Planet Kambing

One week

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:51:00 +0000

Inspired by Random Shots, I'm going to attempt to finish a few books this week. In my normal multi-tasking way I have several on the go at any one time.

I'm currently part way through Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, as well as being on the last couple of pages of the Octopussy short story collection by Ian Fleming.

On the computer, I'm at Ch.17, Vol I of Sir Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur. After Vol I there's Vol II to go yet! These are e-books from Project Gutenberg.

Capt Caveman and Cavebaby gave me some books at Christmas, and I am really looking forward to reading the Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. He has early onset Alzheimer's. Who knows if it's going to be his last novel? *sniff*
I have the whole week off so let's see how far I get!

Snow pictures pt 2

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:29:00 +0000

Hello again Grandma! Here are the other photos that Dad took of me in the snow today at the big field.

I'm building a snow fortress King of the castle!
Me on my new sled

Me on my castle again

The whole field was covered in snow and my snow fortress nearly disappeared into the whiteness

Hope you enjoyed my photos!

Snow pictures

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:46:00 +0000

Dear Grandma - here are the photos of me and my Mama in the snow. Hope u like them.

Outside our house

I have made a rut with my foot to show you that the snow is about 6 inches deep

Mama made a snowduck on her car but I think it looks like a chicken or a kambing
A snowy lane
This is at the entrance of our close. I was getting some snow for my snowball.

Grandma, can you see my snowball?

This is me playing the violin at a Christmas fair in Lymm village.

I was there with the Suzuki violin group.

I was concentrating very hard because it was very busy and noisy.

This is on the main road of our village on the way back from Sunday school.

Walking back in the snow

Dad has some more photos with me on my sled. I'll ask Mama to put them up when Dad has downloaded them.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:19:00 +0000

and a very Happy New Year!

Christmas bits & pieces

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:28:00 +0000

The violin busking went very well last Saturday. Then on Sunday the Sunday School pulled off the Nativity without mishap to glorious acclaim from proud/pushy parents :p

The Christmas tree is finally up and we even put up some Christmas lights in the front window (except i as bah humbug cos i thot we shouldn't, in order to save electricity). Never mind, we only switch on the twinkly lights when we are at home, and switch them off when we go out or go to bed.

On the Christmas pressie front, Santa arrived early as (s)he brought a 19" flat screen teevee for upstairs and a 37" one for the living room. The upstairs TV had kaput-ed (literally popped its clogs) about half a year ago and we hadn't replaced it until two weeks ago. Even on the little teevee and without watching any HD channels, it was obvious that the picture quality was soooooo much better than the old thing we had downstairs, which we bought secondhand before Cavebaby was born......... >.<

So now we are properly goggle-eyed at the amazing picture resolution and amount of detail that we have that even watching re-runs of Numbers and SG-1 make them look like entirely new programmes!

Only 9 more days to go!

Join the dots!

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:51:00 +0000

Can you guess what the picture is?

Clue: It's not Optimus Prime...

We three kings of orient are

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:35:00 +0000

Used to learn this on piano when I was (much) younger. Now it's all forgotten.....
Can you remember the words?
Was it something to do with gold and myrhh and frankenstein?
LOL

More Christmas colouring in

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

and also we like kambings!

Things to make and do at Christmas - pt 4

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:26:00 +0000

A pretty ornament to colour in! For those that wish to, you can print this on a card, cut it out and hang it on your Christmas tree! have fun!

Things to make and do at Christmas - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:02:00 +0000

Make your own sheep. Kambings rule OK!

Advent Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:33:00 +0000

Things to make and do at Christmas: Part 2 - Advent Calendar
Have fun colouring in an alphabet a day every day in December until Christmas Day. If you are feeling very diligent, you could cut out windows for each alphabet and open one a day!

Little donkey

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:09:00 +0000

Things to make and do for Christmas - Part 1: Little Donkey

Print onto stiff card, colour, cut out and glue to make your own little donkey. If you are feeling adventurous, you could use a paper tack to join the legs and tail on so that little donkey has articulated limbs!

