#places to retire in india

[raelenes]

Retirement residences with care systems | Saket Pranamam 

 Hyderabad's senior living communities are becoming more and more well-liked and provide a variety of senior-friendly services. For more information on the same, Visit our Website.

[disastress-i-guess]

Happy new year!... Again

Bonus Akechi because I forgot the baby I'm sorry

Akechi's yapping under the cut.

The New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner.In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system today, New Year occurs on January 1 (New Year's Day, preceded by New Year's Eve). This was also the first day of the year in the original Julian calendar and the Roman calendar (after 153 BC). Other cultures observe their traditional or religious New Year's Day according to their own customs, typically (though not invariably) because they use a lunar calendar or a lunisolar calendar. Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, Tamil New Year (Puthandu), and the Jewish New Year are among well-known examples. India, Nepal, and other countries also celebrate New Year on dates according to their own calendars that are movable in the Gregorian calendar.

An example of another new year is Chunyipai Losar, the traditional day of offering ( Dzongkha: buelwa phuewi nyim) in Bhutan. It is observed on the 1st day of the last month of the Butanese lunar calendar. This means it usually takes place in January or February in the western calendar.And this year falls on 12th of January. Some people claim that residents of Bhutan made their annual offering of grains to Zhapdrung Ngakwang Namgyel in Punakha on this day. The Trongsa Penlop is said to have led the representatives of eight eastern regions in their offerings, as the Paro Penlop coordinated the people of western Bhutan and the Darkar Ponlop oversaw the people of the south. In this regard, some people place a great significance on this New Year as a marker of Bhutan’s sovereignty and solidarity. However, some scholars contest that no clear evidence of such practice exists. In any case, many feel that before Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal’s unified Bhutan as a state, the local population in some of Bhutan’s valleys celebrated this day as a New Year. As a result, even the government instituted by Zhabdrung in the 17th century, then largely a monastic court, saw this time as an important part of the year. The retirement and appointment of high officials in the government and the monastic body took place mainly during this New Year celebration.This New Year is primarily observed in eastern Bhutan, where it also referred to as Sharchokpé Losar, or New Year of the eastern Bhutanese. However, the observance of this New Year is not limited to eastern Bhutan and today with easy communication facilities, migration of people and intermarriages between various regions of Bhutan, people all over Bhutan observe this New Year. Like other Bhutanese seasonal festivals marking a new season, the Chunyipai Losar falls around the Winter Solstice. It also falls after the agricultural work for one season is completed and before the new harvest cycle begins. Thus, it is a seasonal celebration which is aligned well with the agrarian populace.

At the end of the day this is all inane information that the artist is using to justify the fact that they are posting this drawing 12 days late and as a means to share their culture despite the fact that the artist themselves are very out of touch with thier culture and in fact forgot that it was chunyipi losar until they were reminded by thier family and did little to observe or celebrate the day outside of baking a cake with a concerningly large amount of butter.

[oconist]

I posted a note saying how bad I feel for Esteban but how glad I am he's leaving Alpine (meaning to say that I hope he goes to a good team) and a good friend of mine replied with "yeah I don't like him, bad driver, agreed" and I have no idea how to respond to that... I'm a new F1 fan so no stats ready but I DO know he's not a bad driver but all I can talk about is his background growing up but IDK I need help responding pls?

hi!! same sentiment here, hope he has a contract but glad he left that toxic team.

he's not a bad driver, despite what people say. if u check his stats in feeder series like f3 n gp3 he was a consistent driver that was usually in the podium. if you check his early f1 stats, he had good first full year in force india (points in every race except a retirement and a p12) and was usually close to checo in the standings (if he wasn't being disqualified or had retirements) or his other teammates (last year with 6 retirements vs gasly's 2 and like a 4? 6? point difference)

the year with the biggest position difference is 2020, covid year, in which esteban had not raced in an f1 car for a year against dric who had already a year on the team.

most people think he's a bad driver because of the collisions he has been in, specially with his teammates, but only two of them have been fully his fault (a collision with perez and now in monaco with gasly). the problem is the people he gets in collisions with, and the reason why most people are quick to blame him. drivers that, as usual, blame the other before checking the on-board after the race (which is normal behaviour btw and totally expected, it's weirder if a driver doesn't defend themselves) but ocon never really defends himself, and his biggest/most memorable crashes are with drivers like checo, alonso and verstappen that have big diehard fanbases.

it's true that his style is agressive, but he has also proven he is a team player when needed (defended gasly in australia 2023 after the crash, does follow team orders on the radio, not to mention that he has never talked badly about any team nor teammate he has had and is always cheering the team up on the radio [radio this year after alpine sucked, he was the first to open the radio and cheer the team up, while gasly said the car sucked (true)]). people forget that your teammate is your first rival, but ocon doesn't and unless he is told otherwise, he races them as if they were any other driver. and he normally is on par with his teammate, so of course there are going to be fights between them.

most of the time he does deliver with his overtakes and defense. he is good at managing tyres (record for longest stint in c3 tyres in baku, turkey 2021 where he didn't change tyres, alpine relying on him to manage tyres for all their one pit stop strategies all these years) and good at qualifying.

also, he has never been in a good car, either backmarkers (now and his first half year in f1) or midfield cars and yet he has a win, a 2nd place and a 3rd place. he is consistently in the points if the car allows it, has been praised by prost and is a good test driver and at giving feedback.

i hope the reason why he left alpine is because of the disrespect he has been put through and i really hope that he has a contract for next year. i have never seen a driver been more attacked by his own team (rossi, bruno, otmar) than ocon in the recent years.

[octuscle]

Sustainable changes

Nicolas had just been promoted to Senior Product Manager. But the condition was that he had to take a foreign assignment for two years. He had reckoned with Germany, the USA or maybe Japan. India would also have been okay. But he was supposed to go to Turkmenistan. His employer had just bought a large agricultural cooperative there, which was now to be converted in the direction of ecological and sustainable agriculture. On the one hand, this sounded like a completely unknown field of work. Nicolas had previously worked more in the consumer goods sector. On the other hand, anything that bore the label "sustainable" was naturally a career driver at the moment. So he took a cautiously optimistic approach.

Once Nicolas arrived at his new workplace, the optimism quickly evaporated. He had arrived somewhere in the middle of nowhere. There was no office building, there were only barracks. Mostly not air-conditioned. He had expected to be put up in some hotel. But he had been given a room with a farmer. Toilet in the yard. Bathroom was an outdoor shower served from the cistern. He felt infinitely silly in his outfit.

In the first service meeting, a colleague asked him if they could tweak Nicolas's resume a bit for the presentation to the workers. It might be good for his credibility if they could give him some local roots. Nicolas was tired. The trip had been exhausting. He remembered his parents' Russian gardener. A picture of a man. Former combat swimmer. And of the Turkish cook. So he answered, one may mix in there with pleasure something Russian and Turkish. The main thing was that he was allowed to retire now.

The night had been hell. It smelled like a pigsty in his room. And he could hear the pigs too, as if they were sleeping in bed with him. There was no hot water to shave with. And company policy forbids the use of shower gels containing microplastics without functioning wastewater treatment for environmental reasons. So all he can use is a bar of curd soap. When introduced to the staff, he looks appropriately a bit bedraggled. One of his colleagues asks Nicolas to say something in Russian. He has to think a bit. His grandmother sometimes spoke to him in Russian. But it's enough for a "I'm happy to be here and look forward to working with you. The employees cheer for their new boss.

Before Nicolas takes a shower the next morning, he drives the pigs out of the barn. If he's going to share the roof with them, he might as well make himself useful. His hosts invite him to breakfast. The conversation in Russian is still a bit bumpy. Nikolai hasn't spoken his father's language for years. And his host family, of course, actually speaks Turkmen. But with hands and feet it works. And so it goes on in the office. The team meeting was supposed to take place in English. But the interpreter dropped out. With every hour it gets better. The memory of his father's language comes back.

At breakfast, Nikolai realizes that he understands Turkmen better than he thought. It definitely works out that his hosts ask him in their native language. But he prefers to answer in Russian. Nikolai speaks it again as fluently as he did when he lived with his father in the Sevastopol army barracks. At work, they discuss the tasks for the next few days. Nikolai considers the projects for preventing soil erosion and unused surface water runoff to be urgent. Everyone passionately discusses the possibilities of transforming agriculture to get by without artificial irrigation. But Nikolai realizes that it will be difficult to irrigate only naturally in the desert.

