Eighth Wonder of the World? TAJ MAHAL

They say perhaps this is the most magnificient building and it's architecture at its supreme. It was built by the Mogul Emperor, Shah Jehan, then ruler of India. After the death of his beloved wife and soul mate, Mamtaj, he wanted to show the World his true love and devotion for his departed queen.

With this huge project there was vast expenditure and more than 20 thousands labourers working for days and nights for many years and when it was finally built it had the diamond stone 'Kohinoor' displaying its charm and grace, reflecting on the River Jamuna. This splendid structure was a joy to behold. But many of the workers lost their lives and most of them did not live to see the finished building.

Princess Diana sat near the visitor's bench alone! She went there after splitting from Prince Charles.

Visitors from all over the world specially go to Agra, Delhi to behold and try to understand the meaning of true love. I hope the readers of this blog could one day go there and could spend a memorable holiday.

India is a friendly country and one has to go there to enjoy the scenery.

Mintu

Living in London

I have been asked by my tutor to write a post entitled “Why I like living in London”.

Now that’s a tall order! Do I?

I asked my husband for some advice and all he did was to pretend to strum on a piano and sing “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner “ like the old song, which was not at all helpful as I’m not one!

Perhaps I can turn to Dr. Johnson who said, in a more serious vein, about if one is tired of London then one is tired of life. I’m certainly not the latter but I wonder what the good doctor would have thought of travelling on a bus, standing up with a stick in one hand and heavy shopping in the other while some burly man sat in front of one in comfort.

Anyway I must return to the main theme. I live in a very nice part of London, Bloomsbury, which is convenient for various shopping areas. I am not in favour of the West End having lived there. Knightsbridge and Oxford Street are definitely out in my books. The places I like most are the East End and further west - Ealing. We lived there for a few years and really enjoyed its different atmosphere. I used to enjoy Spittlefield Market before developers took over. To travel further east to Epping Forest, which has a haunted feeling about it, is a must with me.

I wonder how many people get on the D.L.R, get off at Islands Garden and walk to the Tower near by or go down in a lift to the seabed and walk under the Thames to Greenwich and the Cutty Sark! Different? Something to interest one, that’s the main thing, not to be bored.

If one is fit and able to get around there’s always something to do and new places to explore.

That’s why I like living in London!

Budget for growth or survival?

Budget Day was last week. The Chancellor of Exchequer, Mr A Darling, delivered his second Budget statement under very difficult economic circumstances as he had to juggle cutting public expenditure and raising both direct and indirect taxes and has borrowed to balance the book. Both he and Gordon Brown stressed fiscal stimulus to keep the economy running. The economy is in its deepest trouble since the second World War.

For the first time since the 60's we are in a deflationary situation as RPS has gone down to -2. With the co-operation of the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervin King, the Treasury has resorted to quantitative easing.

Let us hope the medicines prescribed by the current Chancellor will work. Let us hope the scandal of expenses claims by our lawmaker MPs are genuine and more transparent. They must give examples of honesty, sincerity and humanity. They must pause for a thought for the millions of underpaid workers, pensioners and people living in genuine hardship who have to live within their limited incomes.

Where there is fairness and genuine distribution of the national cake, the society benefits and we don’t need to create have and have not’s. We need to encourage business people to invest in Britain so that they can be wealth creators. This will support economic growth and could increase employment.

We can not go back to taxing and spending days.

The Isobel Plantation

'Earth has nothing to show more fair'. This quotation from Wordsworth said it all. The Isobel Plantation is a cordoned off area in Richmond Park about 500 metres wide and the same across. I came to the plantation on a coach trip from a ladies club.

When we alighted from the coach what a sight met our eyes. The Rhododendrons were in full bloom. They were tiered, one bush on top of the other like a great wall of vivid colour lining the sides of the path ways. All the colours of the rainbow stretching up to the sky.

The plantation was set in walkways intermingled with little streams of clear water. As you walked along these pathways you felt that God’s hand was in this panorama. That he had used his paint box to create this breath taking scene to magnificent effect. It was too wonderful to be the work of man and too perfect to be other than the hand of God! As you wondered along the pathways this scene assailed your senses.

Your eyes were dazed by the striking beauty of nature in it, vivid, most beautiful. Your ears were overwhelmed with the sweet melody of the little streams as they gambolled over the sparkling stones. You could taste the coolness of the clear water, the freshness of the vegetation so crisp and sharp. The songbirds added beautiful background music to this scene. The whole effect was dazzling as hues of reds, blues, pinks, purples and all the colours of the spectrum bombarded your eyes. You could touch the velvety smoothness of the petals.

I felt the peace and wonder that true beauty brings. I walked around the gardens in awe and silence almost on tiptoe so as not break the spell and spoil the magic. Then it was time to go and I was very reluctance to join the bus for the return home journey.

The spell stayed with me for long time to come, filling me with peace and joy. I used my camera but nothing could recapture the wonder of the real experience of The Isobel Plantation. I felt that I had met with God’s creation in the flesh.

Salutations

Happy Easter to all. A time of year to celebrate, poets greet the cheery blossoms, the magnolias burst into flower and the pigeons are noisy. Camden has attached nesting boxes on the trees in Brunswick square, bringing the country to the city. Proust describes this time of year in a burst of poetic ecstacy as "Winter falling into the arms of spring" Wally

VAN GOGH

Van gogh painting . I am going to publish it for everyone to see.

Thanks for your attention.

Mintu

Holiday in Ireland

When I was a nurse in the Navy just after the war had finished, a friend of mine, also a nurse decided we would have a really good holiday somewhere where there was no rationing and the dreaded food coupons! Eventually we decided on Southen Ireland and set about getting tickets and sorting our leave out. Of course tickets were free which meant we could travel any distance we wished!

When the time came, we caught a train from Plymouth to Fishguard changing at Cardiff on the way. We had a good crossing and disembarked at Rosslare where we spent the night to recover, and to give us energy for travels to come. We got a coach to Cork stopping at various towns on the way including Waterford where we visited the glass factory and eventually arrived at Cork which is a lovely city. I was thrilled to see my surname (no prizes for guessing!) in large letters on a hotel!

After exploring the city the one thing we simply had to do was to go to Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney stone to make us 'full of the blarney' as they say! It is quite a difficult feat to accomplush. You lie on your back near the edge of the castle on the summit, lean over to reach the stone while someone holds your legs to stop you hurling down to your doom! Make sure you have a very good friend with you!!

After that adventure we got another coach to Glengarriff which is right down south and on the coast. We hired a boat and rowed ourselves out to an island called Garnish. which had a beautiful Italian garden on it. In the evening we went to a hop with some nice young men who were staying in the same hotel as us which was fun and useful as they told us places to see which were not on the map.

We got a train to Killarney which was simply lovely. We hired a jaunting car which is really a horse and governess car and drove around the lakes known as"The meetings of the waters"which were quite beautiful.

Our holiday was slowly coming to an end. We felt our last port of call had to be Dublin. So off we went. When we arrived we had difficulty finding a B&B for the two nights we intended to stay as the Dublin horse show was on. Eventually we found one. We sorted ourselves out and started to explore the city.

When we had seen all the main places, including Trinity College, we felt it was time to call it a day and return to the Navy and nursing. We packed all our "goods and chattles" and caught a train to Dun Laoghaire where we got the ship for Holyhead and so ended our adventure!