparently the snow is so deep and powdery your skis cannot move because they get stuck in the snow.  I think that sort of skiing sounds fantastic.  

You could carry poles with a small shovel on the end to dig yourself out as you went down the mountain, thereby actually doing some bona fide skiing, building upper body strength and not ever picking up enough speed to cause a fall / divorce.

I am a firm believer in not giving up, even though I gave up pilates, running, zumba, exercise generally and not eating too much, but I really am a firm believer in not giving up but instead finding a way around things. 

So next year I look forward to skiing in 12 foot deep snow in Canada or maybe even the Arctic circle as the snow might be even deeper there, on a flat mountain with no skis on.

Inspiration Lacking Thereof

It has been nearly eight months since I last blogged.  I suppose, that is quite a long time in the world of blogging.

One would think a move from Singapore to New York would create fertile ground for interesting ideas, content and stories to share.  It hasn't.

I think this has happened, in part, because we seem to be back to the normal world.  Singapore with all its weird wonderful idiosyncrasies provided ample fodder for fun, anecdotes and yes with a shamed face, lots of mockery.

The US is just normal.  Or rather where we are living is just rather normal, nice, pedestrian and dare I say ... boring.  

You might have guessed that we are not living in the bright lights big city of Manhattan, so for those of you excited to stay with us to have access to the Big Apple, be warned, we live in the woods 40 miles outside of Manhattan.  

The only bright lights where we live are the lighthouse bulb bright drive way lights on everyone's property to stop them crashing into their own houses at night. 

That said, you are all extremely welcome to stay.  Well, actually, only half of you. (See divisiveness is brilliant.  I see why politicians do it, as now half of you are wondering... "is that cow talking about me?").  

I am also writing now because Christmas is coming up and I always write a Christmas blog to wish you all merriment and a wonderful healthy hearty time with family and friends.

This year, we will have family with us for Christmas and will not have to run away from the heat, our ipad app log fire and our 3 ft fake tree.  

I also thought this is the time to wish everyone a Happy New Year but I don't think I can write that without you noticing the sarcasm dripping off my font.

It has been a doozie hasn't it... 2016? I don't want to bang on over the state of the world because there is endless banging on about that every second of every day.  

Instead, I thought you might enjoy hearing how, with this miserable funk hanging over me due to the 24 hour news cycle beating me up on loop, I have managed to turn an exciting new adventure for us in America, into poop.

Example 1
It is an hour on the train into Manhattan which is a bore, but as one steps out of Grand Central station into the hub bub of the city it is instantly energizing. And at Christmas it is especially wonderful.  The lights, the noise, the homelessness, the garbage, the music, the buildings, the drunks, all makes me love Manhattan and takes me back to my many happy years as a young Dick Whit seeking my fortune in London.


The only problem with New York is the grid system.  

Everyone warbles on about how the grid system is the easiest system to negotiate.  This is like those people who say bats have sonar.  I cannot tell you how many times I have had bats fly into my face. That whole sonar echo location thing is just something made up by conspiracy theorists.  

Secondly, it doesn't matter if I have my New York guide book and my google maps out on my phone.  I can come out of the same exit of Grand Central every time and stand there for ten minutes before screaming out loud "which goddamn way is east".  

Please note that even though I mentioned a guide book and phone GPS I am not a tourist.  I am one of those travelling snobs that would never call myself a tourist.  

Tourists get in the way, lacerate strangers with their selfie sticks, amble and stop suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk.  I am not one of these people.  I am a traveller, so I do none of these things, but admittedly in New York, I do all of these things, because I don't know which way is east!  

I think a good start for overcoming this problem is admitting to yourself that east does not mean right and west isn't left and it does matter where you are standing when attempting to navigate. 

I also believe if you have grown up or worked in a big city you have free licence to go to anybody else's big city and abuse tourists for getting in the way.  It is a big city understanding between big city people. So on a recent trip to Manhattan to meet an old friend, I had great fun parroting her as she cursed all the tourists queuing round the blocks of places we wanted to go to.  What fun. 

God, I really hate people.

Example 2
As I mentioned we live in the woods and when I say the woods, I mean the woods.  We do live in a wonderful friendly neighbourhood and there are two small towns about a 15 minute drive away in each direction.  There are no pavements or sidewalks and we regularly have rabbits, deer, coyotes and velociraptors strolling through our garden.