The next morning, Nikolai surprises your host family with a few words of Turkmen. With his fluency in Russian and Turkish as his mother's language, it's not that hard for him to learn the language. On the job, they speak almost only Turkmen anyway. Today, his job is to drive the fields and inspect and document the environmental damage. Nikolai doesn't even need to shower for that. It will be hot anyway. And air conditioning is only for wimps. The point is to save energy wherever possible. In the afternoon, he gets a call from headquarters. They are very pleased with his work on site. It is clear that the project would not make an economic contribution. But the advertising impact is enormous. Whether he is interested in accepting a junior director position at the headquarters in Paris.

Nikolai turns his camera, bares his left breast and says in broken French that his heart beats for his new home. He won't leave until the desert blooms again.

[runawaymarbles]

Would you be comfortable sharing that flow chart you mentioned in the tags about different ways Black and white people start conversations? It seemed really interesting and practical, but of course no worries at all if not! Thanks!

it wasn't about Black vs white conversation starters specifically: it's about making small talk at work without starting off with assumptions or putting them in an awkward position of having to explain something they shouldn't have to. (E.g. I do not outright ask people where they're from, what they do for work, etc.)

Context: I photograph newborns for work.

Example: Grandparents are usually good for at least three minutes of conversation, but you cannot ask about the baby's grandparents, because there's a non-zero chance that they are deceased (worse: recently deceased) or on bad terms with the baby's parents. So instead I'll say something vague like "is everybody very excited about the baby?", which gives the parents the choices of saying something like "Yes, all my friends are texting me for updates" (inference: they do not have close family; I might follow up by asking if many of their friends have children already) or "I didn't tell anybody I was pregnant" (got that once, it was fascinating, we had a good time discussing how she planned to spring it on people) and "Yes, she's the first grandbaby on the dad's side so his parents are thrilled"

The last one unlocks dialogue options like: oh do the grandparents live in town? No, they live in Nevada? I went to Reno as a kind and it blew my tiny mind. Is that where you grew up, or did they move there later?

Then they'll either say "yes that's where I grew up" and I can ask what brought them here (potentially opening such topics as: their jobs, if they say they came here for work; whether they miss sunnier weather, and so forth) or they can say "no, I grew up in Scranton but my parents retired to Vegas" or just "they moved later" and not mention where they grew up, if that's not information they feel like sharing. Then I can ask if their parents are enjoying wherever they've moved to, possibly fall back on some vague and unoffensive personal anecdote about said place, or go on to my next pre-programmed question* without anyone feeling awkward about it.

Some people are happy to tell me about how they grew up in Ethiopia and where their family is living now and how they came to the US to study microbiology and whether or not they like it here and if they'll be getting the baby dual citizenship and so on and so forth: some people do not, and this usually lets me skip around that without sticking my foot in it. (I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't want to say that they're Russian, for example, which makes me sad.)

The TL;DR is that I try to ask vague/open-ended questions that people can narrow down themselves, if they choose to, or make sure that a question is sort of an either/or so that they don't feel like there's a wrong answer. And I try not to assume anything about them whatsoever: sure, 99% of my clients with Indian names and Indian accents are in fact from India, but once in a while they're not. *"Do you guys have any pets? if yes: Do you think your pet knew you were pregnant?" [Most people think their dogs noticed the pregnancy, and some suspect their dog was the first one to notice they were in labor. It's fascinating. Alternately they say "no my cat's an idiot," and I can tell them about the time my aunt's cat stuck his face in a candle twice, and so forth.]

[godinvent]

So I saw this post about how in the books, Dracula is actually an old man and I always imagined Dracula looked like older Christopher Lee, who played him while he was a kid. While looking him up I accidentally discovered that Christopher Lee was the coolest person in the universe and there is a non-zero chance he was actually Dracula in real life

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (May 27th 1922 - June 7th 2015), Sir because he was knighted in 2009 for his charity and his contributions to cinema

So first of all, I saw that he actually knew 8 LANGUAGES (English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian and Greek) and was also a staggering 6 feet 5 inches in height. Born in Belgravia in London, one of the most Dracula sounding places I’ve ever heard of, here’s some insane facts about him

•His father, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, fought in the Boer War and World War 1

•His mother, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan

•Lee's maternal great-grandfather, Jerome Carandini, the Marquis of Sarzano, was an Italian political refugee

•Jerome’s wife was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess), meaning that Lee is also related to famous opera singer Rosina Palmer

•His parents would divorce when he was four and his mother would marry Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, making the author of the James Bond books Lee’s step cousin. Fleming would then offer him two roles as the antagonist in the film adaptations of his books, though he was only able to land the antagonist role in The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s believed his role in the film is significantly better and more complex than his book counterpart, played as “a dark side of Bond”

•His family would move and they lived next door to famous silent film actor Eric Maturin

•One night, before he was even 9 years old, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, THE ASSASSINS OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN, WHOM LEE WOULD GO ON TO PLAY MANY YEARS LATER

•Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.R. James, who is considered one of the best English language ghost story writers in history and who widely influenced modern horror

•He only missed by King’s Scholar by one place by being bad at math, one of the only flaws God gave him

•Due to lack of working opportunities, Lee was sent to the French Riviera and stayed with his sister and her friends while she was on holiday, and on the way there he stopped briefly in Paris with journalist Webb Miller, a friend of his step father. Webb Miller was an American journalist and war correspondent and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the execution of the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, also known as BLUEBEARD. He also helped turn world opinion against British colonial rule of India

•While staying with Miller he witnessed Eugen Weidmann’s execution by guillotine, the last public execution ever performed in France

•Arriving in Menton, Lee stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families

•When World War 2 began, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, and a year later, Lee would join the Home Guard. After his father died, he would join the Royal Air Force and was an intelligence officer and leading aircraft man and would later retire as a flight lieutenant in 1946

•While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted only three days later

•After nearly dying in an assault on Monte Cassino, Lee was able to visit Rome where he met his mother’s cousin Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian Resistance Movement. Nicolò would later go on to be the Italian Ambassador to Britain. Nicolò was actually the one to convince Lee to become an actor in the first place

•Oh yeah Christopher Lee was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects where he was tasked with HELPING TRACK DOWN NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

•Lee’s stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps

•He was actually told he was too tall to be an actor, though that would honestly help him considering one of his first roles was as The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein

•He was cast in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N (1951) as a Spanish captain due to not only his fluency in Spanish but also he knew how to fence!

•Lee’s portrayal of Dracula had a crucial aspect of it which Bela Lugosi’s didn’t have: sexuality, a prime aspect of the original novels.

•While being trapped into playing Dracula under Hammer Film Productions, Lee actually hated the script so much that he would try his best to sneak actual lines from the original novel into the script

•Ironically, he was rejected from playing in The Longest Day because “he didn’t look like a military man”

•Christopher Lee was friends with author Dennis Wheatley, who “was responsible for bringing the occult into him”. He would go on to play in two film adaptations of his novels

•His biggest regret in his career is not taking the role of Sam Loomis from Halloween when offered to him

•Christopher Lee was the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings movies to have actually met J.R.R Tolkien

•When playing Count Dooku, he actually did most of the swordsmanship himself

•Christopher Lee was the second oldest living performer to enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with the song “Jingle Hell” at 91 years old. After media attention, he would get No. 18, and Lee became the oldest person to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 chart

I really am leaving some stuff out here and I may go on

[hussyknee]

Two weeks ago, female wrestler Vinesh Phogat became the first woman from India to make the Olympic finals—and was promptly disqualified for being 100 grams overweight.

On August 9, Vinesh Phogat announced her retirement from the sport of wrestling in a post on X. After the previous day’s incidents, it was a message that many had been expecting.

Vinesh experienced the highest of highs at the Paris Olympics. She defeated an unbeaten Olympic champion wrestler who was considered not just the favourite in her weight division but across every weight division at the quadrennial event. She became the first Indian woman wrestler to reach an Olympic final. However, Vinesh also faced the lowest of lows at the Olympics. No one had ever reached an Olympic final only to be denied the chance to compete because they had failed to make weight on the day of the competition.

Vinesh had taken her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, seeking at least to be awarded a silver medal by virtue of reaching the final. If she had succeeded, she would have set a precedent, but, much to the disappointment of the nation, her appeal was turned down by the sole arbitrator, Annabelle Bennett.

...

