Raditha’s Photos

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.

Nothing unusual about paper boats. Most people don’t even bother to take photos of them. But these boats are different, they are on my green roof. Earth and leaves clogging up the water flow resulted in this roof garden getting flooded and the kids wanted to float their boats on it. The next day there was a heavier shower and the water made it’s way into the house and went all the way to the ground floor through the staircase.

Adams peak, the most prominent of Sri Lankas mountain can be seen from the top of my water tank which is more than 200 Kilometers away by road. It is said that in the past Adam’s Peak could be seen on most days at many different places in Colombo. If you look at the 19th century paintings of Colombo, you will often find that Adam’s peak is shown in the background.

Things have changed. Dust, Smoke and buildings obscure the view.

By the way, those smugdes on the foreground were caused by a flock of egrets who flew past at that very moment.

Parrots love wing beans (popularly known as Dambala in Sri Lanka). I had several wing bean wines on my ‘horizontally challenged garden‘ but they all died due to the combined effects of a papaya mealy bugs infestation and the dry spell we had about two months ago. Since then the Parrots stopped visiting but two surviving Nil Katarolu (Conchflower ? ) plants attract sunbirds

BTW: what kind of Parrot is this? I think it’s a Rose Ringed Parakeet.