I love the countryside.  It is clean aired, refreshing and pretty but unlike our old days in Guildford where we had the benefit of the countryside on our doorstep, it was also a short walk into a fantastic town with great shops, restaurants, bars, theatre and a cinema.  So if you fancied a bit of sophisticated urban posing, it was only a few minutes away and it was delightful.

We don't have that here and everything is a car ride away so I decided I should embrace my new life and attempt a daily stroll.  This was particularly important after I found out shortly before we left Singapore that I had put on 11kg in weight, shrunk an inch and had raised cholesterol.  Just what every girl wants to hear.  They might as well have given me a lollipop and a sticker saying middle aged with an arrow pointing downwards, labelled "death".

Anyway, I decided to dig a free fit bit out and attempt to do my 10,000 steps a day by walking up and down our road which is hilly. You get the 10,000 steps in and have an asthma attack, which I believe is a sign the cholesterol and arterial tube fat is breaking up.  Can't breathe and want to faint.  Cholesterol is dissolving.  All good.  

However, while this is all rather swell for my health, due to the fact we live in the woods, walking has become somewhat of a hazard.  Unlike my children who absolutely love road kill and are clearly putting in the foundations to become serial killers in later life, I am less keen.  

I am petrified of road kill and dead animals haunt me.  My daily walk has become a minefield of squashed squirrels, dead mice, decapitated bunnies, run over raccoons and just recently half a deer leg that appeared in front of our house and a few days ago moved across the road to someone else's house.  I have no idea how this happened but given it is a leg, I assume it walked there.  

I am now too scared to leave my home. So my walking days in the fresh biting cold air are over and I am just going to walk up and down my stairs at home and carry laundry up one pair of pants at a time to maximise my opportunity for exercise.

Example 3
Work is very quiet.  The company I worked for briefly in Singapore, where I signed my contract and then two weeks later handed in my resignation due to the job offer in the US, were incredibly kind to ask me to continue working for them from here.  This was an absolute gift.  Having spoken to friends who have moved to the US in the last few years, they are all struggling with boredom due to lack of work opportunities.  So I grabbed this job with absolute glee.  

I am doing freelance work so it is ad hoc and as a result can be infrequent.  I had a month of work to keep me busy after we arrived but recently it has quietened down to, well, nothing so I am bored and of course scared due to the high proportion of animal deaths by my house.

So, I have had to find other methods to entertain myself other than walking underwear up and down two flights of stairs one at a time.

The Autumn here was nothing short of stunning but even though all the leaves have fallen to the ground, it is actually far easier to spot the myriad of amazing wild birds endemic to the US that are quite frankly, beautiful.  Chickadee's, woodpeckers, nuthatches & finches. Glorious!

You may scoff, but believe me, you will eventually all have mismatched chairs, a fan heater and a blanket over your laps, like a scene from UP! with binoculars on the chair arm, so you can watch wildlife in your gardens and the neighbours undressing. Don't get above yourselves!

Anyway, in my bird watching glee I thought we should get a bird feeder.  I never realised how relaxing it is watching birds. What joy one can acquire from the simple things.

But of course, no smooth sailing for me.  Much in the way that my daily constitutional was mired by roadkill I have a new enemy in my midst.  

I suppose I am always at war with some animal, irrespective of where I live.  Slugs and foxes in the UK, geckos in Singapore and now in New York, squirrels.  

I do not want squirrels eating the food I have put out for the birds.  Those greedy rodents have spent all of autumn burying their nuts around the garden and are now attempting to build on their obesity by stealing seeds not meant for them.

I am on a continued battle with the squirrels who scare the birds away and ingeniously contort their bodies to pretty much empty out a bird feeder of food in less than a day.  

I refused to be beaten, so I drove to the shops and bought two squirrel resistant bird feeders and you cannot imagine my joy as I watch those bozos try time and time again to get inside it to no avail.  

I did consider scraping the dead racoon off the road and hanging it from our tree to encourage a hawk to fly in and perhaps take the squirrels off too.  I think that might be going too far as the squirrels are cute and I am really enjoying watching them fail repeatedly, moreso because they are cute.  

I liken this experience to seeing someone very beautiful fall over in the street.  I revel in this schandenfreude.  Stupid good looking people coasting through life because they are pretty.  They should fall over all the time.

Back to the squirrels.  Don't be mad with me.  These squirrels are the size of cats.  They do not need any more feeding unless we plan to eat them for Christmas.

Example 4
We don't have any holidays booked. This fact is giving me the skitters.  