Vinesh has always been a fighter. Tragedy has followed her, yet somehow, against the odds, she has emerged victorious.

When she was nine, her father was shot dead by someone in her village, believed to be a mentally disturbed relative, just outside their front door. Her mother, a young widow, refused the custom of marrying her husband’s brother. She battled cancer single-handedly. Through it all, she raised a firebrand daughter, who refused to back down.

Her cousins, who grew up near her home, were the more famous girls of the family. Geeta and Babita were among the first to win gold at the Commonwealth Games. They had a movie made about them — Dangal — which made the ‘Phogat sisters’ iconic in Indian sports.

Vinesh didn’t feature in that movie. The events described in it took place too early in her career. But she wouldn’t be satisfied with being one of the Phogat sisters — she would become ‘The Phogat’ sister.

Talk to any of her peers .— and even some of her rivals in Indian wrestling – and there is, in some cases, grudging, genuine respect. She is considered the most instinctive and natural wrestler India has ever produced in women’s freestyle wrestling.

Her career is as much a highlight reel as anything out of a movie. No one in women’s wrestling compares. No Indian woman wrestler has won three Commonwealth gold medals as she did in 2014, 2018, and 2022. No one has won an Asian Games gold medal as she did in 2018. No one has won two World Championships medals as she did in 2019 and 2022.

The one medal missing from her collection is the Olympic medal — which she fought bitterly for.

...

Vinesh has had terrible luck at the Olympics — the only competition that seems to matter to Indians. In 2016, she was one of the favourites in the Indian team before her knee was bent out of shape in the quarterfinals. In 2020, she was one of the world’s favourites to medal in the women’s 53kg weight class. Then, suddenly, a freak weight cut left her physically and psychologically broken, unable to coordinate her movements on the mat. She lost to a wrestler she had beaten comfortably just a month before. Now, in Paris, another poor weight cut left her at the lowest point of her wrestling career.

Her battles, though, haven’t been restricted to the mat. Perhaps the most significant one Vinesh has fought has been for the safety of young girls in the sport. In pursuing this fight, she took on one of the most powerful men in Indian sports — Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

When her rivals were preparing for the Olympics, Vinesh was fighting on the streets of New Delhi, where she, and few other fellow wrestlers, accused Brij Bhushan, a five-time member of parliament and the long-time president of the Wrestling Federation, of sexual harassment.

The longer she stayed on the streets, the slimmer her chances on the mat became. Yet, she continued to prioritise what she felt was right. In doing so, Vinesh showed the kind of courage almost uniformly lacking in most sportspersons in India. Most of them, as the saying goes, “crawl when asked to bend.” Vinesh’s spine has been ramrod straight. She had the courage to take on the system without caring about the consequences. She displayed it even though it cost her what she loved the most — the chance to wrestle.

Only when her protest was forced off the streets and entered the court did Vinesh finally get a chance to compete.

This article delves into her struggle to rein in her weight as the Olympic timeline unfolded. It's horrifying to read.

TW for fatphobia and people with eating disorders and body dysmorphia: fatphobia:

Even as she had been winning, Vinesh’s nutritionist had been nervously monitoring her food and fluid intake.

She had a celebratory glass of juice in the morning right after she had first made weight – 300 grams. She had another couple of litres of fluid to rehydrate herself before her bout - another 2000 grams of body weight gained. A couple of light snacks throughout the day to keep her energy up meant 700 grams more.

By the time Vinesh was done with her day’s competition, she weighed 52.7 kg.

August 7:

As the hours rolled into the night, it was clear that something had gone very wrong. After weeks of dehydration, the human body, once it gets rehydrated, simply refuses to give up water. Even urination becomes impossible.

Vinesh didn’t sleep all through the night of August 6. She was on the treadmill for six hours and in the sauna for another three. She didn’t consume a bite of food or drink a drop of water. Every few hours, she stood on a weighing scale. The numbers were getting smaller but not fast enough. In desperation, her coaches trimmed the elastic in the bottom of her costume. They thought of chopping her hair and then did it.

But the scale didn’t budge.

The function of weight classes is to prevent outsized mismatches in strength due to body mass and minimize injury. Pathologizing what is clearly water weight to this extent and subjecting athletes to this kind of psychological torture due to minute variables is simply making what is essentially a safety measure into a punitive arbitrary criteria that has huge implications for racialized fatphobia for female athletes and the reinforcement of toxic diet culture across the board. It's misogynistic, unscientific and fucked. This article goes into more detail about Phogat's career-long battle with her weight— a yo-yo of losing too much, and then too little. Indistinguishable from an eating disorder, only one imposed by the standards of international sports.

You will never convince me that a white athlete would have been disqualified in the lightest weight category for a weight less than a bar of soap. The disqualification retroactively places her dead last, which is added cruelty. The refusal to revise this and even award her a joint silver is just adding racist insult to racist injury.

Phogat spoke two days ago about her devastation at being disqualified by racism and fatphobia with a three page post on twitter.

And on top of all of this, because the Indian National Congress political party welcomed her with a road show that outshone the alt-right BJP's own planned welcome, the Hindutvas in her own country have launched a hate campaign against her.

This copy-paste has "disqualified in Rio 2016" trending on twitter. It's doubly cruel and fatphobic because she wasn't disqualified for being overweight, she sustained a knee injury.

After the witch hunt against Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, I'm just so fucking done with the Olympics. The outsize importance of this competition is nothing but an anvil to break entire careers on and offers female athletes of colour on a platter for all the world's vultures.

[sitp-recs]

Recs H/D Career Fair

After an annoying fandom slump I am finally reading again 🎉 I thought this deserved to be celebrated somehow so here are my favorites from Career Fair so far. I’ll be adding fics to this list as I read more, so join me to spread the love for these while they fest is still running! :)

Fic:

🗺️ Connecting Lines, Connecting Crimes (M, 15k) - excellent geographer POC!Harry and a creative mystery full of politics and food porn

Magic is going haywire after ley lines all over the world are mysteriously failing. A cross-border Task Force is set up by the League of Wixen Nations with Expert Cartologist Draco Malfoy and Ley Line Specialist Pansy Parkinson being called in from Britain to work with Magi-Geographers Harry Potter and Parvati Patil in India. But can they get to the root of the issue before it's too late?

👻 if the bees know (T, 19k) - single dad!Draco and ghostbuster!Harry falling in love with Scorp and each other

Scorpius' playground is haunted, Harry specializes in helping ghosts pass on, and Draco just wants his son to be safe.

✍️ A Year In The Life (M, 19k) - 365 fifty-word microfics telling a love story in journal format, impressive and brilliant!

Draco Malfoy's life mightn't be the one he imagined growing up, but that doesn't matter, because Draco enjoys it nevertheless. He works at Flourish and Blotts, enjoys playing for the Islington Imps, his part-time Quidditch team, and spends his Sundays at St Neots, the home of his Mum, 'Dromeda, and Teddy. Best of all is Harry Potter, his beloved boyfriend, with whom Draco enjoys dancing, shagging, and watching Eastenders on Harry's big Muggle television. Life couldn't get any better. Life, however, has a tendency to change whenever you least expect it to.

Art:

👅 Holes (E) - tongues and piercings and hot tattoos coming together mmm

Harry gets up the nerve to get a piercing. And something else, too.

🎨 "H. J. Potter", (2019) oil on canvas, Draco Malfoy (G) - gorgeous intimate romance with artist!Draco

After building quite an illustrious career as a magical portrait artist, Draco Malfoy is commissioned to paint the official portrait for retired Head Auror and current pastry shop owner, Harry Potter, who must come to Draco's studio to sit for his portrait.

💌 Harry Potter Gets a Job (M) - hilarious and sweet with pining!Harry in denial and the Draco & Weasleys love we deserve

Harry returns home from Romania to find Arthur Weasley has a new apprentice, and there's an extra place set for dinner.

[sunnysssol]

[New York, 1746 – First meeting ]

In 1744, King George's War was fought between the British, the British-American forces in the colonies and the Iroquois Confederacy against the French and the Wabanaki Confederacy of New France. Part of the Austrian War of Succession, it was fought mainly in New York and the Massachusetts bay. The battle meant tremendous losses for the colonies, with an estimated loss of 8% of the male population in Massachusetts. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the war in 1748, returning colonial borders back to how they were before the war. Three years later however, the town of Louisbourg was returned to France in exchange for the city of Madras (renamed to Chennai in 1996) in India. This city was captured by the French in September 1746 from the British, thus the "exchange". This angered New Englanders, who provided funding and personnel. The British paid Massachusetts £180,000 (roughly £32,281,486.29 in 2022), which the province then used to retire their currency.

