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.

That is a Great Tit peeking out of that flange. The flange and the GI pipe seen here are part of the swing on the lawn of the great western bungalow. The swing might have been made many years ago from decommissioned hot water or steam pipes from the tea factory. One wonders how many kids would have enjoyed riding on it, my kids just love it. Not just kids, the swing is strong enough to support the weight of adults too.

Occasionally a bird like the one pictured here decides to make a nest inside the hollow tube. This photo was captured during our previous visit in May. On our most recent visit the bird was missing. Either it had given up on the nest (probably gets too hot during warm weather) or the eggs had hatched and the young had flown away

My little daughter Aminthika standing next to the giant chessboard at Club Palm Garden. Earlier the board was setup incorrectly by the hotel staff. I had seen a few people playing on it without even noticing that the setup was all wrong. I corrected the setup and made the first few moves of the Sicilian Defence Najdorf variation on it. Not that any of the staff or guests would recognize it but heck, I got a kick out of it.

Wish it was my front garden but it isn’t.

“The chessboard is composed of an 8×8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the `white` squares) and dark (the `black` squares).
The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.”

That’s from the Fide Rule book. You can’t expect these hotel animators to know what FIDE is let alone the FIDE rules more commonly known as the rules of chess. So they have set the board up incorrecty. But how often have we seen incorrectly setup boards in magazines (not related to chess) and advertisements? I remember seeing a full page ad in the newspapers by a bank sometime ago with the board setup exactly like above.

The adjoining property, the Riverina is also a hotel that belongs to the same group. I have been there once many years ago (15 years to be exact) but I still remember that they have a large chess board as well and that too was incorrectly setup

That’s me and my father. I am the one on the left.

Club Palm Garden in Beruwala is not the same as the Club Palm Bay in Marawila.

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.