The sun finally came out, and in more ways than one! I had the nicest weekend in a long time. It started with a series of phone calls on Saturday (which continued into today), from friends I haven't heard from in ages. And for no apparent reason! It was really great hearing their voices and having delightful conversations after such a long gap. Two of the phone calls were from my very close school friends. The two of them are not in touch so it was really strange how they both called me up on the same day, within minutes of each other! The other two calls were from more recent friends, and talking to one of them in particular, really helped me put a few things in perspective. I think I will finally take the leap, I can feel it inside now.

Then on Sunday, I had a sweet little visitor who came over to spend the day with me. My friend's 6-year-old daughter, who has always been very fond of me and hadn't met me in the last few months. So on Friday evening, she asked her mother to dial my number, then spoke to me and invited herself over. It was the cutest thing! She first said she would come on Sunday at 5 pm, for some reason! I asked her to come over earlier and have lunch as well. She was game.

I wanted to make something special but couldn't get out much to shop, thanks to the incessant rain. The only thing I managed to get on Saturday evening was chicken, from a store nearby. So I marinated some drumsticks overnight, for Kentucky style fried chicken, and on Sunday morning I prepared a creamy potato mash and some green peas pulao. The little kid was really excited when she arrived with her mother and saw me frying the chicken. She first gave me three big slabs of chocolate and then jumped up and down, saying that she would eat 5 drumsticks! She did eat well, for a little girl, had 2 whole pieces and quite a bit of the mash (which she kept licking off her tiny fingers) and some pulao. My friend wanted to click pictures of her plate because she had never seen her daughter eat so much!

I was really happy, cooking for kids is always fun and fulfilling. After lunch we watched a DVD and then tried to get her to take a nap but she was too amped up. She jumped up and down, rolled all over the bed and scribbled all over my writing pad and note book. It must have been the 6 pieces of chocolate that she ate after lunch! Then she pretended to be my teacher and gave me words to spell. I wrote down all the wrong spellings so she punished me and asked me why I was so bad. I said sorry, I'm a duffer, and she broke out into a toothy grin. I think she'd caught on by then.

In the evening, of course, she didn't want to leave and kept asking her mother if they could spend the night. She loves staying at my place, and was hoping to have a pyjama party like we had once, sometime last year. Her mother finally dragged her out of here around 7.30 pm, and the house felt so empty after that. Before leaving, she leaped up into my arms and gave me such a lovely hug. When she reached home she made her mother send me a sweet text message, thanking me for the great time and also to say that she had my hair clip with her and she would send it back to me soon!