[ Disclaimer : I am not, nor do I claim to be any expert on anything. I am constantly learning, so this post and others like it are subject to retcons and the like. Appropriate warnings will be given as I go. Also, please note that this, whilst based on history, is still a work of fiction. I do not condone nor support generally morally reprehensible things directly mentioned or alluded to on these. ]

1746 was more or less the midpoint of this war (with France launching a major expedition to recapture Louisbourg, the previous figures for Massachusetts losses being from 1745-46, etc.) and so the idea was for Susannah to act as the crown's (and by extension, Arthur's) eyes and ears to the colonies in direct response to the growing unrest. Alfred up until this point had been a loyal and steadfast son and subject, despite his eternal curiosity leading him to consume more and more literature that directly put old beliefs into question. Though he was not initially aware of Susannah's double allegiances, Alfred was aware of the formal, employer-employee arrangement between himself and Susannah. Despite that, his warm personality and similar wavelength of interests allowed him to easily breach the gap between 'acquaintance' and 'friend'. His father was often entire oceans away and this is the first time he met someone whom he could get attached to without fearing their mortality (see: humans Alfred had befriended throughout the years) or any perceived double national interests. The exchange of Louisbourg for Madras had been one of the many events that would plant the idea that his father was not entirely devoted to him in Alfred's mind. His conflicting feelings about the exchange and his place in the empire allowed him to open himself up to befriending Susannah, perhaps thinking that if he behaved well and treated who was essentially a bureaucratic extension of his Lord Father's presence well, perhaps he could earn his favor again.

Susannah on the other hand, was caught off guard by his lack of formality and had even found him to be somewhat "uncultured" in the beginning. The mainland British had mixed feelings about the colonists, but many of them held prejudices and saw them as "uncouth". As Suzie's household had mainly been attendants and tutors brought in from Britain, she shared their beliefs throughout her childhood. But slowly, as Suzie began to spend more time with Alfred, she warmed up to him, happy for the chance to finally be taken seriously instead of waved off for her more intellectual pursuits. Susannah was born in the colonies. But due to her ancestor, Sir Wilfred Knightley, whose affection and counsel she received growing up, her family has and continues to hold deep ties to the crown. Her beliefs and viewpoints were shaped simultaneously by her birthplace and her family's values. Though they were seen as upstarts in Britain, the Knightleys were an esteemed family in the colonies. She interacted with a lot of people from the mainland, a lot of important family friends and other acquaintances, but she'd also spent a lot of time talking to and mingling with colonists, both ranking ones and average, everyday people. To reflect the attitudes of many colonists, Susannah identified as a loyalist up until the middle of the Revolution.

[ commissions open | do not repost ] ocs by sunnysssol

[goetiae]

Leeches were largely popular in the medical field during the Victorian era both in Europe (primarily England and France) and America. The 19th century saw progression of the academic study of leeches as used in medicine that was conducted prior and laid basis for the modern application of anticoagulant in medical practice.

At the time, many famous Englishmen found leeches fascinating: zoologist Arthur Everett Shipley, for instance, wrote papers marveling at the beauty and functionality of a leech. This fascination often grew personal. Lord Thomas Erskine, a lawyer, underwent a successful bloodletting, afterwards taking with him two leeches; later naming them Home and Clina. According to the memoirs of Sir Sam Romilly, Erskine's friend, he took great care of making sure the leeches "knew him".

In France, the obsession with leeches took drastic turns as well. François-Joseph-Victor Broussais, a notable surgeon of Napoleon's army, was known to possess a certain infatuation with leeches.

Leeches were in growingly high demand in the 19th century Europe. France imported leeches in terrific quantities equating up to dozens of millions a year.

Overall, bloodletting for medicinal purposes is not strictly unique to the 19th century Europe. Like many other medical methods, it has its roots in Ancient Egypt and Greece where bloodletting via cutting veins was often practiced by the followers of the method described in the Hippocratic collection of the 5th century BC. The medicinal use of leeches dates back to 1500 BC and is not a recent invention. However, it is only in 1884 that Haycraft learned why leeches are so efficient in bloodletting: their saliva contains an anticoagulant hirudin (hence hirudotherapy). These observations are listed in Haycraft's work, On the Action of a Secretion Obtained from the Medicinal Leech on the Coagulation of the Blood. For this property, leeches are still in high medicinal demand.

During the Victorian era, leeches were used for all kinds of medical treatment: from headaches to hemorrhoids, from fatigue to nymphomania. Sir William Henry, for example, writes that bloodletting is far beyond any other medical treatment in helping many diseases.

Albeit, the effectiveness of such treatment is a matter of much questioning as often leeching only weakened the fragile state of those being treated. Some patients were, unsurprisingly, allergic to the treatment and either suffered reactions to leeches, larger loss of blood than intended, or even died during treatment.

Leeches and bloodletting were studied with much attention: physicians wrote books on the physiology and medical benefits of leech usage, and a very detailed description of leeches was added in the 1880 edition of Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia.

The curiosity for leeches found its way into much earlier publications as well. For example, J. R. Johnson released multiple medical studies on leeches in the very beginning of the 19th century. His A Treatise on the Medicinal Leech (1816) and Further Observations in the Medicinal Leech (1825) dwelled on the precise details of leech usage and preservation.

From Johnson's studies mentioned above, we learn that he worked with cocoons of different sizes which he received from other leech enthusiasts. He recorded that leeches are to be kept in an enclosure with a stream of fresh water coming in and turf placed conveniently so that the leeches could "retire in a shady spot". He also studied leeches' detailed anatomical structure.

Such academic interest centered around leeches in England roots within earlier academic research done by the scientists of the 18th century - for example, an apothecary by the name George Horn who published his An Entirely New Treatise on Leeches: Wherein the Nature, Properties and Use in 1798. Interestingly, even this early into the studying of leeches, he mentions the dangers of infections if leeches were to be attracted by walking bare-legged into a river (as was done in India, according to him). Instead, he promotes the English method of agitating the leech-infested waters until the animals come up to the surface to then be caught by the nets. Overall, prior to Horn's manual not many spoke in favor of leeching: William Buchan in his study from 1769 speaks on leeches as unreliable and inefficient as it's unclear how much blood is taken per use.

Horn describes four species of leech (two of which are found in England) and dwells on their peculiar anatomy:

no eyes but a teeth-filled mouth

lips to catch blood from escaping

lack of a proper stomach

presence of the so-called "bags" across their body that "get saturated when leeches receive nourishment"

Based on the gathered information, one can claim leeches were awakening more and more scientific curiosity among the English apothecaries and physicians even at the end of the 18th century.

The medical treatment of patients with the use of leeches is described by Horn as well, though he tends to recommend additional treatment - usually mixtures of milk and syrup with herbs - to be given to the patient alongside bloodletting. This as well as other studies of the late 18th century certainly became the basis of medicinal usage of leeches in the upcoming 19th century and far into the 1910s.

It is impossible to speak of leech therapy of the early 19th century in England and beyond without mentioning the influence of François-Joseph-Victor Broussais, a surgeon of immense medical fascination with leeches who employed them vastly in his treatment of Napoleon's soldiers. Broussais used around fifty leeches a time per patient and was thus called "the vampire of medicine" for his fascination with bloodletting. He claimed, among other things, that all "fevers" had the precisely same origin: inflammation. Letting out "bad blood" was thus a plausible solution to the issue.

Women wore embroidery in colors inspired by leeches' dim, soft shades. A whole sort of fashion - à la Broussais - was born out of this unusual fascination. The notable traits of this fashion, according to Michel Valentin who wrote a large biography of Broussais, were purple garnitures - embroidery, trimming - and top coats that resembled leeches' colors.

This conclusion was, of course, the result of the "humoral theory", which was widely supported in Europe. Rooting from Greece, it centered around the idea that the human body held inside four types of liquids: two kinds of bile, phlegm, and blood. Each humor was associated with two qualities, either hot or cold, and either wet or dry. Having one of the liquids "in excess" was associated with certain conditions (for blood, it was any that caused redness, for example), hence bloodletting was a naturally sought out practice.

