Last of summer

On what seems to be the only and last decent warm summer day of August (or the whole of summer), the girls got to eat their snacks in the garden today. The sun shone gloriously, a rare sight in good old England these days. My shorts which had been in hibernation were taken out of storage. I took the girls to the supermarket to do our big weekly shopping and when they were in the car, they complained 'mummy, I'm boiling hot!'. Came home, prepared their tea-time snack and they ate outdoors. I joined them too! Between leisurely flipping through a magazine borrowed from the library (I love this library! There are magazines for loan, unlike the one we used to frequent), I sipped not my kopi but daoni. I had thought that moving here in early August will give us plenty of opportunities to play and eat in our back garden. Unfortunately, this didn't happen. It rained on most days. Well, come to think of it, not a bad thing afterall since the garden is STILL like a jungle. More on that another time. Don't want to spoil my mood on such a nice day.

4 photos, that was all my camera allowed me to capture. It went into coma again after that.

We didn't have internet connection nor cable TV for almost 2 days. I nearly went into a panic mode as I had to email a digi-layout to a customer. Prepared dinner and was about to leave to go to the library to send the file when Adrian told me it's closed by then. I checked and indeed, it closes at 4pm on Saturdays. It was 4.45pm. Luckily the library is open on Sundays so I thought I'll go tomorrow. My brother-in-law came to visit us with his girlfriend in their newly bought car. Why is it that the girls get overly excited and hyperactive whenever there are visitors? This is something I don't understand and it embarrasses me no end. The shrieks, the high octave screams, the climbing all over, I have to keep asking them to 'calm down'. Finally in the evening, the internet and cable service from Virgin Media is restored, over 24hrs more than the time anticipated for the service to be back to normal. I hope this will not happen again.

Louisa turns 6

We didn't do anything special other than going to Marks and Spencer to get a cake for her (she requested). The weather wasn't fantastic and it seems like before we even have a proper summer, it's going to be over soon. Adrian went back to Egham so we just stayed home. I asked what would she like to eat and she replied we should eat out to celebrate her birthday 'cos that's what everyone does'. I reminded her that we had dim sum the day before and she said it's not counted since it was lunch and not dinner. I managed to convince her we'd eat-in instead. So she asked for crispy noodles 'sang mien'. I'd never cooked that before but she ate it at restaurants and takeaways. Luckily, it was easy to cook. Adrian had said he'd be coming home late this evening so we didn't wait for him to sing her the birthday song. But he did come home 5min after the girls blew out the candles. As usual, my wonky camera could only manage a few shots. It gave up when I was about to take a picture of the girls and their dad. Sigh!

Profiterole Mousse Cake(In case you are wondering, the blue streaks read 'Louisa's 6')
(Note to Syl: Sorry, brother-in-law has yet to send me the house pics.)

Louisa's party and final farewell

Before I even know it, the party was over. Compared to past parties, this one was so fuss/stress-free and easy. It had to since Louise was in charge of preparing the food, Emma bought all the decorations and I got ready the party bags. As it is the Bank Holiday weekend (Monday's a holiday), alot of their classmates are away on holiday and hence couldn't attend the party. Altogether, there were 18 guests (including our own children). Due to getting the house ready for the handover, I was left with little time to put together the cake. But still, I had lots of fun arranging the flowers and writing the wordings on the cake. Adrian drove Louise and some stuff over to the party venue and came back telling me she had a small cake. I didn't think much of it until I put the cake between the other two. Like Adrian had said, ours was too 夸张. I felt a little embarrassed if I may be honest. My rationale behind this cake - 1) I'd always created something special for the girls' parties so since I bought the cake off the shelf this time, I thought of decorating it to make it unique; 2) the head of the bear is for the guests to bring home while the body's for the adults and lastly, 3) to simply have the head looks a bit boring, dull and small so I thought of adding another cake as the body and 4 cupcakes as the paws. Then I thought, hmm, too brown and since it's an animal/jungle theme, I'll put some leaves and flowers around the cake to tie in with the theme. So I went to the market this morning and bought a mixed bouquet (a bargain at less than £3).

It was good that we mummies didn't have to come up with games to entertain the kids. They just played on the giant bouncy obstacle castle (it was enormous and I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the whole thing, duh!). But I wonder if they got bored towards the end because Louisa and one of her friends sure did (so was Lavigne)! Unlike last year, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend played basketball instead of playing games with the children. We mummies chatted and took pictures. What a change! I've not been taking pictures for quite sometime and today's photos turn out pretty bad.

After an hour of running, dashing and bouncing, the guests were taken to another hall for food cum cake cutting session. While we divide up the cakes to be packed inside the goodie bags, the children went outside to play with bubbles. Poor Thomas had a bottle of bubble solution poured over his head. Louise tried in vain to use a napkin to clean his hair but it got lathered up instead. It was hilarious!

Thomas' monkey cake

Robert's castle cake

Louisa's teddy bear cake

(Can you believe Robert(L) has just turned 6??)

