Happy Babby boy

The husband was at Bury yesterday for a training session and they had him do one of the 'tell one false and true fact about yourself' exercise and everyone else is supposed to guess which one is true.

His first 'fact' was : I'm from Singapore, I have been here since 2004 where I did my undergraduate degree.

His second fact was : I'm 24 and I have been married for a year and a bit.

I thought he pulled quite a good bluff and without his wedding ring (he doesn't wear it because it became too loose after he lost weight) it's probably quite hard to tell that he's married.

Apparently though.. they all guessed correctly.

They said that he looked really happy and contented when he revealed that he was married.. so they guessed it to be true.

Hmmm...

= )

It makes me really happy to know that he's.. well.... happy..

And to know that other people can actually see and tell that he's happy to be married is priceless.

It makes everything that's already good so much better.

Gary the snail

Some weekends ago we went to Southside for some fishfood and bones for Bronx and there we found

Gary the snail! He's really rather interesting and very brave.. circling the tank again and again.. ignoring the fat goldfishes and gangster minnows.

And here's mummy's boy looking for a pat on his head for being a good boy while she was at work.

Work work work

We always wondered what would happen when we both found permanent work in the City and have to travel in everyday 9 – 5.30.

Well.....

Now we know.. It is hard.

We have to be up by 6.30am to get things done and take Bronx out for a short walk before packing up and leaving the house by 8.

Also, bed time is now 10 with preparing dinner, washing up and preparing tomorrow’s lunch all packed in that little time we have at home.

Fortunately for us, this is all temporary.

The husband has been working from home a bit the past weeks as we’ve got tradesmen coming to deal with the electrics among other things.

The wall in between the living room and kitchen is now down.

The house is literally a building site..

We hope to be done by the end of next month and next week, I’m going back to school!

Teehee!

Oh.. and we have a new addition to the family, but that's a story for another day.

Big giant bone

We went to Staines this afternoon for some chinese buffet and got this from the petshop


He loves it, it is huge, it is £5.99!!! and it was already half gone by dinner time....

The boys have been getting along very well these days. We usually spend about an hour with the rabbits upstairs before nap time and Bronx comes along following them around like a security guard.

He's slowly learning to let go and calm down when the rabbits are around.



Here's the rabbits feeling rather chilled out and contented.. They do look rather fat don't they?

Hmmmmm......

Michael's big erection

At the moment, we are both busy doing works to our house, mainly redecorating and bringing it up to date.

We started in the garden about a month ago, clearing the garden off the spider (they were LARGE and aplenty!) infested plants, shrubs, trees.... basically.. everything.

The previous owner of this house planted really strange, ugly, crawley, thorny plants and they were all stubborn and a pain to remove.

However.. we managed.

Then.... we decided it was time for the rotting old shed to go and also the fence between us and our neighbour also, as it was quite badly damaged by the crawling plants.

Thankfully, we had help from some friends with the fence and the digging.

Taking down the shed took a few hours, but taking down and putting up the fence took a good 3 - 4 days work!


That's Mike celebrating after successfully putting up the new second fence panel. 2 down, 2 more to go!


That's the mess that was our garden......


Here's the fence completed! Hurray!!

We also dug a 6 inch deep hole for the concrete base of our shed.

It took us 2 days to dig, put in the wooden frame, lay the sub-base, waterproof membrane, mix the concrete and level it out.

I did the concrete mix and leveling while the husband was at work last Thursday. It took me almost 5 hours!!!! and I don't think my arms have forgiven me..

It isn't perfect, but for a first timer and working alone, the husband thinks it's pretty good.


We sanded down the fence next to the concrete yesterday and painted it. We also painted over the concrete. This is how it looks like as of now.


Not bad huh?

The garden is still messy, but compared to a month ago, it is quite acceptable. Once the shed is up and the tools are in, we will have a garden again!

Of course there're still lots to do - the other side of the fence needs sanding and painting, the flower beds need to be built and then we will lay the garden with nice green grass, make a pathway to the door and decorate it with a nice homely bench and a fountain???? (the husband says MAYBE) :P

Hehe.. for the moment we are all dancing happy and busy bees!

Hi Pigeon

At 2 years and 10 months L's favourite question has to be 'What's your name?'

The funny thing is that it actually took him a while of asking before he actually understood at all what it means.

Yesterday in the garden there was a particularly tame pigeon looking for worms and berries.. L went right up to it and said, 'Hi Pigeon. What's your name?'

When he got no reply he pressed on and repeatedly asked for the pigeon's name. It was really really cute!

He did give up eventually and went back to his scooter.

Later when the pigeon got in his way he bent down from his scooter and said very politely to it - Mind Pigeon, mind!

Isn't he just adorable?

The missing beansprouts...

Living in London introduces you to a whole new world of gastronomy. Walking down a typical high street, it is unlikely you will find anything less than 5 - 8 different ethnic food shops.

I was just wondering how living in London have changed the way we eat.

In Malaysia with my family, it used to be Chinese day in, day out. A good day eating for me will probably be Wan Tan Mee in the morning, Chicken Rice in the afternoon (if I can manage the portion) and a home cooked Chinese meal for dinner. The most 'un-Chinese' thing we eat at home is probably peanut butter bread, we don't even do cereal.

The husband in Penang was a lot more diverse and he had a lot more choice and budget. His choice breakfast would probably be Roti Canai with curry for breakfast, Duck Rice in the afternoon (he could probably do 2 portions) and a large Thai or Japanese set meal for dinner.

When we started living together, he had problems seperating me from my Chinese food and I had problems making myself try weird odd foreign foodstuff.

These days it is a lot better and we both eat a wide variety of 'world food'.

I was looking through an old photo album and found some of our dinner photos.

This was obviously when I was missing my Ipoh Beansprout Chicken (which is missing the Beansprouts because the husband won't eat them) and decided to just replicate it at home rather than wait my heart out to get it in Ipoh.

See how messy everything is? Just like in the hawkers! Haha..


Here's when we decided to have a Japanese pig out session. We usually only eat sashimi when we go to Billingsgate Market to buy whole salmons. They do very well in the freezer. It is just a big job de-scaling, chopping and slicing.


This is the middle portion of the salmon that will become sashimi.


Another meal we were addicted to cooking for a while (because it is fast, easy and clean!) is toad in a hole. It is basically sausages in yorkshire pudding. It looks pretty when they are fresh from the oven. No these are not burnt, they are meant to be quite brown.


We had them for Christmas together with veges and onion gravy. The chinese roast pork was there because we were feeling naughty.

And here's what I miss MOST from Malaysia. It just does not taste the same over here. They make the noodles like RUBBER BAND! Bleah :P