The furminated Crispin
Isn't the coat shiny!! Crispin has a diet of :-
- Wet food = Natures menu/ Wainwright/ home-cooked food (chicken, veg, rice & potatoes)
- Dry food = James Wellbeloved
- A can of sardine weekly
- Treats (Kong/ Wainwright/ dried pig ears/ dried triple/ carrots)

We just bought the furminator and it works amazingly!! Got alot of fur off Crispin and Sam can't stop not furminating Crispin.

Our house
Got the keys to our house on 10/11/2009, all becomes so real when I was driving to the estate agent to pick up the keys at about 2pm. It's officially winter but I didn't know how to switch on the gas/ radiator and electricity/ light. As we bought 2 reclining armchairs the weekend before and they were due for delivery at 4pm in the new house, I waited in the cold new house with my jacket on all the time (Sam was in meeting, thus unable to help me!!).

We decided to stay in the new place without bed, furniture, etc as Sam's monthly train ticket runs out the following day and my work place is nearer from the new house. We brought duvets, clothing from the old place, so managed to sleep with bare minimum stuff (no TV) for about a week until the movers arrive to pick up our things from old place on 19/11/09.

Had been busy shopping for furniture for the new place. We decided on the Ikea furniture (wardrobes, TV unit, bed frame) and had fixed up the furniture ourselves (That's an achievement!!). So far, we had been buying stuff for the new place (change locks, kitchen bin, etc, still more to buy!!), gone back to old place to tidy up, return the keys for old place on 11/12/09. All so busy, thus the lack of update.

Still to sort out the lowering of kerb for parking,

House hunting progress

After weeks of waiting for the revised mortgage letter (postage strike, mis-communication as to whether it was posted/ processed, etc), the solicitor finally received it yesterday and we had just exchanged (10% deposit given, non-refundable) today!!

Completion date is scheduled for 10 Nov 09, next Tuesday, a week from today.

It's all real now!!

Garden boundary issue

Think the house buying will fall through due to this garden boundary issue.

.......:(

Singapore week in SelfridgesWas informed by Renee previously about the Singapore week in Selfridges and have been looking forward to the event eversince and it's finally arriving!!

Known as the cultural melting pot of Asia, Singapore has a solid reputation as a food lover’s paradise. From exquisite fine dining to exotic hawker fare, the island has no lack of variety to satisfy even the most discerning gourmet.

Tastes of Singapore is a food promotion which will run in-store from 1 October to 7 October in the Foodhall, London Oxford Street to highlight the breadth and depth of grocery products available for use in sweet and savoury cooking from Singapore.

There will be 12 Singaporean brands stocked during this period with cooking demonstrations, food sampling and tastings each day.

The Gallery restaurant will also be offering a Tastes of Singapore Special Menu to coincide with the event from 28 September to 9 October. The promotion is in collaboration with the International Enterprise Singapore, the government agency spearheading the development of Singapore's external economic wing.

We look forward to welcoming you in-store to experience Tastes of Singapore!

Definitely going to London next week.

Walking with dinosaurs
Last Sat we visited O2 Arena for the Walking with dinosaurs tour. Due to engineering works, Jubilee line was not in service, thus we had to take the replacement bus service and took us ages to and from O2 Arena to Stratford Tube station (Central line).
Overall the Walking with Dinosaurs show was good, the texture of the dino and the blinking of the eyes were very real. Sound effect and co-ordination were excellent. However, I was disappointed that the big dino were not walking properly on 4 or 2 legs (there was a log like item in the middle of the big dino to control all the legs movements, although it's painted the same colour as the floor, you can see it very clearly).

Singapore Day in London

Had been looking forward to the Singapore Day in London, all the food...... can't wait...

The event was held yesterday at Hampton Court Palace, took us about 1 & a half hours to drive there. The place was easy to find and well signposted.



The weather forecast wasn't too good and there were dark patches of clouds around, but it stays bright throughout the whole event. The entry of the event was the ERP, however no payment required for this event!!



Map of the event but there wasn't a need for the map cos we can see and smell food!! The event opens at 10.30, we reach the place about 12pm and it was packed with lots of people queuing for food!



