4G 2023 03 12

 Cooking a roast dinner after being out.

I walked to the Indian Embassy to celebrate Holi, the festival of colour.

I took the picture in the grounds before it all got started.

If you ever get the privilege of being invited to celebrate Holi you will find out that to have the most fun you should put away cameras and phones!

Afterwards I walked down to the nearest metro station having decided that the answer to yesterday's low feeling was to have a day of exploring not working.

The station I got on at was the one marked on the picture in red, St Urael. At least I am guessing that the writing says in Amharic, "You are here" :-)

There were lots of people on the train and I had to push inside the doors before they closed. At the next station people getting off pushed me out and I had to get back on again!

We were near the end of the line (the last station is at Ayat) and I could tell because I had room to breathe with people getting off. I could even shuffle my feet!

Then, just by a road – what we used to call a level-crossing – junction the train stopped and only a few judders later the doors opened and everyone laughed and got off.

I understand this is not a new thing so most people knew what I learned a little later. The power on the railway had failed.

I am sure you can work out where I was on the map. No trains expected because I walked up to the next station (which I could see ahead) and asked at the ticket office.

By the way, if you turn the screen around the route looks like a heart-shaped balloon on a string :-)

I knew I should head back and was thinking of a minibus taxi when one of the larger buses called out "Megenagna" (I am sure you know that it was the ticket man hanging out of the bus doorway who called, not the bus itself?) which was a name I knew.

Firstly, the train route goes through there and secondly, more important, I know my way by road and which buses to get from there.

Needless to say I jumped onto the step as he passed. That is literally not figuratively, accuracy not literary. Ooohh you are going to need a dictionary momma :-)

Anyway, got back, did a little shopping, and now have the vegetables roasting as part of my dinner.

Fun times.

The end . . . for today.

4G 2023 03 11

Pumpkin soup on the terrace, outside but not outside,

Rain in the air.

This is the start, where I get to find

What the next few months will be like.

Firstly, the weather. It is different

From the blue skies and sun,

Now it is grey and damp.

Noisy with thunder.

The temperatute does not change much with the

Sunlight or not light, that is real.

It does not alter though

What you feel.

When the outside is grey and the inside needs to be turned on

As a person I feel my inside is grey.

Do you ever feel like that?

There is no reason to be sad.

You do not feel exactly sad but

You find it hard to be happy.

It happens to us all sometimes.

Pumpkin soup warms the parts that sunlight has not been here to reach.

Now all is better and we move on with our day.

Soon it will end with a brush of the teeth

And a tug on the duvet.

Good day, good night, sleep safe.