Cavebaby's homework pt 2

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:43:00 +0000

St George and the Dragon ....though i must say i don't remember it being like that when i read the story as a child

x.x

Down in the west country

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:44:00 +0000

At the holiday village Banana trees in Jungle, Lost Gardens of Heligan
Definitely Ah Beng

Ah Beng & Ah Moi with biomes at Eden Project

Do we like lots of onions?

I think we may go back again at the beginning of next year, specially since we got free annual pass for Eden as well as the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. Pity Cornwall's 6 hours away!

Thank you Aunty Lil!

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:12:00 +0000

I recently turned 10 (yes, my mama is THAT old)...

Amongst the great pressies that I got was a surprise all the way from Ireland, so thank you to Aunty Lilian!

We have just returned from a week's holiday over half term and my mama has not been able to stir her lazybones to put up the photos from Cornwall, and not even the photos of other stuff we did before then!

Get A Move on, Mother! *poke*

One afternoon in Manchester

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:48:00 +0000

High tea at the Midland Hotel and pratting about in the square by the City Hall afterwards...

Perusing the menu: Hmmmmm.... shall we have high tea, or high tea?

Cavebaby she say chomp to you!

The old and decrepit Ah Beng and Ah Lian

The hamsome (i.e. full of ham) Capt Caveman and the gorgeous Cavebaby

for old times' sake

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:06:00 +0000

Wow! fast track to my mates from old school dayz! Tracked down some former friends classmates from ACS thru Blogger and SEMESTI/ Exeter Uni thru Facebook this week. Also re-made contact with a friend in Ozland, and with my cousin. Isn't modern technology amazing in helping us to stay in touch even when we are all-the-way-round-the-world apart?

Me ole friend Yvette is right - no idea what they look like now (some of them I haven't seen for 25 years) but I'll always remember most of them as 16 or yr olds!

And so - a warm welcome from Goatville, Karen Ho, Chuin Loon and SM Ting, and a big wave to Aunty Sophie and Aunty Irene!

One decade on!

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Happy birthday to Cavebaby!

Then....

and now... Many happy returns!

the old luddite gives in to the 21st century

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:34:00 +0000

.....you can find me on Facebook now

should i be sad or happy?

Maize maze

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:37:00 +0000

Just some pics from a maize maze we went to recently near where we live.

You get to wander around amongst the maize (jagung) in which the farmer has created a maze by driving the tractor around madly.

Find the bridge and use it as a vantage point to find the way out. Or just as a vantage point to look at lots more maize plants....... Wave the flag if you are lost.

...otherwise if you are bored of wandering aimlessly around in the maize, you can find the cutouts of cowboys and indians (but you're not allowed to shoot them)

The farm also has pedal cars for big and little monkeys to play/ race
And parents get to pay extra for their little monkeys to play at panning for "precious" gems (i.e. cheap stones imported from the third world)

Yippee kie-yay!

£231,000 for one kambing

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Deveronvale Perfection, a Texel sheep, sold for £231,000, a new world record

Worth it? As ever, answers on a poskad

the answer to the question about the meaning of life :)

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:53:00 +0000

Cavebaby's first curry (chicken korma for beginners)

Verdict: "It's gorgeous!""Thank goodness I got an ear to hold on to.......!"
Spot the winner for the best impression of Ah Lian the tourist
Note to self: What were you thinking!!!

"Thank goodness I got a cheeky monkey to hold on to.......!"

After a trip into a cave that was once at the bottom of the sea and is now on the top of a hill

And that was our day yesterday. Thanks to my sweethearts for making it so wonderful.

Cuddles and muaks! Babe's birthday is next!

Move over, Imelda, here's Cavebaby!