First stall I queued was the Hokkien Mee, took me forever to get a plate but it was worth it (so good!). All the food are free, with the stall holders flew in from Singapore, authentic hor. Needless to say, we queued for other food too and dapao some (Curry puff).... The Kwak Chap was very nice too (all the way from Toa Payoh!)




Of course, there's a stage for performance and entertainment. But we too busy with food, so only sat down for abit. Mark Lee and Jack Neo was fantastic at making us laugh.



The desert was serve from 2.30pm onwards and we queue for Pulut Hitam, too full afterwards for anything else. Some of the stalls were closed by this time, finished. Overheard that the Old Chang Kee Curry Puff was closed at 1pm, well it was the shortest queue among all the stall and very easy to re-queue, thus we dapao-ed! The event was scheduled to end at 4.30pm but we left early at 3pm to avoid the rush.

So what did we bring home?

The Goodies bag

Which contains :-
- a mat to sit on for the event, very handy!
- a rain cost in case in rains, be prepare!
- a pack of wet tissue (to clean ourselves after eating, how thoughtful)
- a packet of Muruku Dhall cracker, to make you miss tibits in SG
- a paper ball, to make you miss your childhold in SG
- a packet of kuti kuti, to make you miss your childhood in SG
- a puzzle , to pass time if you need to
- an eraser, to??? to make you miss SG as you work?
- a 10% discount coupon from Charles & Keith (valid till 31 Dec 09). What is this any good??
- a booklet on Information on registration of overseas electors (a very good way to distribute info)



Another goodies bag from Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA).
Includes :-
- Singapore tote bag (great for containing our dapao-ed stuffs!)
- A t-shirt (Of course, there's always some mention of SG on the T-shirt and this time, it's a Singapore flag on the back. See below for the 2 front design to choose from)
- a 18-month planner cum recipe book (I think it's too big and bulky for a planner)
- Singapore Swing, 12 familar Singapore songs in this jazz instrumental album. (Had not listen to it yet, but would if I miss home)
- Singapore flag pin (Errr, great for a souvenir).
- Stikfas lion, a toy (I'm too old for this)
- Roar for Singapore, need to punch out the pieces on this postcard to make this cute lion stand proudly on your desk. (Err, doubt I would!)



There's 2 design of T-shirt included in each goodies bag, you can only choose one and the size you want (S, M or L). I got the M and Sam got the L but the size different isn't huge, doubt Sam can fit into the L, guess both T-shirt are mine!!


The left t-shirt says "I want my laksa, teh tarik, nasi lemak, chicken rice, prata. Now."
The right t-shirt says "My heart lies 137km above the equator on a little red dot."

Lastly the items we dapao-ed.
- 17 packet of Yeo's Green Bean Soy Drink. There's free bottled water and Yeo's Green Bean Soy drink at the event and the drinks stalls are more than willing to give you extra. Before we left, the stalls were eager to distribute out the drinks, thus we gladly receive.
- 3 Old Chang Kee curry puff, had them for dinner yesterday night, delicious.
- 5 bottle of Satay Sauce. You need coupons (which is in your goodies bag) to redemn, but again they are more than willing to give out extra, hence we got 5.



According to ChannelNewsAsia, the cost of the event was S$6m!!! About 12,000 people turned up, that's a cost of S500 for each person..........

Snow

I'm glad it only snow after we are back in UK, I love snow!!! The snow on Monday result in major transport disruption, thus I made the wise choice to work from home for Monday & Tuesday. Sam had to get into work on Monday morning but was home earlier to work from home for the rest of the day & Tuesday.

We managed to go out and play with the snow on Monday. The snow was about 4 inches, enough for us to play snowballs and built our pathetic snowman.

A trip to the Ice bar London
Quite an experience to be in an ice bar, the chairs, tables, bar and glasses are all made of ice!! We paid £12.50 each (for Sat before 6pm) for a duration of 40 mins in the Ice Hotel which includes 1 free drink. Purchase of additional drinks cost £6 each.

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Go karting
After long and hard search, we decided on the go-kart place close to us, Kartsport (Caxton).

15 mins for safety video, 15 mins drivings, 15 minutes break, 15 minutes driving. All in all, 30mins of driving for £32. You are given a suit, gloves and helmet to wear for safety but there's no saftey belt!! Sometimes you do get the feeling that you might fly out!!! I drove very poorly on the first 15 mins as I wasn't very daring, but on the last 15 mins, I gave my all and got myself a decent time score (I think).