The leeches were placed “inside the nostrils, on the inside of the lower lip, on the chest, and on the side, sometimes by four at a time.” Leeches could access otherwise inaccessible parts of one's body (such as perineum) and were often used for treatment conditions that were believed to be connected to genitalia - for example, "nymphomaniac" states. To apply a leech, one would hold a small leech-containing vessel filled with water to the desired spot, wait until it bites, and then gently remove the container; tubes could be used as well.

A whole industry related to leeches was established in the 19th century: propagating leeches rose to the state level of importance and leech keeping became a popular activity. Leeches were, in fact, nearly hunted to extinction in some European countries in the 19th century, including England. Containing leeches started to become complicated: leeches only needed meals once every six months (and thus were not suitable for frequent use) and required specific conditions of containment. Thus, the mechanical leech quickly became a popular invention. The first prototype of 1817, called bdellomètre, is credited to French doctor Jean-Baptiste Sarlandière.

Transactions of the Pharmaceutical Meetings (1855) notes some statistical numbers regarding the "leech hunt" of the 19th century: in imports alone England received 8 million leeches annually, besides the large numbers collected within the country. The practice of using mechanical leeches (two types for different purposes) is mentioned as "ingenious" and discussed as a great opportunity to keep the natural leech healthy. The book tracks down purchases of various vessels for fresh water used as leech enclosures.

Actual preservation and propagation of leeches are described in various books of the time, though the peak of such publications in England comes around in the 1850s. In 1855, Specification of Nathaniel Johnston: Breeding, Rearing and Carrying Leeches is published. Johnston, whilst in Paris, invented an apparatus for keeping and breeding medicinal leeches: a complicated water vessel to keep leeches at the perfect temperature and humidity for the breeder - the inventor titled these containers hirudinieres. A similar invention was marked by another author in Specification of George Lifford Smartt: Vessels for Preserving Leeches and Fish Alive.

There was a lot of thought and effort put into keeping leeches healthy and vital - either for medicinal purposes or out of personal fascination.

[ghaniblue]

A few Drarry fics and fanart I enjoyed recently.

🛶🏆 Our Objective Remains Unchanged by @citrusses (WIP 6/9, 28k, E)

Harry Potter, returning member of the Oxford University Boat Club, has two goals for the spring of 2005: beat Cambridge, and beat Draco Malfoy. Perhaps not in that order.

@unleashed-fest entries:

🐦🏖 Birds Behaving Badly by @peachpety (fic, 10k, E)

For eight years, Draco has been content living a quiet life of anonymity in Brighton, dodging pesky seagulls and enjoying the ephemeral boys of summer. And if these summer blokes just happen to resemble Harry Potter, it’s a mere coincidence—despite what his friends say.

But when a repeat one-night stand challenges him to face his desires, Draco thinks he’s finally over his years-long crush.

A seagull named Kevin thinks otherwise.

🏚🐾 With Love in Her Luminous Eyes by @starquestingfordrarry (fic, 30k, T)

The Demiguise lived in Grimmauld Place, and she lived all alone.

@hd-fan-fair entries:

🎨🖼 "H. J. Potter", (2019) oil on canvas, Draco Malfoy by @creeeee (digital comic, G)

After building quite an illustrious career as a magical portrait artist, Draco Malfoy is commissioned to paint the official portrait for retired Head Auror and current pastry shop owner, Harry Potter, who must come to Draco's studio to sit for his portrait.

🦋🦆 Close Observation by @pato-roldnart (digital art, G)

Draco has received news of a rare magical creature sighting and has been called in to illustrate the animal and it’s natural habitat/den. Only problem is: he can’t find anyone to pet sit his beloved animals and seeks outsider help by hiring a pet sitter through a wizarding company.

Enter: Harry James Potter, pet sitter extraordinaire and living his best life hanging out with animals all over Britain, enjoying the vast and interesting towns and houses he finds himself in.

Draco, loves his animals so much and asks to have regular contact through letters.

🇮🇳🚯 Connecting Lines, Connecting Crimes by @sleepstxtic (fic, 15k, M)

Magic is going haywire after ley lines all over the world are mysteriously failing. A cross-border Task Force is set up by the League of Wixen Nations with Expert Cartologist Draco Malfoy and Ley Line Specialist Pansy Parkinson being called in from Britain to work with Magi-Geographers Harry Potter and Parvati Patil in India. But can they get to the root of the issue before it's too late?

Featuring: an excessive use of holograms, numerous references to food, and lots and lots (and lots!) of travel.

[scotianostra]

On 16th August 1864 Scottish suffragette, Elsie Inglis, was born at Naini Tal hill station in India.

Elsie Inglis, the second daughter of John Inglis who worked for the East India Company,when her father retired from his job in 1878 the Inglis family returned to Scotland and settled in Edinburgh.

Having studied medicine at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women Inglis subsequently established her own medical college. She qualified as a doctor and secured a teaching appointment at the New Hospital for Women. A keen suffragette Inglis was later to found her own maternity hospital entirely staffed by women.

In 1906 Inglis played a notable role in the establishment of the Scottish Women’s Suffrage Federation. The outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914 brought about a temporary ceasefire where political - including suffragette - issues were concerned, and Inglis promptly suggested the creation of women’s medical units on the Western Front.

The British government reacted to Inglis’s idea coolly however. Nevertheless a similar offer made directly to the French government was warmly received and Inglis travelled to France within three months of the outbreak of war, with the Abbaye de Royaumont hospital, containing some 200 beds, in place by December 1914. This was later followed by a second hospital at Villers Cotterets in 1917.

Inglis was active in arranging for the despatch of women’s units to other fighting areas aside from the Western Front: to Serbia, Salonika, Romania, Malta and Corsica in 1915 and to Russia the following year.

Elsie herself served in Serbia from 1915 until the Serbian government and army withdrew to Corfu ,she had been held prisoner for a period until U.S. diplomatic pressure brought about her release. Thereafter based in Russia she was taken ill and returned to England where she died on 26th November 1917 a day after her arrival in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

[ashleywool]

HTDIO x H*R quotes, part 3

[Context for newbies: How to Dance in Ohio. Homestar Runner. Author is an autistic elder millennial who was in the original Broadway cast of the former, and is a regular degular superfan of the latter. Tumblr is for niche content.]

Jessica: Isn’t that like going to the prom with your dad? Marideth: And we’ve all been there, right gals?

Drew: Drew, did you make the best omelet ever during the commercial break? I sure did.

[answering the phone at Paws & Claws, too nervous to comprehend they’re using the wrong social script] Mel: Ma’am. Please calm down. Your CD tray is not a cupholder. I cannot help you clear your browser cache. No, I’m not in India.

[trying to find new places he might like to eat in Michigan] Drew: Pizza belongs in a triangle.

[after being grounded for crashing his brother’s truck] Tommy: Sitting on the couch is zero amounts of fun when there’s not a TV or hang-glider in front of it.

[asking Reddit for tech advice after content mysteriously disappeared from their phone] Remy: Back up my files? Are you kidding? Is that…a real thing that you have to do? I always thought that was like, y’know, a figure of speech.

[after the interview, re: Rick Jenkins] Ashley: Ugh, I feel like I need a chemical shower after talking to that guy. Do we have an emergency eyewash station?

[coaching Jessica on asking Tommy out] Caroline: We’re on a collision course with sultriness.

Marideth: [vocal stimming] TER-ti-A-ry.

Amy: Mommy’s got a grown-up headache, Drewby. Why don’t you take the boat out for a while?

Jessica: Ooh, my husky head commands a pretty penny. This’ll bring home a few months’ worth of bacon.

Tommy: Now, it is my intention to sit down and play video games for several hours.

[“Reincarnation,” but Mel is high] Ashley: No job, no apartment, no college degree—please God, in my next life, can I be someone other than me? Mel: You gots to look inside yourself. Positate the negative. When life throws pies at you, you make yourself a tall, cool glass of piemonade.

[having an anxiety attack while unable to get in touch with Jessica] Caroline: You can’t be dead! You’re my best friend and concubine! Oh, I should really look up what that word meeeeeans!

[trying to explain his midlife crisis logic to his own therapist] Dr. Amigo: No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. It’s like this: The ransom money becomes the new retirement money. And the retirement money becomes the new college fund. And the college fund…eh, we blow on a really tricked-out van.

[cult-of-the-eye]

What experience I would give as a statement to Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London? Statement fucking begins...

