That's the way it is

Have you listened to "that's the way it is" song from Celine Dion.
I think it's a truly inspirational song, listen to it when you are feeling down and I hope it will make you feel better. It doesn't mean you cannot listen to it other times.

Below is a link to the song video from you tube. I would enjoy just listening to the song more than watching the video.

Healthy Eating - Salad

Another healthy dieting tip! Eat a bowl of salad as part of your dinner, at least 3-4 days a week. Add vegetables of your choice and top it up with salad cream to make it more interesting.

Our typical salad bowl...

Scotland

When you think of Scotland there are certain things that come to mind and the most prominent ones are bag piper, scotch whisky, scenic mountains and also the Scottish traditional dress-kilt.

Being in Scotland, I recently got a chance to try out the Scottish kilt outfit. It was the occasion of annual party at work where we were all encouraged to wear Scottish traditional dress. Although I didn't sign up for the party in the beginning, I decided to go for it in the last moment looking at the huge number of colleagues already signed up . Also it was an occasion for me to try out kilt. Another good thing was the we could bring our partners to the party which means me and Chandra could go together.

Once I decided to go the party it was time to pick up the kilt dress. My colleagues then started asking me what clan or tartan I'm going to wear. Until then I didn't know there are thousands of variety of kilts which are based on the family names for example tennis player Andy Murray would wear Murray clan kilt and Sir Alex Ferguson would wear Ferguson clan and so on. Again each of the family clan are divided into traditional and modern clans. These clans were used in the olden days to recognise people belonging to different families. But after looking at the different clans on the Internet I really wondered how could any one easily recognise a family name by looking at the clan as they differ from one another by minute difference. There are also different jackets like argyl and prince charles.

There are lot of places in the city who hire out kilt outfit. We were offered some discounts through work and I decided to go to one of those places. I went to this shop (mcgregor and macduff) and they showed me couple of tartans, I quickly selected a green and black striped tartan and argyle jacket. Later I found out that tartan type was "Modern Douglas". I got the whole outfit including shoes, stockings, sgian dubb(knife), sporran, flashes and kilt pin. Chandra decided to wear saree as we couldn't find any other suitable party dress.

Then it was time for the party and we enjoyed every bit of it including the haggis - a Scottish special dish. Since we are vegetarians, they served us the veggie version of the dish. The party also hosted Scottish traditional ceilind (pronounced as keli) dance by a band. There are different sequences of dance, some involve only couples and some involve groups. The band used to first teach us how to dance and then we used to dance. We enjoyed a few rounds of ceilind group dance. Then it was time for some disco to end the party.

Me in Modern Douglas kilt!

Is this the beginning of end of Australia's cricketing dominance

Look at the last three results of Australia's ODI matches

New Zealand: 149-0 ( 27.0 overs )
Australia: 148 ( 49.3 overs )
New Zealand beat Australia by 10 wickets

Australia: 152-8 ( 27.0 overs )
England: 246-8 ( 50.0 overs )
England beat Australia by 34 runs (D/L)

Australia: 252 ( 48.3 overs )
England: 253-6 ( 49.3 overs )
England beat Australia by 4 wickets

How often do you see that happening! Australia has lost 4 out of the last 5 one day matches they have played. England beat them recently to win the Commonwealth Bank triangular series.

Without Shane Warne and with Glenn McGrath set to retire soon, the team will be without two great bowlers. Although one can strongly argue that their absence doesn't make any difference to the team because we have seen Australians do well without them but I am now thinking the team will not be same.

Adam Gilchrist is getting old too and will retire soon. The batting line won't be the same without him.

Only time will tell how the Australians will perform in the coming days and months. The cricket world cup is only a few days away and the way the Australian team performing I think the other teams stand a good chance of beating them to win the cup. Can India do it?! I wish and hope we do win it this time.

Triangle Dosa

Check out the triangle shaped dosas we made...


Thanks to Arun for teaching me the trick while he was here in Glasgow.

Healthy Eating - Fruits

As part of our healthy diet we have been trying to eat lot of vegetables and fruits.
Below is a pic of some interesting fruit combinations.

Another one...

Snow

When I heard the news yesterday that there would be heavy snow in the UK I was happy for a moment. Later I found that it is going to snow only in the England and Wales but not in Scotland. Scotland is supposed to be a colder place and it is irony it didn't snow here :(

But our friends in London enjoyed the snow today. This is a picture sent by our dear friend, Rahul taken in front of his home.


I just read the news that it is going to snow in Glasgow on Sunday. Looking forward to playing in the snow.

Big Brother Vs Top Gear

Last Sunday was the day when Shilpa Shetty won the celebrity big brother show. There were millions of people watching the show live on channel 4. Me and Chandra were also among them.

But if you were thinking it was the most watched programme that night then you got it wrong. It was "Top Gear" which took the top spot. The TV show started telecasting again after Richard Hammond's recovery from a high speed jet powered car crash. He was driving at 288mph when the car crashed. We watched the show later when it was re-telecasted on BBC2.

Check the TV viewing ratings
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6309411.stm

If you have missed the show, you can watch the car crash footage through this BBC link http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6300000/newsid_6308500/6308515.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm

Richard Hammond could have achieved the highest official land speed record driving the jet-powered car. He had done a run just before the car crash where he reached 340mph but it will not become official until you have driven in the opposite direction and then the speed will be calculated. He met with the horrible accident due to tyre burst and could not make an official record. But he is really lucky to survive the crash and to be back to normal in just about 6 months.

Shilpa Shetty is lucky too to win the show. She is now a real celebrity in the UK giving interviews to TV channels and news papers. I also read she will be meeting the queen and prime minister, Tony Blair. For now, it looks like she is going to settle down in the UK as her career is getting a real boost here.

Giving up "Chicken"

I have decided to go back to being "Vegetarian". Yes! I have given up eating meat, actually I should say chicken as that was the only thing I used to eat. I did taste lamb but did not really enjoy it.

It all started when I saw this blog "say no to meat" written by my ex-colleague. The videos I saw on that website were really horrendous. The way the animals were treated made me feel what I was doing wrong. So I stopped eating chicken for few days because I didn't I feel like but only until we went to Bombay Blues for buffet lunch recently. I saw these chicken tandoori legs on the menu and I couldn't control myself helping with one or two. I started eating chicken after a long gap but I wasn't enjoying it. So I have now decided to stop eating chicken any more.

I was mentioning to my colleague recently that I am a vegetarian. He was telling me that he cannot imagine a meal without meat. I am sure there are lots of people who would say that. But I am also sure that there more number of people who would say I can't imagine how can some one eat meat.

We do a cake run at work every Friday and some one was mentioning they would fancy a meat cake (can't remember exact name of the cake) that day. I was mentioning to one of my colleague the cruelty done to the animals and how I have stopped eating meat after looking at some of the videos. He then expressed his concern that it is very bad what happens to the animals and how they are slaughtered. In the end he told that after saying all those things he would still fancy eating a meat cake:)

I only hope that I won't get tempted to eat those tandoori chicken legs again.