June 5th marked the first anniversary of the day we moved into this house This time last year, I thought, I would put up a few photos taken around the house on this blog. Well, you know how one thing leads to another and …..

Hang on a second, I did put up a few photos here and there. You might have seen the vertical garden, the sitting room or even most recently the flooded roof. In between then and now, the vertical garden grew and became so lush that you couldn’t see the wall behind it. But then it was attacked by Papaya Mealy bugs and most of it disappeared. Now it’s growing back and hopefull will be restored to it’s former glory quite soon. In the meantime the sofa set had to have it’s covers changed thanks to the kids crawling all over it. Now it’s pretty hard to find a wall or a cupboard that doesn’t have a crayon sketch on it. But I will still try to take some photos and finish off the job.

The one pictured here is from the pantry.

This is a photo of the Colombo fort area. An pro will say it isn’t a particularly good one, because the foreground is a wee bit dark and the sky apears to be mostly white. Even so, I value this photo highly because it represented a once in a life time opportunity. It was taken on the day of a national election when the city center was deserted.

This was at a time when Sri Lankan elections were more violent than they are now and people were expecting a curfew in the evening. So the city was even more deserted than usual. Unlike most people, I went out. Took the kid to the Galle Face. On the way back took this photo of the YMBA and the other building which at the time was marked for demolishen but fortunately they didn’t carry it out.

This was also the time of the ceasefire, otherwise it would not possible to take photos in the fort area. So that’s why this is such a rare and valuable photo and that’s why the government of Sri Lanka stole it.

What’s under construction is the construction site in the picture and not this website. Work is being carried out on a house on an property adjoining our house in Battaramulla. By a great coincidence they started work on the same day that we started work on ours. We moved in four months ago after completion, theirs is still under construction. The owners (both husband and wife) happen to be architects and that probably explains the delay

Come in take a seat, take a load off your feet. Welcome to my new house. Well you really can’t call it new anymore, it’s more than three months since we moved in here but this is only the second photo since moving in. The sofa was supplied by our interior decorators Koala (Pvt) Ltd. They matched the colors nicely but the kids crawled all over it and the areas that were once white are now a shade of brown – hence the reason for a night shot.

The first thing that strikes most people visiting our house is the vertical garden. A long time will pass before the orchids are able to spread out to cover that wall completely. By that time the wines would have fully obstructed the view and passers by will not be able to see the flowers when they bloom. Vertical gardens are sometimes known as a green wall. There is no wall where the wines grow so let’s just call it a horizontally challenged garden.

The water tank of the house next door (still under construction).

It’s not a home away from home about a home with in a home. This nest was built by a Scaly Breasted Munia at our new house. The reason that this blog has been neglected in recent times is because it took a little while for us to settle in after moving here on the 5th of June. The Orchid bush in which the nest was built is part of my vertical garden. Note the patches of paint on some of the leaves.

A freshly plastered wall usually needs to be patched up after the first coat of wall filler is applied. The process needs to be repeated when the first coat of paint is applied and what you get is, patches on patches

Pergola’s and freshly chipped off plaster

No doubt the architect who designed this house in Galle and delusions of winning the ugliest house contest