Our Summer days over here are not filled with barbecues and frolicking at the pool side. It’s steaming hot, that staying outside for longer than is required is asking for heat stroke. If the idea of leaving your side of ribs on the sidewalk to sizzle and grill appeals to you, then by all means indulge and yes it’s possible, I’ve eaten sand-baked lamb and the gentle roast is flavourful.
So, these days with children on vacation and going cabin crazy, most malls are flooded with folks and families seeking momentary respite while we wait with bated breath for the cooler months of Autumn and Winter for our days by the poolside and other wonderful indulgences. For now, we turn into night bats and recreate as the weather permits.
On Thursday’s, I share pictures about ‘Echos of my Neighbourhood.
I would like to invite you to participate. The challenge is quite simple.
Every Thursday, share a photo of bits and pieces of wherever you are at any point in time. It could be houses, backgrounds of your neighbourhood, activities and so forth and you can tag it Echos of my Neighbourhood, add my link to your post so that I will get the ping from your post.
Every other Thursday, I will publish a post with the links of all those who participated the previous week.
This is just a fun way of getting to see more of the World around us through your eyes, since we cannot all be at those places, we can at least see them through you.
Hanging umbrellas at the village
In the blanket of the night
I love the pretty night lights of my evening walk.
The lights at Ibn Battuta
More evening lights
Viewing traffic from an overhead walk way.
Sugar crafted kitchen staff
Catching the Vile one. Sugar craft
Slaying the beast. Sugar craft
We got to taste the cake
Colourful sugar craft
Coffee parlour
Coffee contraptions
Brewing the potent brew.
Catching up on the gist at the train station
Another coffee parlour
Waiting for my cuppa
Bastakiya coffee house
From the pictures above, last few days found me perambulating quite a bit. These were taken in the course of last week.
From attending the food festival and sugar craft show, to going to Bastakiya, the coffee museum and imbibing in coffee so potent that it could knock off your socks and you will float in the air with the buoyancy that it delivered.
I learnt a lot about coffee and took hundreds of photos.
It was thick heavy brew, served in small cups. I couldn’t finish mine because, it seriously gave me bright eyes and I think my hair stood on ends from the buzz that I got.
The voice of the security rang sharply and intermittently over the Mall’s public address system.
‘There’s a missing child with us, he is four years old, he is dressed in brown slacks and a blue shirt, please contact the security to identify him,’ the speaker kept announcing.
This went on for hours, but no one came.
Little Ashif was tired, tearful, hungry and hoped Mama would come and get him soon; he promised to be a good boy, if only she would come.
As days passed no one came and the little boy wondered why she never came back, after all, he had been a good boy when she said he should stand and wait; he became the ward of the State.
P.S. This story came to me based on an experience at the Mall. A child went missing and the loud speakers went on for hours announcing and describing that child.
I was there for three hours or thereabouts and I left with a heavy mind. I wondered if the parents of that boy picked him up or not. I couldn’t help wondering how they misplaced him in such a huge mall in the first place.
*As a security caution, once we arrive any of the Malls here or anywhere, I look for the information desk and get a name tag band which my children wear on their wrists with my number and their dad’s own written on it, where that is not available, I write on a piece of paper and tuck it into their pockets, just in case there is a pandemonium or anything of the sort.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 