Great fun but my arms are aching now as I was holding onto the steering wheel for dear life....

Visit to Southend
Late posting of our trip.

We drove to Southend on 25/10/08 for a day trip. Managed to walk the Southend Pier (world's longest pier, 1 and a third mile) to and fro. It's too windy, that's why we have our hoods on to cover our ears from the cold winds. You can have the option of paying and take the train to the pier, but what's the fun then.... plus we really need to walk off those fish and chips we had earlier.

Friday night

Organised a curry dinner at Gandhi in Cambridge as a get together with my colleagues (due to the nature of our work, we don't see each other often) and in celebration of my success in getting the perm job.

Was introduced to Peshwari Nan (seems to contain almonds), love it!!

My colleagues were very kind and bought me a few things to congratulate me on getting the perm job. Presents include :-
- A box of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat (as in the picture above)
- A bottle of champagne
- 1000 point of airmiles

PS : Sam & I had ate half the box of chocolate last weekend. Oh God, I will try to remind myself that I'm on a diet.... Self control.... cannot resist the chocolate....

Tesco Cath Kidston Bag
There's a total of 6 designs and are priced £3.50 each with 50p going to Marie Curie Cancer Care. There are many other wonderful features about this bag including the fact that it is made out of nine recycled 500ml bottle, see Tesco website for more details.

The first 2 design (as above) were launched in Jul 08 (I got them both!) and I just got my hands on the 3rd one (the stripe one), there's horizontal and vertical stripes one and I got them both too!)


Not sure why I need soooooo many bags.... Sam had not said anything so far, perhaps I hide them well...... or did he just 'gave up' on me and my bags....:p

Will make sure I get the reminding 3 designs and I bet there's a design for Christmas.

Perm Job
Finally I have a perm job, will start wef 11/8/08!!

I had been temping with the Company ever since we arrive in Cambridge, over 5 years now. Due to various reason (e.g visa issue, no vacancy), I was not make a perm staff. Ever since the visa issue was sorted out last year and vacancy for the position came up, I had been trying for the Company's assessment centre. However, it turns out that I'm rubbish at interviews and assessment centres, thus didn't manage to get through. Disheartening, I decided to look elsewhere....

Had been to a few interviews elsewhere and sometime in Jul 08, I was persuaded to try for the Company's assessment centre again. Thought I give it a go again.

This time I got through the assessment centre and was offered the position!! At the same time I was also offered a position somewhere. What a dilemma... which one should I go for...

Eventually, I went for the Company's position as the pay and benefits was much better and I love the work I'm already working on.

Finally, it felt like all my efforts paid off.

Fortune cookie
Do you believe in fortune cookie prediction?? Think we have to now....
We went to a Chinese restaurant near our place sometime late last year and Sam had a fortune cookie with this

'Your wish will be granted after a short delay, prosperity will come your way in the month of May'

I remember asking Sam what his wish was and he replied 'to be promoted to Consultant'. We didn't think much about this fortune cookie prediction since but I knew that Sam kept this piece of paper in his wallet. Recently Sam was informed that he's promoted to Consultant wef 1 May 08!!

How true...

Test drive

The air con in our car isn't working and it's boiling hot in UK (abt 27 deg cel). Thinking that the air-con unit is spolit and will cost us alot of money to fix it, we thought of prehap replacing the car with another second hand car. Shortlisted a car (Ford Mondeo) at Peterborough and we drove there on Saturday. The car dealer location was a petrol station turn into a second hand car sales.

The car looks what we expect, looks new and we made a request with the person-in-charge (seems to be only 1 person and we think he's the owner) to have a look inside the car. A moment later, he hand us the keys and left us alone to look at the car and he carry on with vacuuming his office...... Weird, shouldn't he try to sell us the car?? Or is vacuuming his office too impt... or prehaps he thinks that we wouldn't buy the car, so what's the point???