We are trying to save our pennies so we can take full advantage of travelling around this continent. I cut my fringe at the weekend because I didn't want to waste money on a hairdresser, (although that backfired because now I need to buy a hat to hide my hair),  Eleanor has toeless socks as her toes have broken through the material because they are too small and Arthur is wearing age 4 trousers even though he is 7 and a half. We look like a bunch of tramps.  I am glad our landlord never met us before we moved into their house.

I think I understand now why Americans do not travel very much.  It has nothing to do with the fact that their country is so big why go anywhere else.  It is because their country is so big you cannot afford to go anywhere in America.  

Furthermore, the seasons which I desperately longed for and missed while we were in Singapore mean there are actually less places to go to in America because it is too damn cold for 9 months of the year. 

A bit of research highlighted that some of the west coast national parks are in fact amazing in February and April.  You don't have the blistering heat or the millions of tourists (yuck!) getting in the way.

I looked into flights to Phoenix which puts us in Grand Canyon territory and the best option I found for both, the Grand Canyon or Yosemite National Park was around the $4,000 mark with two stops en route, making the journey around 21 hours.  

After much screeching about how much I hate America because I could fly to Italy in less time and for less money I was reliably informed by my hubby that I was thick as, because flying from New York to the West Coast is probably the same distance as flying from New York to Rome and jet fuel costs the same.  Still, I object to paying that much dosh when you are travelling within your own country.


I think the only way forward is to embrace the extreme winters on the east coast and do something fun, albeit cold. 

There are lots of skiing opportunities in this area, a few, only a two hour drive from where we live, which is great.  

The kids are going to take a couple of lessons just after Christmas to see how they take to it, Rob is going to go skiing on his own as he has no friends and I am debating whether I should have a few lessons too, given I have only skied once 15 years ago.  

It was brilliant fun, although I was absolutely petrified.  I can also proudly say that I didn't fall over once on the slopes because I saved that humiliation for landing in a messy heap off the button lifts every single time I used them.  I also threw myself off the chair lift as it got to its highest point before rounding the corner to head back down.  Don't ask how I managed it.  Let's just say I am talented at such things.

So that is our life in America to date.  

As we move forward into 2017 my resolutions are to avoid the news as much as possible.  I can't even watch the endless stream of suffering coming out of Syria anymore.  I think all our hearts break daily as we watch these poor people's plight and know there is little we can do unless we can quickly train at Black Briar and take Putin, Assad and Iran out, Jason Bourne style.  Although, it is fair to say the list of monsters across the globe is much longer than just that triumvirate of hell.

I will continue to significantly reduce our waste and plastic usage, continue to watch The West Wing to delude myself into how government should be run, continue to watch The Crown and thank heavens I am not the English Queen.  I know she has nice horses and stuff but that job really sucks.

And lastly continue to watch Planet Earth II and take solace that there is still great beauty, majesty, wonder and true magic in the world, entirely where humans aren't, but it is still there and I will never tire of seeing David Attenborough in a hot air balloon.  Those images will always remind me that perhaps there is still hope.

Merry Christmas everybody and let's hope that 2017 isn't the crappy suck fest of 2016.  Good luck to us all!

Roots Chapter IV

Roots

I am not overly fond of big hotels and generally like little guesthouses which have a homely feel or lots of character.  Other than that we are quite happy sleeping in old factories or prisons. Cheap and cheerful with bundles of charm. 

Before we had the kids we used our trusty Rough Guide and Lonely Planet to get us everywhere we went.  The books seem to have evolved for those young free things in the 90s who are now shackled and burdened with children, mortgages and irritable bowel syndrome in the noughties.  They are still my go to travel guide as they always deliver up a few little gems and remind you to get off the beaten track when you can.

Some of our favourite accommodation were these small guesthouses with three to five rooms.  They were homely and welcoming and made you feel like you were staying with friends.  One particular treat was a tiny little cottage in Kandy up in the forests away from the lunacy that is the traffic in that city.

Here we were welcomed by a lovely gentleman called Thomas who had the most sticking out ears I have ever seen in my life.  He was wonderful and both he and his colleague made absolutely incredible curry.  He welcomed us in, abused us for not eating enough, never asked me where I was from and then abused us some more for not eating enough.  It was like home.

Anyway, there is a particular smell about those places that connects me so powerfully to Sri Lanka, even after all these years.  It is a combination of mothballs, jasmine, the gorgeous clean smell of sandalwood soap and the toilet.  I know that sounds odd but even the smell in the bathroom after you have flushed is familiar to me.  This has nothing to do with my prawn explosion in 1988.  It is clearly something in the way the sewers works.  I don’t know.  It is just a smell that takes me back.   

