Happy New Year 2010

Today is the last day of 2009 in the UK. We will be spending our new year in the car on our way back from sending Tasha off at the airport.

Wishing all our family and friends a very happy new year - may the next decade bring us all closer and may we all achieve our dreams.

Here is a song from Abba - enjoy!

hari berkotak

hari berkotak (boxing day kata omputih) memang sinonim dengan jualan murah. semua orang menunggu nunggu boxing day untuk shopping. yang heran nya, despite economic slowdown or recession, people would keep on shopping. for xmas, people shopped for xmas presents yang bukan nya sikit2 or murah2.. then come boxing day, shopping lagi and bukan sikit2.. so basically, dah jadi their culture - xmas shopping, xmas, queuing for boxing day sale...

this photo was taken from guardian.co.uk, crowd queuing outside Selfridges in London. tapi Sale dia orang ni memang la betul2 Sale, not just 10% or 20% discount or getting rid of old stocks

this morning, just like the previous years' boxing day, we joined the crowd shopping in Next Store at Ikea Retail Park. last year Next opened its door at 5.30am but we normally got there at 6.30 or 7am. this year, they are opened at 7am. kamar & i got there at 7.30am and joined the crowd, queuing for 1 hour before dapat masuk kedai. its all due to health and safety precaution. just like 80% of the shoppers, we spent most on children wear - clothes & shoes/boots. queue nak bayar took another hour and we only got home at 11.30am.

the girls were pleased with what we bought for them and terus pakai skirt/legging set with the new pair of boots... boleh la jadi model NEXT kan??? see how our girls have grown!

selamat hari natal

its xmas day and its white xmas after all, only because there's still snow on the ground. officially, white xmas requires a single flake falling in within 24 hours of 25th december; and..the first fell in Watnall, Notts and Glasgow (source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

we had never spent xmas holidays at home since we moved to the UK.

xmas 2006, i was into my 9th month of pregnancy with aliyah and we went to the cotswolds for a few days, stayed at B&B near Stanton and let aisyah spent an hour hacking with the fellow horse riders while mummy & daddy walked around the small kampong.

we spent our short break driving around the small villages of Stow on The Wold, Bourton on The Water, Chipping Camden and Stratford Upon Avon.

the following year in 2007, we were away on a short break to Kent where we visited Ivy & Richard and drove to Canterbury and stayed the nite in Ashford and travelled for a few days to Bristol, Bath and Stonehenge and had pre xmas lunch with Gill and her children in Avington. we drove home on xmas day, stopped at Ina's house in Langham for xmas dinner.

last year, we spent the whole week between xmas to new year in Cornwall.

this year we decided to stay in. the kids woke up this morning and opened xmas presents given by our close friends. we bought a 5kg turkey from our butcher yesterday for dinner tonite. the turkey fits our oven just nicely.

kamar started roasting the bird with 3 different types of stuffing from 1.30pm and was cooked by 5pm. then he roasted the vege, made the gravy and lastly Aunt Bessie's yorkshire pudding.
our guests - my colleague Sani and his friend came at 6pm, pulled the xmas crackers and ate.. for dessert, i made eton mess followed by cheese & crackers with coffee.
it was all for good fun...
tomorrow - boxing day sale starts... where to??? just like the previous years, we will go to NEXT first thing in the morning (most stores open at 7am for the sale) to shop for the kids clothings and then maybe to Junction 28 designer outlet..

white flakes

when we got back to notts from london, on the way to Lauren's house to send her home, it snowed quite heavily. and the girls were so pleased !! tasha especially was so happy, rezeki dia datang sini dapat merasa playing in the snow.

the mini snow man that tasha and aisyah made..

the morning after.. at our back garden

at the front..

at our front garden, view from our bedroom window

it snowed again on sunday evening, snow has not melt as the temperature is sub zero most days and our neighbourhood still looks white.

girls' day out

on saturday, i took the girls -tasha, aisyah & lauren on the train to londeng (omputih sebut london). aliyah tinggal dengan daddy.. we left at 8.30am, arrived at st pancras station at 10.20am. sepanjang jalan, the green field was white covered with snow.

sejurus sampai, stopped for coffee/hot choc & crepe with nutella filling.

there was a lovely ice scupture at the station and i also love the bronze statue at the 'meeting point'.

ramai betul orang.. rupa2 nya ada incident - the eurostars got stucked in the channel tunnel due to the bad weather. i joined the paparazzi & tv crews yang sibok taking shots of passengers yang baru sampai ke london.

from st pancras, we took the underground to Green Park, walked to Bucks Palace nak gi jumpa Queen. masa tu pulak ada 'changing of the guards', sempat la tengok the guards parading on the main road. nak tengok kat dalam pagar palace tu, tak payah berangan la with the crowd.

