Bitter Chocolate

Chocolate is an unexplainable pleasure. The way it melts in your mouth, filling the inside of your mouth with luscious pleasure, and leaving that nice and creamy after taste in your mouth. But there is a bitter story behind chocolate. 43% the world's cocoa beans come from the Ivory Coast in Africa. The International Labour Organisation says 12,000 children have been trafficked to the Ivory Coast to work in the cocoa farms under extreme and harsh conditions with no proper food and care, not to mention the constant physical abuse that they suffer.



It is very ironic that something that brings such pleasure to most people in the world, especially in the Western world where you find the most chocolate consumers, is actually derived from the pain and suffering of others in poor countries.

Remember Carmona?

Many many moons ago, I posted an entry about a dying bonsai that I had 'rescued' from work with a picture showing the bonsai looking sad and and in 'ill-health'.

Today I am posting more pictures showing Carmona looking great, on my desk at work and with a little friend next to her.



So I've got two bonsai's at work and one time my colleague thought it was cute and labelled them 'I am little tree' and 'I am BIG tree', as you can see on the sticky note in front of each pot. I love looking at my bonsai's when I'm at work. When my eyes get tired from staring too long at the computer screen, I find it relaxing and extremly calming just looking at them and appreciating their uniqueness and beauty. I must admit I am no bonsai enthusiast who cuts and prunes and shapes. I go as far as giving them water whenever they need them and also leaving my used Chinese tea leaves on the soil, apparently to make them 'grow' better (myth i think more than fact). Other than that, they are pretty free to 'grow' however they like, haha. As long as they don't 'die' on me.

I am thinking of adding more collections to my 'natural' surroundings at work and will keep you posted when I do. Mean time, try a bonsai, you'll never know, you might just enjoy it as much as I do.

Asbo on tomato planting

Reading the news this morning, I was quite amused by this news article. Basically, a retired grandmother who has grown two tomato plants in the entrance foyer of her council flat has been given an Asbo warning (anti-social behaviour) and was given strict orders by the council to remove her plants due to fire satefy precaution (and also someone in the same flat had complained).

You can only shake your head in disbelief and amazement at the kind of news the nanny state in this country has produced.

That prompted me to think about the kinds of 'potential' hazards in Malaysia that only we Malaysians can accept as normal and live with. During durian season, we see all kinds of temporary fruit stalls springing up along the road and even the highway set up from a range of materials including wood, plastic gazebo, curtain, cardboard, zinc or even straight from the boot of a car. You name it and they can do it. Or, how about that temporary mamak stall that is just round the corner from your house which has been there for yonks and it looks like it's going to fall apart anytime? Not to mention the wobbly tables with chairs that have legs that look about to snap if you put too much weight on them?



Living in a foreign country is the best kind of opportunity for one to look back at the relaxed and easy-going attitude that Malaysians in general have.

Sometimes people can be so petty. It's a common disease of humankind, not being able to rejoice in others' achievement and some people go to great lengths just to be a 'killjoy'. Only the other day I found out that in the UK, if you are planning to refurbish your home, or add an extension, or build a garage, you first need to get permission from the council, and then you need to let your entire street know what you are planning to do and if enough people are not happy with it, you don't get to build it. Funny isn't it? I suppose in a way it's to protect the residents in case someone decides to add an extension as big as Buckingham Palace, which would therefore block the road and so would slightly inconvenience the neighbourhood. But how likely is that to happen? And not only that, whatever you are intending to build, it must not cross the line of the front part of your house, in other words, you can only build beside or behind, but not out to the front because all the houses along the same street has the same 'line'. Odd, you think?

Don't get me started on the three different kinds of wheelie bins we have got at home !!