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Was waiting for a roundup of news from the last fortnight or so before posting an update, but couldn't resist this:
It's part way through school hols, and I'd taken a week off work to spend with Capt Caveman and Cavebaby. I'll blog about the other days later..... but today's task was to go to the movies and get a pair of new school shoes for Cavebaby. New school term starts at the beginning of Sept.
So off we trotted to the Trafford Centre which is one of the UK's bigge$t $hopping mall$, and also has a multiscreen cinema, i.e. 2 birds with 1 stone lah. For those of you that really want a bit more action, there's also a LaserQuest and a 9-hole mini golf course.

We watched G Force (Cavebaby being slightly too young for us to sneak her into Transformers 2, HP & the Half Blood Prince, GI Joe and even Inglourious Basterds etc). Quite a good larf - didn't realise guinea pigs could be so much more than some Peruvian roasted *ahem* delicacy. Basically laughed till we cried. Oh yah.... it's been a long time as well since we watched a 3D movie. The wearing of the specs with the weird lens was kinda novel. But just for today.

We spent the rest of the morning going through what felt like a thousand shoe shops trying to get a pair of school shoes for Cavebaby.

Small snag........ a lot of the shops did not have her size as she is at that awkward age where the kiddie shoes are too small and the teenager shoes are too naff.

Large snag........ Cavebaby the fashionista did not like any of the shoes that were in her size. Or else she would pick some really impractical shoes really unsuitable for school wear.

Really, how hard is it to pick a pair of sensible black leather shoes?

To cut a very long and tedious afternoon short, we eventually got her a suitable pair that we all agreed on in the very last shop we went into. And it's the most expensive pair of shoes I have ever bought for school. Really, these retailers really know how to con us poor parents into buying the "very very best" for the spawn of our loins. (To the uninitiated/ kid-free parents/ potential future parents out there, you have been warned - the shoes that have no price tag on quite often have a sting in the tail......)

Come back, Badminton Master, all is forgiven! Remember these? I wore a pair like these pretty much entirely through my primary school days, before graduating to the Fung Keong canvas basketball shoes when I started playing volleyball.And the damned expensive new shoes have now been added to Cavebaby's vast collection of current footwear. Current count lies at 13 pairs, and that's after recycling the two pairs of old school shoes that are too small for her this evening....... by 'eck, that Imelda Marcos, she ain't a patch on my little monkey!

If I turn this, will ais kacang come out???

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Do you think we got our ais kacang? Answers on a poskad!

Keep it in context

noreply@blogger.com (PreciousPearl) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:41:00 +0000

On Sunday our neighbour rang to ask us to go queue up on his behalf to collect a dose of Tamiflu for his young son, who had a high temperature and was feeling really ill. So we duly drove into town and picked up the medicine from the collection centre, which seemed to be as closely guarded as a Kampong Koh gold jewellery retail outlet tra la lala.

On Monday the boy ran down the stairs, ate a healthy breakfast and asked what they were going to play today. Temperature & other symptoms gone. And he had not taken any Tamiflu.

There seems to be a bit of a blather going on about the swine flue pandemic. What's important for me is to keep in mind that most cases of swine flu worldwide have been mild so far and most hospitalizations and deaths have been of persons that also had underlying conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or a weakened immune system (according to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and the UK Helath Protection Agency, at least).

Incidentally, the 1976 swine flu fiasco could teach us all a few lessons.

Also not always commonly known, Tamiflu is not suitable for under-21s due to adverse side effects including hallucinations and psychological disorders.

The infection rate may be high, but the death rate worldwide is only 0.75% (good table shown on the Wiki webpage). Or put another way, so far, there have been fewer than 1500 deaths worldwide from the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Compare that against seasonal influenza, which apparently kills 0.5 million people a year. I won't even make a comparison here against the number of people who die every year from (i) heart disease (ii) lung/ respiratory disease (iii) hunger (iv) automobile accidents.

..... maybe we ought to be more worried about the recent outbreak of pneumonic plague in Qinghai, China!