Summer after GCSEs, whole fam picks up and goes to India for 3 weeks

Listen we are hubristic. We literally go from Britain to Turkey to Delhi airport, to a different airport, to Banaras in a taxi, to Siliguri in a sleeper train, to Kalimpong in a car, back to Siliguri in a van, then to Kolkata in a sleeper bus, to Dhakha, Bangladesh by plane, to my grandparents place in Sylhet by car, then back to Dhakha, then back to Delhi, then back to Turkey and then back to Britain.

Tell me we didn't have at least one entity on our side.

None of us got ill. We had a 6 yr old with us. She didn't complain one bit. I'm 100% sure I blacked out for the majority of it. No other explanation than paranormal.

Those sales assistants in shops have to be fucking avatars of the web or something the way they fucking smile and you until you've blinked and you've bought 3 lehengas and she's like very good ma'am

I met my grandma's sister who looks exactly like my grandma, speaks the exact same way, acts the exact same way. It was so uncanny I could've sworn she just was her. Probably very normal explanation (genetics) but we can never be sure.

I made friends with a hand sized spider in a bathroom by singing "Mr spider, please don't kill me" in the tune of Mr sandman to it every day. It disappeared on the last day. (giving spiral)

I got myself an Indian accent. I am not Indian. (Most of my family is from Bangladesh, I was born there) I am not good at accents. I'm not sure how this transpired (could be some elaborate sociolinguistics explanation but I'm gonna go with paranormal)

We went on a massive family day out with cousins to a river near the mountains and we all had a great time until this little menace of a cousin literally got carried away by a current and we were terrified until one of my uncles literally grabbed him by the leg and yanked him out right before he would've gotten completely carried away. I don't think that's pure luck, personally.

My aunts staged an intervention for me about my posture (Not supernatural, Im just salty)

My dad successfully convinced some strangers who sat next to him on the plane that the reason me and my siblings spoke such good English was that we went to an English medium school. When pressed, he came up with the most elaborate story ever. He gave them a random school we went to, told them we were his boss' kids and he was taking us home, bullshitted a company and then when one of them went oh my dad is a higher up in that company, he says oh didn't he retire recently and the guy goes yeah he did! We are completely oblivious of this story, until he leans over and tells us not to call him dad for the rest of the plane journey. If that's not fucking Stranger behaviour then what is.

We get home, exhausted out of our minds and we realise we can't find our fucking front door key. We pile into the back garden and proceed to search through the entirety of our bags, trouser pockets, pockets within bags, we're all on the verge of tears, I'm catatonic, my little sister has picked up a stick and is slowly peeling it, my other sister is the only one actually looking and my dad is staring at the luggage, as if it had grown legs and was doing a little dance right before his eyes. We do find the keys after 20 minutes. We never mention this again. That's fucking paranormal shit right there don't even try to convince me otherwise. Michael the distortion was fucking with us.

Statement ends... (Although that's definitely not even half the shit that happened)

Watch Jonathan "Jarchivist" Sims crumble beneath my experiences. Hes so bamboozled that he forgets to try and discredit me. I bring him a packet of laddoos and some aachar.

[justviwriting]

'Memories of the Attic'

Fandom: Bridgerton Characters: Kate Sharma, Violet Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton, Mrs. Wilson Pairing: Kate/Anthony, past Edmund/Violet Rating: T Words: 4.2k Summary: While searching through the attic at Bridgerton House, Kate discovers a beautiful, long lost painting. A/N: A short story about how that painting of Violet and Edmund from the s3 promo might’ve ended up in the drawing room :)

[you can also read it on AO3]

“Perhaps a few more flowers would be a nice addition,” said Kate with light hesitation in her voice, although she tried to hide it.

She was standing inside the drawing room together with Violet and Mrs Wilson, as they were discussing possible changes to be made to that room – though mostly, it was Violet and Mrs Wilson wondering whether Kate had any interest in making changes to her new home.

Kate felt a bit odd about it. She quite enjoyed her new role as viscountess – taking over such important responsibilities and duties filled her with purpose and pride. And also joy, even if it could be draining at times. But never too draining, and she always had Anthony by her side when she needed a moment of quiet and rest. She had found confidence and comfort within her new role, but when it came to making changes to the Bridgertons’ homes – her homes – she still hesitated a bit.

Violet had already encouraged her back at Aubrey Hall to create a home she would wish to live in. And as they had just arrived in town a week ago, Violet had done the same here, repeatedly reminding Kate that she was viscountess now.

Kate felt grateful for the encouragement and support, and she would very much like to turn this place into her home. Yet she still felt a bit odd at times. She did not wish to change things that Violet or the children had grown too fond of – did not wish to intrude in any way.

Not that anyone had ever made her feel like an intruder. The entire family had welcomed her with open arms and Kate had grown to love them all dearly. But Anthony and her had not even been married for a year yet – everything was still rather new, even when she sometimes felt as if Anthony and her had known each other for an eternity. She might love this family, but she did not yet know them all as well as she wished to.

From what she had learned about Violet, Kate was certain that she was not the kind of women who was looking forward to retiring just yet. Kate did not wish to replace her, neither could she. And Violet was also kind and dutiful – Kate feared that she would not let her know should any of her decisions bother her; that she believed she had to step back, allowing Kate to do as she pleased. But Kate wished to have her by her side, making choices together. And therefore, she was careful, always considering Violet’s approval.

It might be a bit silly, though Kate did not mind it. She had spent so many years taking care of everyone and everything – it was almost relaxing to have someone by her side that she could look to for guidance.

Violet gave her an encouraging smile as she said, “Flowers are always a wonderful idea. I don’t believe that there could ever be enough flowers, and they would certainly make this room appear more homely.”

Kate returned the smile. Flowers were nothing special and she did not have any particular flowers in mind yet, but it was a start.

She took a look around the room then. It was already beautifully decorated and she could not imagine to change anything about it. Although, it still felt like something was missing.

It had been the same back at Aubrey Hall. Everything looked gorgeous and sumptuous, but occasionally it lacked exactly that homely feeling Violet had just mentioned. Kate had not always noticed it, as the family itself made that place feel lively and welcoming. But when she had been on her own, it sometimes felt as if this could have been anyone’s home – it lacked in personality.

Kate still remembered her old home back in India – much smaller, of course, but filled with personal items and gifts and keepsakes. The rooms in her old home might have not always matched that well in colour, but they had looked like someone was actually living within those walls. This room did not, despite its beauty.

It might not be too surprising. Kate had travelled far more in the past year alone than she had in the previous ten or even twenty of her life. If one did not stay at a place for too long, there might not be any reason for attachment of any kind. But Kate still wished for this place to feel more like a proper home.

“Perhaps … we might add some more personal items,” she said then, carefully, not wishing to insult anyone with her words.

Violet raised her brows. “What do you mean?”

“Well …” Kate replied, biting her lip. “This room is beautifully decorated, but … it could belong to anyone. At least at first glance, I could not find anything that told me who was living at this place. Some personal belongings – maybe some Christmas gifts or more recent paintings of the family could present a nice addition.”

Kate was looking back and forth between Violet and Mrs Wilson as they both stared at her curiously, and she was almost afraid that she had said something wrong. But then, a smile appeared on Violet’s lips and she replied saying, “That is a lovely idea. Though I cannot think of anything to add right now. But I believe there might be some nice items stored away in the attic,” she added, turning to Mrs Wilson with a questioning look.

“I’m certain there are, yes,” Mrs Wilson replied.

Violet turned back to Kate with a smile and said, “Perhaps Mrs Wilson might show you to the attic then and you can see if you find something you might like to add.”

Kate gave her a smile and nodded.

She left the room with Mrs Wilson then as they went upstairs towards the attic level, entering a small, dusty room which was barely lit by the sunlight that was trying to creep through the closed curtains.

The room might be small but it had been filled with as much furniture, vases and paintings as it could handle – only leaving a small area of the floor free for them to walk through the miscellaneous collection.

“That’s quite a lot,” Kate muttered, unsure where to start. “Is there a way to get some more light in here?” she asked Mrs Wilson.

“I could open the curtains,” Mrs Wilson replied, stumbling through furniture to reach the small windows. As she opened the curtains, the bright sun immediately illuminated the room, but it barely helped as it only made the amount of dust floating through the air more visible.

Kate sighed, looking around the room. There was a small trunk close to her, catching her attention. Curious what might be in there, she went toward it, knelt down on the dusty floor and opened it.

It was filled with a variety of small items – which, to her surprise, appeared to be children’s toys.