then we walked through St James Park,

to Westminster area; tengok Big Ben, the Parliament House and crossed over to the other side to have a closer look at London Eye. it cost a fortune jugak nak naik London Eye ..but we've taken aisyah on it in 2003 when we came for a holiday. naik sekali pun dah cukup lah.

then we took the underground to Tower Hill, jalan2 & took some pix at Tower of London and of course Tower Bridge which most people mistook for London Bridge (is falling down, falling down)

from there, took the underground to Oxford Circus sebab Tasha nak shopping London souveniers for her siblings & close friends; and lastly we walked on Regent Street to Hamley's Toy Store - the highlight of the day. punya la ramai orang kat dalam Hamley's, sempat lah spent 1 hour in there. Aisyah & Lauren each got £20 from mums to spend on whatever they fancy.

xmas deco near Oxford Circus (Regent Street/Oxford Street junction) xmas deco at Carnaby Street, near Hamley's.

i think the girls enjoyed themselves especially at Hamley's.. we took the 6.30pm train and arrived in notts at 8.30pm and it snowed again... (see next post!)

is it going to be a white xmas?

the bookies (bookmakers) are having closer odds that its going to be a white xmas this year. tak tau la betul ke tidak, ni semua kerja Tuhan.. but the met office forecast is correct this time, the arctic north wind brought snow falls across europe and UK yesterday. its quite unusual to get snowfall in december.

the worst hit is the eastern part of the british isle - from the north east of scotland (around aberdeen) all the way down to north east of england (northumberland, yorkshire), not so bad at the east midlands (our region) but its really really bad at east anglia (norwich, cambridge) and of course the south east (kent, sussex). lots of schools down south are closed today, but its the last day of school for the year anyway before 2 weeks xmas/new year holidays.

ice at our door step this morning

things are rather normal over here, except that the temperature has plunged to sub zero. at the time of typing, temp outside is -2 degC but sunny and clear blue sky. hopefully there's no travel disruption tomorrow - i'm taking the girls for a day trip down to london on the train, nak bawak tasha tengok kota london since she's going back to msia in 2 weeks time.

tasha was excited yesterday sebab dapat la jugak merasa snowfall! and our kenit is forever happy when it snows..

more choices...

... for lunch at the office since it was announced that the cafes around campus serve halal chicken dishes/chicken sandwiches with halal certification. so yesterday i had coronation chicken sandwiches, my first meal for the day at 4pm sebab semalam sibok dengan 2nd year students ada 3 hours test from 9-12, then seminar with 1st years at 1-2, 2-3 and 3-4pm. the one hour gap between 12-1pm tu tak sempat nak pergi beli food pun..

today's lunch?? meriah! i got the take away chicken & leek pie served with mustard mashed potatoes & boiled brocolli, green beans and garden peas and ate in my room... yummy!

visa free no more?

sebab nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga....thats how i describe the irresponsible malaysians who are just so selfish and menyusahkan orang lain. if you ask me whats the one thing i hate, it would be 'orang yang menyusahkan orang lain'.

i'm talking about 20,000 malaysians who overstayed in britain who originally came as tourists and hilang entah kemana, passport expired years and years ago, kerja illegally and tak nak balik sebab konon nya life in britain is easy. dah la kerja illegally, tak bayar income tax & national insuarance (which we have to part about 30% off our monthly salary), claim benefit or public fund.. sebab pada dia orang ni, the British Home Office nak impose visa to genuine tourists yang nak datang kesini for holidays. tak ke menyusahkan orang yang lain nama nya tu? the visa fee bukan murah - RM 1,200 for each application, non refundable; kalau visa tak approve duit tak dapat balik... it indirectly affects people like us. ye lah, next time mom comes, kena beli ticket dulu then apply visa. kalau visa tak approve, both visa fee & ticket hangus!!

i dont blame Britain Home Office to impose things like that cos their country especially England is full of illegal immigrants. we would feel the same in msia kalau overpopulated with illegal banglas, indons etc.

apparently it was reported that 500 malaysians were deported in the last 10 months but that doesnt stop non-genuine travellers to sneak in. so, apa malaysian government nak buat? you tell me!

underwater creature

thanks to my friend Jam an avid scuba diver, i got these lovely photos of the new holiday resort at Lembeh Hills, Manado at North Sulawesi. see http://www.lembehhills.com/





and these are the lovely underwater creatures which she (or her friends) captured...

and this is Jam... and her new pet

these were taken when she went diving at Sipadan Island

shark!!!

i love this one most!!