Anyway, we were satisfy with the car after inspection and process to ask him for part-exchange for our old car and to test drive his car. Because the MOT of our old car is running out soon and the air-con doesn't work, he only quoted us £200 for our old car!!! The annual road tax for the car is new which cost us £185 and is only 10 days old.......... deduct the road tax, our old car value = £15!!! OMG!!

We didn't bargain the price yet, thought we test drive the car first. However the owner wasn't keen for us to test drive cos he want us to decide on the part-exchange price first and that test driving his car will dirty the car.......What???? Nevertheless, we managed to persuade him to let us test drive the car. He drove the car out for us, place the licence plate, etc and with Sam at the driver seat and me near the passenger seat, he said 'ok, it's all yours'...... Errrrrr, he's not coming with us to test drive the car?? He's trusting us not to drive the car away and never come back?? Or is vacuuming his office that impt!!

During the test drive, we realise that the air-con in the car wasn't working too and it seems there's a intermediate problem with the car initially when the air-con is switch on. We were too honest lar and returned the car back to the owner and queried him as to the air-con and the intermediate problem. He mentioned that the air-con just need re-gassing and will be fully re-gased after we bought it and the car comes with 3 months warranty, so no need to worry. As for the intermediate problem, it was working fine when we show him what we meant, so unable to get an answer.

Anyway, we didn't buy the car cos why didn't he re-gas the air-con beforehand and want to wait till we bought it and that intermediate problem, hmmmmm, all too dodgy. Prehaps all along, he knew that he's not going to sell the car, so vacuuming seems to be a better option for him than a wasted time with us.

However, his response made us think that our car might also just need re-gassing in order to fix the air-con. So on Sunday, we drove to Halford for their air-con servicing which cost us £50 and the air-con in the car is fixed!!! Finally!!!

Drove the car today (Monday) to the garage for full service + MOT and received a call later in the afternoon that the brake pad needs changing. All in all, the full cost of change + service+ MOT comes to £311. Ouch.......

Looks like we might need to replace our old car soon as repair cost are on the increase.

Review of Petite Anglaise book
I was really excited when I got the book and can't want to start reading the book. The first few chapters talks about how she started blogging, rather interesting read. However it goes downhill from there and at one point, I was struggling to read it, cos Petite was unfaithful....... I knew she left Mr Frog for someone but it didn't cross my mind she cheated on him. Those few chapters were the killer of the book.

If you can go past those 'killer' chapters, you will be on course to finish reading the book as I realised that she would have still left Mr Frog with/ without the Lover (he was just a catalyst). I do felt that justice was being served when the Lover dump Petite, but at the same time, I did feel sorry for her too.

I do admire Petite for baring it all in writing this book, it can be difficult for her but hey, she's paid for writing the book!!

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a fan of her blog, or you are extremely free.

F1 Night racing Singapore

Initially, I thought it's night racing in Singapore so that it wouldn't be soooo hot and it will look brilliant with the lights, etc. However upon reading the BBC, did I then realise that the reason that sound more likely was so that the time of the race suit the timing of Europe.

Comment by on BBC website by Patrick Head, co-owner Williams team

Will the night race in Singapore be a success?
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a good race. If I was Singapore, I'd be saying, well, we're putting up all this money, why don't we have a Grand Prix at the time that suits us? I'd be rather nose out of joint if I was told the only reason you're having the race on at that time is to suit Europe, or someone else.

Petite Anglaise
Saw Petite Anglaise blog in a magazine (think it was ACCA mag, due her legal case) and was hooked to her blog ever since. Her book is out in UK but I forgot about it when I ordered other books last weekend!!! Errrrrr.... Oh well, I will wait for the paperback to be out then.

Update : Can't wait, bought it last week from Amazon! First edition and hardback!!

Sightseeing

Jess was here for Christmas & New Year and we took her sightseeing in Cambridge, Woburn Safari Park & London.

Cambridge

A shot of the view of Kings College in Cambridge.

Woburn


It's best not to walk in when the animals are looking at you as thought you are their food!!

London

Train ride to London Kings Cross Station


The crowd at Buckingham Palace for the change of guards.


Big Ben


House of Parliament


London Eye


Westminister Abbey


Tower Bridge


At Piccadilly Circus Tube station, waiting for the train.

And of course, the shopping experience in UK (including queuing in the cold for NEXT sale at 5am in Cambridge)!!