Runner beans

Apart from the beautiful and sunny weather (which means shorts and t-shirts) with long, golden light evenings well into 10pm, another thing to look forward to during the summer time is runner beans. I think we are very fortunate that at the age of 80, Steve's dad still religiously tended his garden back in early Spring and now all his hard work is paying off. This evening, I came home from work at the uni and because I didn't have my evening shift at M&S, I went out to the garden with a basket and started picking runner beans for dinner tonight. Nothing beats the feeling of being able to pick your dinner from your garden. I know it all sounds very cliche, but honestly as I was going round picking all the runner beans that were ready, I had this sense of pride and joy (eventhough I didn't really plant them, hehe)



This picture shows the runner beans still on the vine wrapped round the structure that Steve's dad built with bamboo. There are two of these structures in the garden with runnerbean vines, one put later than the other so that they don't all come up too much at the same time.

While making my way back to the house, I noticed sadly that this year we didn't get any rasberry at all from the bush. I was so looking forward to having loads and loads of rasberries like last year to make jam with but for some mysteriously unknown reason, the rasberry bush grew but did not bear a single fruit.



So as you can see, the bush just looks sad and unhealthy!! It's really puzzling because others have had their rasberry harvest and are continuously doing so and ours is just leaves with no berries.

Anyway I took my 'harvest' of runner beans into the kitchen and I also found a courgette which went into the basket as well, although not to be eaten together.



Before boiling the runner beans they have to be stringed and oddly there was something therapeutic about stringing the runner beans and I just couldn't get enough of stringing them. It took me no time at all and I had the whole basket of runner beans stringed and ready for boiling. Mind you, there weren't much to pick tonight because we normally get a lot more than that.



So there you go, one of the joys of summer, runner beans and they taste absolutely d-d-d-deeelicious !!

My latest obsession...

So last month, Steve rented the movie 'Twilight' because he thought that it was a chic-flick and that I would enjoy watching it (he'd seen it on the plane). Was he right about it or was he RIGHT about it?!!! Not only had I not fallen asleep (as I would with other movies, half an hour into the movie, regardless), after the film had finished, that night, I started reading the first book 'Twilight' and by the next day I was reading on the bus, on the toilet (i know, eeewe), at my lunch break, at my evening break at my second job.... basically I had my nose and face buried in the book whenever I can !! And when I can get away with it at work, I try to sneak a few searches here and there on the Internet on Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart and reading every little petty news article about them !!! I was an adult with a TEENAGE OBSESSION over Twilight and anything to do with Twilight !!!

After I had finished reading the first and second book of the series which belonged to Steve's brother, I wasted no time in going out and getting myself the third and the fourth. Very sadly, I came to the end of the fourth book last week and I remembered when I was reaching the end of the book I was reading everything slowly, word by word, alphabet by alphabet (just picture everything in slow motion), trying to prolong this obsession that I have and to make the ending last longer than it should have been. Inevitably, it came to an end.

However, my obsession did not end there. I started researching the Internet for clips of the songs from the original soundtrack and started learning to play it on my digital piano. When I was given my most beloved digital piano as a Christmas gift last year, I had been meaning to get myself a proper pedal set because the pedal that came with the digital piano wasn't great and it was just a movable sustain floor pedal where you press down with your foot and the most annoying thing is that the pedal keeps moving further and further away as you press on it and before you know it you're stretching your leg painfully just to get to it. Eventually I just got used to it and never got round to getting the set.

So last weekend, pushed by my Twilight obsession, I made my Steve ring all the music stores around the Bournemouth and Poole areas, managed to track down a shop with the pedal set in stock and made him drive me out and got stuck in the usual Saturday shopping jam, just to get the pedal set! And I didn't even flinch or blink when I paid a total of 50pounds on my debit card for my pedal set so that I can play 'Eyes on Fire' properly on my piano !! Imagine that kind of obsession !! Not only that, not only that, I EVEN VIDEO-ED MYSELF PLAYING THE SONG !!!! how sad is that??!!

Oh by the way, am reading Twilight for the second time round...

One of my random travel stories

Doria said she's keen to read about my travel stories so here it is. I remember one particularly interesting one...

Since our flight back to the UK departed from Singapore, we decided to stay one night in Singapore and get a bite-size taster of Singapoean food and lifestyle. So the quickest way to do this we decided was to visit Little India and China town. Not sure if there's such a thing as Malay town but we didn't have time for it anyway because arriving at Singapore at 9am, we managed to have a swim in the hotel pool (Steve insisted), explore Little India, have lunch at Chinatown, have dessert and some rest in a mall near the hotel and visit the Night Safari !! All crammed into one day...