Before we left I popped to a chemist and bought a block of sandalwood soap for $1.  It is already sitting in my soap dish at home and making the entire bathroom smell like Sri Lanka.  Unfortunately we don’t have the jasmine and sewer smell as well but I do have some mothballs so I have nearly recreated the environment from this holiday and those from my childhood.

It does seem to be the little things that connect you to places you thought were irrelevant to you due to distance and circumstances and the influence of your parents.  Neither of my parents had any pull to Sri Lanka.  Other than her brothers my Mother had no interest in the place and my Father wasn’t remotely bothered whether he went there ever again. 

He felt his real home was the UK and yet being a sentimental old duffer, my Dad kept hold of many things from his life in Sri Lanka before he left as a young man.   

Following his death, while arranging all his affairs and paperwork we opened an old leather briefcase that he had kept since his time in Sri Lanka.  Inside it was a treasure of items from photographs, stubs, tickets, letters that he had squirreled away and that we had never been allowed to see.  

One particularly striking photo was of my Mum.  It was a black and white portrait and she had two thick plaits in her hair.  

On our travels around Sri Lanka as the little girls spill out from school they all sported the same two thick plaits and looked adorable.  

I told my Mum about this observation and happily said, that nothing has changed in the 70 years since she was a little girl having her picture taken in her two thick plaits after school.  

She replied that she was 19 years old in that picture.  

Yet, as I pointed out in response, she still did her hair like a 10 year old.  It was all a bit Judy Garland trying to convince people she was 10 in the Wizard of Oz by wearing plaits when she was actually 48.

Amongst all his mountains of paperwork I found random papers from Sri Lanka.  Like his sarongs, my Dad liked his paper, thin and transparent but there was another type of paper that was thicker, coloured and had a very distinct smell of leather, mothballs, sandalwood and the 1940s.

I had forgotten all about this until we went to Kandy to watch a cultural performance.  It was terrible.  The performance that is.  Our tickets however were made out of the same paper I found in my Dad’s old leather satchel.  It felt the same and it smelled the same and as soon as I held it in my hand I once again felt a strong connection with this island.

In this world full of immigrants, me the child of two, I have up until recently always felt I needed a sense of place and home, somewhere I am totally connected. That place has always been the UK.  It was where I was born, grew up, studied, worked, married and had my children.  It was always the home of my parents.  More British than Sri Lankan due to their upbringing and one of the last few generations educated under the last vestiges of colonialism.  They did not feel they belonged in Sri Lanka.  England was home.

And yet, since leaving the UK, I feel an increasing disconnect.  If I had a choice as to where I would want to live out the rest of my life it would always be the UK but I would come back feeling the need to start life anew.  I feel no connection with Singapore other than my little family resides here and yet after this trip to Sri Lanka I feel an increased pull to that teardrop in the Indian Ocean.  Maybe I need to give up a little of the UK to allow Sri Lanka in.  After this last trip, it is not a difficult thing to do. 

 

Irrespective of where I am or where I go, my roots are there.  It is the birthplace of my parents, it is a hundred photographs in our albums from the 1930s to the 1950s, it is the smell of sandalwood, leather briefcases and thick green paper.  It is the backdrop to the young lives of my Mum and Dad.  It ties me to family and friends and the memories of loved ones departed.  

I had hoped this holiday would help my son understand why he has flat enormous knees and huge feet and his lower legs are the size of chopsticks.  It didn’t.   

In 27 years, like the rest of the world, young Sri Lankan men have become handsome, taller and burlier.  Gone are the days of the small, skinny young lad with his creepy moustache and too short trousers whom I used to laugh at with my cousins, while being all superior and looking cool wearing my banana clip, batik poncho and sporting a similar moustache.  

Arthur’s legs, I guess are just from another time and when he looks at the old photos of my Dad standing in front of his house in Colombo in his white school uniform in the late 1930s, with his big flat knees and his huge feet and chicken legs, he will know that half of his roots lie in Sri Lanka too.

Dedicated to Uncle Thamby. 

A kind and gentle soul and the tallest member of my Mothers’ family because he used to hang upside down by his feet like a bat in order to not be cursed with the short DNA afflicting everybody else.

He was right.  Gravity did overcome genetics in this instance.

I am glad we saw you before you had to go.

You will be missed.