found a place and shifted day before yesterday evening, spent the first night and next day evening studying the room -

realised the windows didnt close properly and the draft leaves me cold at night and I cannot sleep, also since it is next to the railway station, you know how it can be when the trains pass, there is a mini earthquake that shakes the glass shutters and there are people coming in by the 1150 pm local, there is one man that collects his cycle from the station parking and then rides it down the front of this house singing quietly,

:)

it is the most amazing sound of silence you can imagine, absolutely surreal; second day here today,

left office  a little early,

came home dumped my office jhola in which I carry drinking water from office since I do not own a water filter and dare not drink the tap water as Lucknow is one of the the most jaundice prone areas in India,

went to the local Gada Bhandar,  picked up a fifty rupees pillow, I know I am acting cheap and should have bought a thousand twelve hundred rupees Recron pillow filled with synthetic whatever, but I would rather have cheap whatever grows on trees in a jungle than that - besides when am outstation I always look for local cheap stuff that I could throw away when I leave, without regretting that I have thrown away money, so I waited till I found this one and exactly the color I like too, and of course the price too, dont laugh, am like that sometimes, sagittarian quirk you could say and sagittarian luck you could say that I usually find what am looking for -

that luck however is limited to life on the surface, it has never worked in my love life, I still have not been able to find a man that loves me - I have loved a few, well a couple actually, er well one really seriously and the other kind of just happened you could say - it is rather hard to fall in love once you are grown up I think and especially if you have grown up to be a bit of a control freak (like one who goes to bed fully dressed so that if there is a fire or earthquake, she can start running right away and not have to wait to get dressed or worry about modesty);

got these lovely peach embroidered pillow covers, actually I wanted white lacey ones, I like and prefer white sheets, white pillow covers with satin and lace but Gada Bhandar is a pragmatic store that has existed for like a thousand years and because they have this cautious finger on the pulse of the people  stocking 'your choice' and  'only what sells well' and is popular

got these beautiful pink material  for a set of curtains to protect me from the draft flowing in through the kitchenette window that opens on to the shaft,

returned t the room that is now 'home' realised I forgot to get whatever one needs to hang the curtain,

but decided to worry about that later and first, set up the little clix stove, made dinner,

in the meanwhile the landlord and missus walked in to get the leaking tap in the bathroom fixed (wow, prompt service), while they were there I happened to ask if 'uncle' (here in Indian that is how you are supposed to refer to elderly gentlemen) if he could help me hang the curtains and I showed them the cloth I bought, I mentioned I cannot sleep at night because I feel chilly

aunty said "of course, do not worry, we would get that fixed for you" - when I started to say thank you, she said "that is okay", she ordered uncle to go and fetch the 'springs' from downstairs, when it arrived they were worried it was a little too long and hung loose, I was so grateful I said o please do not worry I can fix that and which I subsequently did - would post pictures next time - now am typing away in the dark.

then they left, I ate my dinner, drak coffee that I also brought home from the office canteen

then sat down and started stitching my curtains, while I stitched them spent sometime contemplating exactly how I could organise the things n the cupboardless furnitureless bare dirty room without a good clean shiny  tiled or marbled floor (well this one is emergency retreat until I can find a better place, next year, and what do you expect for two and half thousand rupees - a palace?) (well I was prepared to pay upto seven grand if they could have found me a proper flat with attached bath, built INSIDE the apartment - most UP people for some strange reason build their bathrooms afr away from where the real rooms are) running water, a proper kitchen with a sink and tap and shelves and everything and a spearate entrance and close to the office) to make it look a bit more liveable

and then it hit me that I could turn the bed around and have a wall on onside to avoid the draft and have my head towards a wall - 

then once I had the bed etc reset - I decided to not wait for the maid because I am not sure she IS going to come in the evening just to tend to me and I leave for office at 9 and never get back until after 6 there is no way we could meet and so I decided to tear up a kurta that I was a little tired of, and set down to sweep the floor

It was already 19 by then but well I had got the dhurry for the floor and I wasnt prepared to spend another night with dusty floors

I did not have pink thread - I mean I do but could not remember where I packed them, so I stitched up the pink curtains with black thread - but it doesnt show - I checked. So, now the curtains are up, the floor is clean, the dhurry is on the floor so I do not have to step onto the cold floor when I wake up in the morning, the diner dishes are cleaned, there is hot water in the flask for when I wake up in the morning, my clothges - aha I was wondering what it is I have forgotten, it is this, I forgot to lay out my clothes :(

but I was getting cold and I needed to get into bed.

O I even found a way to put up the mosquito net (I could not find where I packed the GoodKnight electric repellant),  hey, how many of you on OS, have ever slept under one or even seen one, do please let me know if you haven't - shall be delighted to post pics for you :) 

my post is up too I hope and am finally ready to call it a day today -