So while we were in Little India, it was nice to see familiar shops selling garlands, accessories, punjabi suits, saris and all sorts. One particular stall that caught my attention was a lady sitting at a desk drawing some henna patterns on a customer's left arm. I was very intrigued and stood there watching. And Steve said to me, 'Why don't you try it?'. And I started getting really excited about it and the next thing I know, I am sat at the desk and the nice lady has started creating patterns on the back of my left arm. Steve even managed to take a short video of it and it looked fascinating how she was drawing the patterns while she's chatting away to nearby friends.

(unfortunately the video refused to load even after the 100th attempt so i've given up for now but i shall try again in future)

And the picture below shows the finished product. Very very nice!!


Of course after that I had to 'protect' my hand and avoid from bumping into people in the crowd in order to 'preserve' the longevity of the henna on my hand. And when it finally dried a few hours later, the top crust came off, leaving behind a light brown/orange henna pattern on my hand which lasted for almost a week and each time I looked at it, it reminded me of my really nice holiday :)

Random thoughts and updates

I figured it's been too long i have not updated my blog so i had to write something.. anything. So i've decided to go with just random, out-of-order happenings to date.

This morning i woke up with a start, thinking that it was Monday and that I was VERY late for work (i know, very sad). I glanced over to my bedside table and was assured to read 'Sunday', 8.53am on the screen of my Blackberry. Phew.

Had a lazy morning lying in bed and reading. Rang my mum and was told the parcel i had sent for Father's Day almost three weeks ago still hasn't arrived. Hmmm perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to include my used mobile phone in the parcel for my mum... maybe an even worse idea to label the parcel 'toy' when clearly, a mobile phone isn't a toy and whoever is going to open it for custom check will realise that too. SIGH never mind... let's hope it will turn up soon.

Was out hanging the laundry this morning and was pleasantly surprise to catch a glimpse of the 6 Red Arrows planes flying past in a formation of a triangle, perhaps rehearsing for the upcoming Bournemouth Airshow. It's a shame the show always takes place at a time I am not able to catch it. It's definitely an exhilarating and exciting experience and Fely can tell you that for sure as she's just been to one not long ago up on Biggins Hill in Greater London.

Have been suffering from a funny form of rash since last Sunday. We were having a bbq last Sunday and steve's dad decided to set up a hammock from a box that has been lying around in the garden for two years. So as soon as it was set up, I laid myself down on the hammock without thinking twice and that night, I started itching on the face and developed swollen lips that lasted till the next day. Since then i've been having an on and off rash that looks like hundreds and thousands of mosquitoes have bit me at the same time. The most bizarre thing is they go away as quickly as they come. Weird.

Can a person truly survive on virtual friendship... ie through fb and not ever meeting physically? I think so. I have been pleasantly surprised many times now on fb, the amount of support and love we all give each other on fb. I know it sounds sad (VERY SAD) when i check on fb and smile at the comments that my friends give me, and feel assured at the support my friends give me, and coo and ooo at the pictures my friends posted. Like Betty and Viola mentioned, they never really got to know the REAL me during the MPIK years (perhaps it's not such a bad thing, beatrice might tell you, haha)... And I used to think, yeahh I should have paid more effort in getting to know more people, people like Betty, Viola, Cherry, and even Ashley coz they are all so sweet (in their own way, of course)... but lately I thought to myself, we are creating deeper and more meaning friendships now, each and everyone of us. And the fact that we have known each other (at any level at all) and know what we are like, makes it so much easier to strengthen that foundation we already had.

However, what makes me sad sometimes is how people who used to be close to us before, now find that they have no time for us even through the convenience of fb or the great Internet simply because they devote their whole being to the newest part of their lives. I guess you can't blame them, but I wouldn't give anything up for I have now on fb, with friends that i never knew i had before :)