Then, parents started arriving to pick their children up. Clearing and packing was easy too since there were so many pairs of hands. We soon bade our farewells and returned back to our old house to clear the last bits. The girls kept saying they didn't want to sleep in the old house which we assured them we wouldn't. Emily and Gerald came by with yummy Indian and Chinese takeaways. I have to agree with Gerald that our old and new houses are poles apart. The old one is, well, literally very old and certain things are falling apart. The new one had been refurbished recently so everything's new, nice and clean. It is strange but true that I don't feel good when I'm in the old house. But whenever I step into our new home, my mood is lifted. It is like you feel right in certain houses and not at some others if you know what I mean.

So it's a final goodbye to the old place in Surrey which the girls and I are glad to leave. That house didn't bring us much happiness, on the contrary, plenty of misery. You are right that we are very happy in our new home and may we continue to be.

*More pictures later.

Louisa's 6th birthday party

Her party's in 3 days. I haven't even decided on the cake, or design. It has to be the most 'bochap' party I've ever planned. Well, I shouldn't say 'plan' for there's nothing much to do really. Since it's a joint party with 2 of Louisa's classmates, I'm only in charge of the goodie bags. The mummies had said that due to the distance we have to travel, it doesn't make sense for me to prepare any food. So it's going to be a giant bouncy castle party with supervision from the staff of the organisation. There's no need to plan for games and presents like I used to do. I didn't even make anything for the goodie bags. Everything is bought. Oh, the reason for the joint party was because we were moving house and this classmate (R) of Louisa whom we are pretty close friends with his parents had said they were going to invite Louisa to his party. So Adrian and I asked if they were willing to have a joint party since their birthday is only a week apart. I have to admit it is for convenient sake for we now live far away from her friends and I doubt many people will come for her party if we hold one in our house and I also don't have the time to plan for one. I was actually thinking of inviting 5 of her closest friends for a movie cum lunch do near to where we used to live but one of her friends said 'it's so boring!' (can you imagine?!) when Louisa divulged the plan. So that went out of the window. After R's parents agreed to a joint party, his mum suggested asking T's mum to join in as well for she's just had a premie and was also wondering about T's birthday celebration. That was how Louisa is having a party with 2 other boys. As for her cake, I'm going to buy something off the shelf and decorate it. Quick and fuss-free.

Settling in

It's been over 2 weeks since we moved and a week since we've had the internet connection. However, as you can see, I'm still not blogging much and my post and photos of the move have yet to make it's debut. The man who came to do the installation didn't bring the wireless router so even though my computer is set up, I can't surf the net from it. We can only do so with Adrian's laptop propped on this small Ikea stand which I'd bought for the kitchen. It's not comfortable sitting on the floor and blog. So until the router arrives, there won't be any post on the move yet.

My dad and sis had gone back to Singapore on Sunday night. We now have a proper taste of our life in the new house. Back to normality and reality since my dad had been the one who did the cooking (he also washes everything after cooking before he eats) and my sis did most of the washing up and was the chief disciplinarian mistress (oh the girls listened and obeyed to whatever she said, no chat back whatsoever). My dad had been a great help. He did lots of the DIY in the house, added an extra hanging rail to a wardrobe we inherited from a neighbour, painted the girls' table set among many other things. Too bad the weather was really horrid while they were here (rained almost everyday) and they only stayed a short 2 weeks. Well, at least my dad can watch Olympics now and understand the commentary. I'm sure he'd missed his fishball kway teow.

Something spooky

I've been woken up by Lavigne nearly every night. The reason? She was scared. The other day, she told us in the middle of the night, she saw a 'nice lady'. I asked her how she looked like and what did she say to her. She replied the lady had white hair and neither of them spoke. When we were in her room, she showed me that the lady came out of the bookshelf (a pull-out shelf). I then placed a Mother Mary's plaque and holy water in their room. On another night, she called out to me saying she was frightened. Then last night, she once again woke me up telling me she's scared of the 'little baddie'. To be honest, I am a little disturbed by all these. But I'm glad Louisa wasn't affected. This morning, the phone turned on by its own. I know it wasn't the girls because they were playing in their room. I only realised about the phone when I heard its alarm alerting me it wasn't turned off. Time to ask the priest to come bless the house.

Back in virtual world

It's good to be connected to the internet again but strangely, I didn't miss it much. I thought I wouldn't be able to survive without it but I was wrong. Guess I was too caught up with unpacking and getting the new house in order. More on that later.

We're nicely settled here and I can't say enough how convenient it is to be living in the town centre. My dad and sis have been here for a week too. As I type away, my dad's cooking in the kitchen and we're all famished after a shopping trip at a nearby mall. He's been the chief cook since arriving and I'm certainly not complaining. I'm sure I've gained some weight. Louisa wants to check her email now (yes, Adrian created one for her - *roll eyes*) and dinner will be ready soon. Will blog later about our move.