Kate took out a small wooden figure of a soldier on a horse, looking at it closely – the paint was mostly worn off and the poor guy looked like he had been through some stuff.

“How old are these?” Kate asked then, looking back up.

“I do not know, but quite old, I believe,” Mrs Wilson told her. “Some of them had been in this family for decades, given to the next generation of Bridgerton children.”

At her last words, Mrs Wilson gave Kate a meaningful smile and Kate looked back down, knowing very well what she was trying to say with that smile. Everyone was impatiently waiting for Kate to announce that she was expecting. Yet Kate tried to push that thought out of her mind. She would love nothing more than to have a child with Anthony one day, and also for that child to play with this tiny soldier figure. But there was no rush.

She was putting the figure back into the box when suddenly, a small recorder caught her eye. As she picked it up, Mrs Wilson said, “That belonged to Lord Bridgerton.”

Kate stared up at her, surprised. “Truly?”

She could not imagine Anthony playing the recorder, or any kind of musical instrument for that matter. She looked back at the recorder in her hand and at the bottom, she noticed two letters carved into it: A.B.

“Yes,” said Mrs Wilson, clear amusement in her voice. “If I remember correctly, his father had been forced to hide it away here, as his then six-year-old son would not stop running around the house, playing on his little recorder day and night.”

“Are you serious?” Kate stared up at her, a wide smile on her face – both, bewildered and insanely amused at the thought.

Mrs Wilson chuckled. “I was only a housemaid back then, but I still remember how he had come down to the kitchen to give a performance on his recorder for the entire staff.” A laugh escaped Kate’s lips as she stared at Mrs Wilson in amazement. “And impressively, he had managed to not hit a single right note.”

Kate just laughed at that, shaking her head at the thought. Her eyes went back to the recorder in her hand. First, she considered showing it to Anthony later, retelling Mrs Wilson’s tale to him. But then she changed her mind. His birthday was just around the corner, so perhaps she could give it to him as a present then.

With a smirk, she put the recorder aside before digging through the rest of the trunk. However, it was merely filled with old toys – nothing that could be used to decorate the drawing room with.

Kate stood back up again, brushing the dust off of her skirts before she took a look around the room. Leaning against the wall, she noticed a painting – covered with a blanket to protect it from collecting dust. As a painting might be a better addition to the room than a couple children’s toys, Kate went towards it and pulled down the blanket to reveal the picture underneath.

For a moment, Kate just stared at it, her mouth opened in awe – shocked at the beautiful painting she had just accidentally uncovered.

It was Violet’s face that had immediately caught her attention – looking many years younger, a sweet smile on her lips. Next to her was her husband, as kind as he appeared on all the other paintings Kate had seen of him in the past. It was beautiful, with a colourful landscape in the background, making it look rather lively and free. A small smile appeared on Kate’s face. They were sitting quite close to one another, appearing comfortable and peaceful – and very much in love.

“I have not seen this in ages,” Kate heard Mrs Wilson whisper.

“It’s beautiful,” said Kate, still in awe.

“It truly is.”

Kate turned towards her then, asking, “Then why is it hidden away in here?”

“I believe it was Lord Bridgerton who had ordered for the painting to be stored away,” Mrs Wilson replied, her eyes still on the painting. “Though I do not know the reason.”

Kate looked back at the painting. It was exactly the kind of painting that was missing inside the drawing room. But she could also quite well imagine the reason why Anthony had order for it to be put away. It might have simply been too painful for him. And perhaps, it still was.

She had left the painting in the attic then, but it would not leave her mind throughout the rest of the day.

As Kate was later lying in bed next to Anthony, he was telling her all about that speech he would give in parliament soon. Kate had been rather intrigued by it and had also helped him a lot with it those past days – but tonight, she had trouble following his words as her mind was still with the gorgeous painting, hidden away inside the attic.

“I was talking to your mother earlier,” Kate interrupted him then and he raised his brows at the sudden change of topic, looking at her curiously. “We were discussing potential changes to be made to the drawing room.”

Then, she told him how she had gone to the attic with Mrs Wilson and about the painting she had discovered there. His eyes widened at that and Kate could tell that he knew exactly what painting she was talking about.

“It is absolutely beautiful,” she continued then, “and I thought about adding it to the drawing room. But Mrs Wilson has told me that it had apparently been your decision to store it away in the attic.”

“It was, yes,” Anthony replied, looking away.

“Why?” Kate asked, her voice soft as she was examining him curiously. Judging by the harshness on his face, she knew that her intuition had been right and the painting must have caused him pain in the past.

Anthony turned to face her again and his expression softened as he stared at her for a moment in silence. Then, he sighed, pulling her body closer to his.

“One of the most difficult things after my father’s death had been the many paintings of him at Aubrey Hall – a constant reminder of his absence,” he said, gently brushing through her hair. Kate nodded quietly at that, knowing exactly what he meant. There had not been many paintings of her own father, but still more than enough memories haunting her home back then.

“Sometimes,” Anthony continued, “I almost wished I could’ve simply burned them all. It had been unbearable to look at them. But of course, I’ve never touched them – I did not wish to erase him. But it had not just been me who had suffered from it.” He sighed again as Kate listened carefully, wondering where he was going with this. “It remained the same when we travelled to town for the first time after his death – perhaps it was even worse. There were new paintings, hung up in his remembrance. And no matter how much it might’ve pained me, I had known that I could’ve not said anything against it – no one would have understood. So I spent the evening working inside the study, with his new painting staring down on me. Yet I kept working … because I did not dare to sleep. I did not know whether I could bear to spend the night inside the master’s bedroom.” Another sigh left his lips. “I chose to return to my bachelor’s place instead. But on my way outside, I suddenly froze – as I heard a heart-wrenching cry coming from the drawing room. I ran there, terrified something horrible had happened.”

Anthony was staring into the distance now as tears began to well up in his eyes. Gently, Kate put her hand on his chest, softly caressing his skin with her fingers as she hoped it might bring him some comfort.

He took a deep breath before he said, “It was my mother – sitting on the floor, leaning against the table as she cried in agony, staring up at the painting above the fireplace – that painting. She cried and cried, her body trembling, and I … I just stood there – horrified and unable to move.”

He took another deep breath as his eyes found hers again – they were filled with tears and pain, and Kate’s heart grew heavy at the sight. “I didn’t do anything,” he said then, his voice breaking. “I could not bring myself to comfort her … I just could not bear it. I was a coward.”

As the tears began to fall, Kate raised her hand to softly brush them aside. “You are not a coward, Anthony,” she said in a soft whisper, although she could hear her own voice shaking. “There was too much pain for both of you to bear. It was no one’s fault.”

He tried to force himself to a smile then. “I ran away,” he continued plainly. “I went to the servants’ quarters to find her maid, telling her to look after my mother and then … then I just left.” He sighed, but the tears had dried. “I could not sleep, however. Early the next morning, I returned. I ordered for the painting to be removed. I know that my mother must have noticed, but she never said a word about it.”

Kate gave him a small smile. “Perhaps she has also believed for it to have been the right decision.”

“Perhaps,” Anthony replied, returning a more genuine smile. “I’ve not thought about the painting since then. But … if you wish to hang it back in its original place, I believe that to be a nice idea.”

“Not if it causes any pain,” Kate said immediately, carefully brushing along his cheek with her fingertips. “If you’re not ready-“

“No,” he interrupted her, shaking his head. “The painting might have caused pain in the past, but I have learned that ignoring the pain does not help erase it. Pain might even be necessary at times – necessary to move forward. And mother might wish to see it again as well, and everyone else deserves to see it too. Because it truly is beautiful.”

Kate gave him a smile as she nodded. She pushed herself up then, kissing him gently as he wrapped his arms around her. The painting was wonderful and she was glad that they could add it to the drawing room. Perhaps there was a painful memory attached to it, but even painful memories could be beautiful, if the wound had been given enough time to heal.

//

Violet had just returned inside after a short walk when she heard Anthony and Kate’s voices coming from the drawing room.

A small smile appeared on her lips. They had seemingly been enjoying their time in town so far. Violet had wondered whether the draining routine of town might weight down on their marriage – whether Anthony might return to hold habits of working through the night, or whether Kate might grow tired of his absence. Of course, they had only been in town for a week. But those few days had been quite pleasing to witness.

She still remembered how Edmund had often left early in the morning, gone for the entire day; how he had spent the evenings and nights inside his study. And Violet had chosen to join him – to support him in his work, and to comfort him when he needed it; and he, too, had done the same for her.

