Monsoon in India, 2011

Home...

Our arrival a couple of weeks ago coincided with the monsoon. For privileged people like us,  in terms of a safe  and dry haven, watching the monsoon, getting drenched by choice and viewing the monsoon through the lens of nostalgia and old window bars, cozy on a bedroll, with books by the side and hot food... it is a different reality.

Flowering shrubs  against the blue tarpaulin of the multi-storied construction going on in the neighbourhood. 

Driving through the city which had a laidback feel- a landscape with rock formations, lakes and water bodies  and old trees lining the highway: think of the Old Bombay -Pune Highway.Hyderabad has cut a swathe across its beautiful, fairly undisturbed landscape of pre-historic rock formations over the past decade. Nay, it has decimated the landscape and dressed itself in concrete and glitz, in a mad rush towards being a metropolis. So the drive from the airport through the 'ring-road' evoked mixed feelings.This was a comfortable 'scar' across the old villages, with fields already earmarked for residential plots, ever hungry land sharks catering to the demand for 'investment' from the population. Old water bodies struggling to survive against the encroachments...

Travelling back home from Chennai this week, the flight over the landscape revealed part of that old landscape.

Spring

Cherry Tree at the Japanese Garden, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

This weekend, the National Cherry Blossom Festival is taking place in Washington DC. IT has been a mixed feeling, viewing the cherry blossoms season here. In between the historic events worldwide and the tragedy in Japan, the delicate pink blossoms came and gave way to leaves of different hues! The Kwanzan Cherry blossoms will come later but the other blossoms came beautifully and left a bitter-sweet feeling.

Work commitments and our youngester's acitvities this weekend,  has kept us home, unlike last year. In between the turned-up pace at school, work, we did find time to wander around the conservatory in Lewis Ginter, earlier this month.  Things were not in place yet but we did catch a glimpse of what was to come for the season.

Orchids at the Conservatory

Stormclouds in August...

After thumbing our noses at this type of entertainment for all our lives,

we finally packed our bags....

 and reached here under the gathering storm....

To sample some Butterbeer and goodies.

Summer thunderstorms and Jasmine

For a heartbeat,  one was back  during the Southwest monsoons: the smell of rain and wet earth and trees.

The jasmine bush on our deck from April through July in its second bloom.

Coneflowers and Lilies...

An Hybrid variety of Echinacea but gorgeous gorgeous shade of pink!

Loved them on the weathered blue gray of our deck but it would soon be transplanted.

Had to move them to the shade during the 3 digit temperatures during the last week; the buds were getting burnt!

Portulaca

Portulaca on my weathered old  blue deck.

This has been prolific over the past few weeks in shades of Rani Pink, Golden Yellows, White and shades of all.....

Wild Strawberries...

And who plucked the rest of them....