A Song of Ice and Fire

I finished the 5 books finally! A book a month. I tried to read it as slow as possible. Reaaaaaaaaaaaally Really slow. But no matter what pace I read it at, I still cannot match finishing it by 2015!! Thats when the next book releases. :(  And then the last in 2020. I cannot bear it!! I would have forgotten all characters by then. And I don't think I can go through the series again. Even though I loved it. Hrrrrmmmmphhh.

I recommend this series to whosoever I meet. Actually I would like to amend that, not whosoever I meet but people who I feel should read this book and would do justice by enjoying it. I do not recommend it to everyone - there's no point really.

I don't think I can actually do a review or anything like it till I know all of you have read the book. Then we can talk.

Mommie had recommended this series fervently. And I picked up the first two books. It had been lying with me for a month or two before I started reading. I was just feeling very lethargic about starting a series and it looked a very heavy read to me.

But once I started I could not put it down. The minute I finished the first book, the first thing I did was call up Mommie to discuss it. Throughout the conversation, Mommie was like errr, ummm, ahh... I cannot really talk about this... you read the second book and call me!!

I read 2nd.. 3rd.. 4th.. 5th.. and now I find I can talk freely to discuss each of these mammoth books and the 1000 characters!! I am not kidding.

So now you know, I cannot really discuss the books here else it will be full of spoilers. I can say this much.. the story starts and is going on at a pace .. when you think "I know where this is heading"..Let me tell you, REALLY NOT!! And that does not change through the 5 books. At every point in time, you may think, ah now this will happen. And it doesn't!! At times it gets irksome. But it keeps you second guessing every strategy, every move. Interesting, intriguing are too mild a term to define it. It is full of cunning, strategising and what not.

So if you have read it, which one is your favourite character?

Mine has to be Tyrion. I loved the character of Cersei... and yeah, ok, Jamie as well. They make the story awesome. They have character. Without cunning and mischief and intelligence and evil, this would be downright boring.

I wish they show the series again on HBO. This time I will watch it!!!

Long time no see

Its been ages. And no I wont give the I am back, or I promise to write spiel.

I just so happened that I wondered about my blog, blog friends.

So, N celebrated her first birthday amidst my and A's friends!! :) Hosting parties is tough. I, for one, have never hosted a party. Neither has A. So we were terribly worried if people would turn up or not. You see, we had never measured our "clout". Many people had confirmed on the phone.. but you know how it is. On the D Day, A reached the venue early. The next trip was N, me and my dad. The birthday girl had to be there early! But we got late unfortunately and all the way I was fretting, thinking it would be so rude if guests turned up earlier than us!! But nevertheless, when we reached there, I found A and his cousin sitting and twiddling thumbs.

WE HAD ORDERED FOOD FOR 100 PEOPLE AND A 5 BL***Y KG CAKE!!

And there were only 10 of us, all family (including Scarlett, yes, she came for N's birthday!!!). The invitation card read 11.30-3.30 and till 12 not a single person turned up. And N started getting cranky.. this party was getting nowhere near what I thought it would be.

Finally at 12.15, some two people walked in. And then I got a message from my friend saying she is delayed. Phewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And people started pouring in. Finally. In fact, they kept coming. And I tried to circulate as much as I could but I don't think I spent more than 5 mins with anyone. N was also in a good mood, snatching gifts and envelopes from everyone!! She was pointing at everyones plate and saying mumum (that's what she calls food).

People came in even at 3!! Can you imagine that. We had ordered a 5kg fresh fruit cake - kiwi, oranges, apples, green grapes, red grapes, guava, strawberry, passion fruit etc. It got over in a jiffy. I, at least, got 2 teaspoons, A got none.

Finally the party ended with 98 people having attended (our estimate was superb!) the lunch.

A and I were stumbling, fumbling along the entire planning thing. We have never created invites.. he made one for the first time. We thought we will keep the decorations simple. Simple got equated to nothing by the decorator.. 30 bunches of balloons in a huge space was equal to nothing. And then the board telling people it is N's party!! We were just all over the place with the arrangements.

The cake too didn't have any child appropriate decoration. We ordered an "adult" fresh fruit cake.

I was also confused about return gifts, does one give it or not? What is the protocol? I finally decided against it. And the minute I did that, dad came in saying kids expect a return gift. Of course I took Scarlett for the jaunt!! The entire time we were at the kiddie store, we were oohing and ahhing over kid stuff that none of us never had.  There were these mickey mouse pencils and fruit shaped erasers and bubble blowers and what not... And we picked up some random return gifts. Did I tell you how expensive everything was turning out to be!!!

ps: if you were at the party, please to ignore the above!! 

In any case, finally the much awaited party happened. We gave only half the return gifts. A forgot to give it to his colleagues' children. N got a lot of gifts and was sitting happily among balloons and wrapping paper and cardboard and enjoying herself. All in all, an eventful day, sunshiney, happy day.

The next day we were invited to a birthday party that was at a place called claytopia. Kids could paint and adults could order  from the menu. So cool!! Why didn't we think of it?

Next year, a small birthday party please.