And it seemed like Anthony and Kate had chosen a similar path – a path of support and care. And it made her feel grateful. She might not be able to predict where their marriage was headed, but this surely was a good start for them to hopefully build a happy, lasting relationship.

Kate was also doing quite well within her role as viscountess. While Violet had always hoped for Anthony to marry someone he loved, she had also very much hoped for a wife that would be able to fulfil all her duties – neither someone too scared to make decisions of her own, nor someone taking over this place in pure selfishness.

Thankfully, Kate seemed to be rather well-balanced. She was strong-minded and took on her responsibilities with confidence and expertise. But she also clearly wanted to be a part of this family. Although Kate appeared rather confident, Violet had noticed the hidden nervousness whenever she bit her lip, looking away for a short second, uncertainty on her face. But Violet did not consider this a fault, but rather a virtue. Humbleness and self-reflectiveness were great qualities for any person, but especially for a viscountess.

She entered the drawing room then. They were both standing in front of the fireplace as she approached them with a smile. But before she could say anything, she suddenly halted in her steps – staring at the painting above the fireplace as shock made her heart stop for a second.

It seemed as if someone had pulled her from reality and thrown her into a different time – a long lost time, way too many years ago. Vertigo clouded her mind as a feeling of melancholia grabbed her heart.

“Where did this come from?” she heard herself ask.

Violet’s eyes were still fixated on the painting, but she noticed Anthony and Kate turning around to face her. As her feet slowly took her forward, she heard Kate say, “I found it in the attic yesterday and I believed it might be a beautiful addition to the room.”

Violet halted in front of the empty fireplace, still staring up at the painting, unable to look away.

“But if you wish for it to be removed again, I can do so immediately.”

Now, Violet’s eyes left the painting as she stared at Kate instead, noticing the unexpected dread in her voice. At that moment, Violet realised that she probably looked horrified. And she did feel shocked and confused – but there was also a weird warmth filling her heart. She did not wish for Kate to believe that she had made a terrible mistake.

Therefore, Violet gave her a smile and softly brushed across Kate’s arm for a second as she said, “Oh no, please don’t. I was simply surprised. I have not seen this in so long…”

Her eyes went back to the painting again as Kate said, “It is very beautiful.”

“Yes, it is,” Violet breathed. “I almost forgot about it.”

“That might’ve been my fault,” said Anthony suddenly and Violet turned towards him, surprised at his words. There was an almost apologetic expression on his face as he added, “I was the one who ordered for it to be stored away. I saw you one night and…“

He trailed off then, looking down on his feet. “I know,” Violet told him softly. “I know, Anthony.”

Anthony looked back up, staring at her surprised, but Violet simply gave him a small smile. Her maid had told her everything back then – how Anthony had seen her break down in the drawing room as a result of the painting, and how he had asked her maid to guide her to her bedroom before removing the painting the next morning.

“It is fine,” she told him gently. “It might have been for the better. I would have never had the courage to do it myself. But now, I am happy that it’s back in its place.”

It was the truth. When her maid had first told her how the painting had been removed upon Anthony’s orders, rage had filled her heart – fearing Anthony had been trying to erase Edmund’s memory. But then she had learned about his reasons and embarrassment had taken over instead. Years later, she had looked back at that time with regret and guilt. But now, she felt peace.

Anthony gave her a smile as Violet’s eyes returned to the painting. Her mind still felt rather hazy and she struggled to think of any more words to say. A moment of silence followed, until Anthony cleared his throat. “Well, perhaps we should leave you alone for a moment.”

Violet just nodded at that, her eyes glued to the old painting as Anthony and Kate quietly left the drawing room, leaving her alone with memories rushing back into her mind.

The day of the painting felt like an eternity ago. Violet almost felt ashamed that she could not remember the exact year anymore. Had it been twenty years already? Possibly.

But while she could not remember the year, she could still picture that day quite clearly – remembering how she was sitting next to Edmund as a soft breeze blew through her hair. She could still smell the damp grass and could feel Edmund’s breath near her ear as he had leaned closer, whispering something hilarious to her, purposely trying to make her laugh as the painter reminded them to remain as still as possible.

They had laughed a lot that day – every reminder to keep still had only resulted in another wave of hysterical laughter from both of them. And it was still visible on their lips and within their eyes – the happiness of a different time filling the empty room of the present.

Her gaze wandered down to his hand next to her. She remembered the painter telling Edmund that – while closeness might make for a good picture – he should perhaps reconsider to not let his hand rest on her thigh. Of course, Edmund had obliged. But his other hand had then secretly moved behind her back, gently stroking along it.

Violet closed her eyes as she imagined his soft fingers brushing along her back. A shiver rushed through her and she opened them again, staring back at the painting.

It was only a memory. The day had passed and would never return. And perhaps that thought still pained her. But after so many years, it was not merely pain she felt inside her heart – there was also fondness and nostalgia and love.

Violet realised that a tear was running down her face. But it did not matter, because there was also a wide smile on it. She felt glad that the painting was back. Because all her children, and grandchildren, deserved to see it. Because all the world deserved to see the love they had once shared.

[windlassrivervalley]

Senior Living Housing in Dehradun: A Vision of Comfort, Care, and Community by Pranav Rastogi

The aging population is a global phenomenon, and India is no exception. With increasing life expectancy, the demand for senior living housing is surging. Traditional family structures are shifting, and seniors often lack the support systems they need. This is where senior living communities step in, offering a supportive environment that promotes independence while providing essential care and assistance.

The Growing Need for Senior Living Housing

With advancements in healthcare and improvements in living standards, people are living longer lives than ever before. As a result, the elderly population is growing, and so is the need for senior living housing. Traditional family structures are also evolving, with nuclear families becoming more common, leaving seniors without adequate support systems. Senior living housing provides a solution by offering a supportive environment where seniors can maintain their independence while receiving the care and assistance they need.

Pranav Rastogi’s Vision: Windlass River Valley — A Community for Seniors

Pranav Rastogi, recognizing the growing demand for senior living housing, envisioned Windlass River Valley as a place where seniors could live comfortably and securely. His vision was to create a community that not only provided high-quality housing but also fostered a sense of belonging and purpose among its residents. With a focus on holistic wellness and personalized care, Windlass River Valley aims to enhance the quality of life for seniors and promote active and healthy aging.

Uttarakhand: The Perfect Setting for Senior Living

Uttarakhand, known as the “Land of Gods” for its breathtaking natural beauty, offers a serene and peaceful environment that is conducive to senior living. The state’s pleasant climate, with mild summers and cool winters, provides a comfortable living environment year-round. Additionally, Uttarakhand boasts excellent healthcare facilities, with state-of-the-art hospitals and medical centers equipped to handle the healthcare needs of seniors.

The Allure of Tranquility: Dehradun’s Serene Surroundings

One of the key attractions of senior living in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, is its tranquil surroundings. Nestled amidst the foothills of the Himalayas, Dehradun offers stunning views of snow-capped mountains, lush green valleys, and meandering rivers. The pristine natural beauty of the region provides a serene and rejuvenating environment where seniors can relax and unwind.

Building a Supportive Community: Fostering Connection and Well-being

Windlass River Valley fosters a strong sense of community among its residents, providing opportunities for social interaction, engagement, and companionship. From community events and recreational activities to shared dining spaces and common areas, residents have ample opportunities to connect with their peers and forge meaningful relationships. This sense of belonging and camaraderie enhances the overall quality of life for seniors and promotes mental and emotional well-being.

Personalized Care: Tailored Support for Every Resident

At Windlass River Valley, personalized care is at the heart of everything we do. Our team of dedicated caregivers is committed to providing individualized care tailored to the unique needs and preferences of each resident. Whether it’s assistance with daily activities, medication management, or specialized healthcare services, residents can rest assured knowing that their needs are being met with compassion and professionalism.

Uttarakhand: An Ideal Choice for Senior Living

With its picturesque landscapes, favorable climate, and excellent healthcare facilities, Uttarakhand emerges as the ideal spot for senior living housing. Pranav Rastogi’s vision for Windlass River Valley reflects a commitment to providing seniors with a nurturing and supportive environment where they can thrive and enjoy a fulfilling retirement. As the demand for senior living housing continues to grow, places like Windlass River Valley offer a beacon of hope for seniors seeking comfort, security, and companionship in their later years.