Something Gothic in India

Hello my dear dear friends! We are back to India from our trips.  I couldn't stay at parents' place longer this year, nevertheless, enjoyed every moment spent there! My little A turned 2 in July. He was delighted to meet his grandparents again. This visit he was able to really take pleasure in different activities and, simply, in communication with his nana and nani (as maternal grandparents are called in Hindi).
My D organized an amazing trip for his parents and sister this time. They visited St. Petersburg and Moscow, and were stunned by the Russian cultural heritage. I do promise to make a couple of posts to present the places they visited there. I, in turn, preferred going with A straight to my parents so we could spend more time together, while in-laws and D joined us in Kazakhstan later. His parents left after 6 days, and he of course stayed with us till the end of July.
Meanwhile I would like to share with you our latest trip to the hills. It was a long Independence day weekend in India. We left on Saturday morning and headed towards Shimla (113 km away from our city). However our stay was about 10 km before it at Tweet Tweet home stay in Shoghi. We opted for a home stay instead of a hotel so that our little A would be able to have home made food. He has a very frustrating habit - when he is away from home, he stops eating properly. I should say thanks to our hosts because they provided something our A likes - plain ajwain parantha, fried potato and milk.

The day we arrived at our destination, the weather turned a little chilled, wet and foggy - exactly what we wanted it to be! This is a picture of a part of Mall Road in Shimla - the most popular place among visitors. You can see many such European style buildings on this street. There shops, cafes and restaurants on it as well.

But the real treat awaited the next day when we planned to go to the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, located in Shimla. I must say, it was an amazing experience! Just look at this Indo-gothic architecture - the facade, the stairs, the passages, the walls... The stone itself reflects that style, and the way the whole territory was planned back then...Unbelievable! There are more places like this India, many churches of the British Raj era.

Our little A, however, didn't care much about architectural beauty of the place and found his favourite occupation there - throwing pebbles in the water pools! Yey! That was tough to take him away from this interesting job when it started raining cats and dogs. The child was refusing to understand that he would be drained in water if came out of the shelter. But fortunately I had his darling book with me which kept him busy until the rain subsided.

 It felt as we were transferred to England for a couple of hours.

 As the Institute is situated on quite an elevation, we took a cab up, but went down by foot. Little A and his dad enjoying the walk downhill.

I hope to come here again...

 I would also like to say thanks to Ms Misantropia for organizing a giveaway, and giving me an opportunity to win this charming necklace which I received by post a few days ago! I absolutely love it and already wore it many times. Hehe.

 So that's it for now. Hope you are safe and happy wherever you are and watching Olympics.

Relaxing At Dacha - Nature in Different Looks

Going to my parents is a total relax for me in a sense of being close to nature. My dear Mum and Dad have wonderful place to be in any kind of days, hot or cloudy. This place is called dacha. And it means a world to me - a connection to flora and fauna, to what nature gives and for what I have to be thankful for. The place my parents own needs loads of care, anyway whatever they are able to accomplish in a year brings much of satisfaction and happiness, I just follow the flow. My and my D could enjoy these sweet raspberries straight away from the bush.

And these juicy berries called "irga'" in Russian, they color your tongue... you know what I am talking about :)

Oh yes, the flowers called after my name "Anyuta's eyes" got a wild card entry this year - self-sown.

A mayor flower with a bee collecting the pollen. Cannot invent a  more summery picture!

Always used to like a blossoming potato plant...

Thanks to my parents once again, but they created a perfect place living for lizards - a pile of stones in front of our dacha house. We saw many lizards during our last weekend stay at dacha and I always associate them with Goffman's tales (though he had green snakes actually).Amazing creatures used to be living close to humans.

This year we have even got some mushrooms, though not good for purpose of eating.

My Mum collected gifts of nature and embellished the house with them in the main room...

and in my and my D's room.

 In the night we had a candle lit dinner as the electricity still hasn't been provided at the area. I don't complain at all. My mum also liked this unplanned Gothic chic. Same flowers looked magical then... Okay, not everything what is candle lit is called Gothic, but forgive me my mood that night, especially after few  glasses of red wine.

Perhaps I will stop here with my last weekend impressions and let you to enjoy, decide, judge, adore, whatever I offered to your attention today. I am still with my parents and will have few more days to soak my native place's spirit for the next year ... I didn't abandon my crochet completely, so will share some small work too later on.

Blessings to all of you and sorry for not being able to check out your blogs! I will do this very soon :) Thanks for all lovely comments you left on my last post- I appreciate you are with me :) Good night, my dears!