Who would have thunk, that I could stay away from my blog for two whole weeks and that too in the new year when I had signed up for posting every week? Here I am with TWO WEEKS of 2018 gone, without a single post to my credit for the period! Well, on second thoughts, technically only one week has gone by without a post, for here I am writing for the second of those weeks.

The thing is, I have been flitting hither and thither soaking in the sights and also spending time with family that blogs just did not happen. Believe me, while scheduling The Pink Beads before leaving home, I had every intention of following it up with other posts while away. Didn’t I have my laptop with me? Easy-peasy, or so I thought. If nothing at least a photo for the Foto Friday series would do. After all, of pictures I had aplenty.

But….

BUT….

Yeah, but…. it just did not happen.

It’s age catching up, I tell you. There was a time when I’d come back from any outing however tiring, and sit down to write a post. Determination was the key. Nowadays I can only think of curling up in bed and falling into a dreamless sleep.

Fat chance I have though of dreamless sleep. Dreams, stranger than Stranger Things at that, have forever been my bedfellows the moment my eyes close. It was no different these holidays. Happily tired out I might have been, but I simply had to see those dreams of mine.

One of them had me on a distant planet in a different galaxy altogether. I kid you not. I was about to travel back to the Earth with passport and all. Yup, it is that easy in dreams, all you need is a passport (which looked suspiciously like the one issued by the Government of India!) for intergalactic travel. My First Born, who seemed to be an important person on the planet, and dressed for the part in a black futuristic sort of suit, was instructing the Second Born (who for some reason was in the suit he wore for his brother’s wedding and even had a camera in his hand!), on travel details. A fact that puzzled me. Why was he not telling me? I was the one about to travel! Anyway….

While waiting for the flight I wandered off on a ‘hanging’ walkway sort of thing that ran around a tall, and I mean TALL, tower-like structure, on its outside. Oh, the view! This walkway was built to withstand high velocity winds. Scaredy cat that I am of heights, not to mention the fact that the walkway swayed this way and that in the wind scaring the living daylights out of me, I decided to return to firmer grounds. I was spotted by a walkie-talking wielding security personnel who warned me that I was in a restricted area. But she realized I had lost my way (and also that I was the boss’ mom, no less, ha!), and politely put me back on track. This way, Ma’am, if you please! It always pays to be the top man’s mom, I guess. You don’t get bunged into detention cells for trespassing.

I won’t go into more of them dreams. Suffice to say each was stranger and more vivid in details than the next.

So where were we before I wandered off into the world of my dreams? Ahh yes, how I was too tired to write posts on this holiday with my brother and sister-in-law.

And then of course, there was the cold that put a spoke in the wheel of writing. It’s official: I hate the cold. I hate having to wear layers of clothing. I hate that my feet and hands feel so bleddy cold and also that the water in the washroom is so damn cold. Brrr…. I hate that it takes ages for my body heat to warm up the bed while inside the quilt. Errr… umm… It is not what you people might conclude: ice, snow or chilly winds and winter rain or anything of the sort. It is just that I am a warmth and rain kind of person. Anything that requires warm clothing to be worn is too damn cold for me. How do you think I was gonna write with my fingers refusing to come out of my sweater pockets? Oh no, not happening at all, Siree.

But, does it matter I didn’t post? I hope not because here I am, back in full form, with a camera full of pictures (birds!) and head full of travel tales, and other stories which I have had time to think up while shivering with cold. They will all be written by and by in days to come, to bore all those readers still sticking by me faithfully. What a reward for loyalty, eh? 😉

©Shail Mohan 2018