Dogs to Brighton Dog Beach

The 2 dogs had a ball and so did R & R - Charli was a born swimmer!!! She is such a natural and took to the water confidently.

My FOC Now Lounger

Watching the dog go by....

They interacted well with other dogs on the beach.  It was way too hot for my liking but I managed to get the Now Lounger set up, so I had a small tan waiting for the kids and doggies waddle in knee high waters.

It must have been an exciting as well as exhausting day for the doggies.... they crashed in the car on the way home.

Came home, both had a shampoo bath and blow dry and Charli was so excited, she actually peed on my bed!!! 

Looks like they will be going to the beach again when the weather is kind to both dogs and humans!!!

Christmas 2016

This year, I wanted a Christmas tree that fits into the green garbo bin and my wish came true!

Its always about quantity and variety at our place for Christmas dinner, so this year was no exception.  5 meats, 6 sides and more than 10 varieties of desserts.  Although the meats were reduced by size, as many usual peeps were away overseas this year, so we only had under 20 of us but still, we had heaps of left overs even after doggie bags were flying out the door.

Highlights of this Xmas spread...salmon galettes n my pav was totally demolished.  2 Xmas cakes, one made by CK and she lugged it all the way to OZ for me.  It is so yummz and I have been drip feeding myself on a small slice each day and hopefully it will stretch till the twelfth day of Christmas!!!





Longest running Xmas guest AC - 19th year!!!

Ann reminded me that this year is her 19th year with us for Christmas.  Wow how time flies by us and it is always a pleasure to have her and Chris at Christmas time.

This is also Charli's lst Christmas with the family and she was happy prancing around entertaining us as a reindog!!!

As per usual, everyone had a good time and looking at the spread alone gave them food coma.  Another Christmas done and dusted and 2016 has been good overall.  Let's hope 2017 will be even more exciting for everyone!!!

The glazed Ham



Perfectly roasted turkey in weber!



Xmas is all about family and good food!

Ng family Rep - Sharon

Reindogs!!!

Men at work!!!



AlaSim Pavalova

Salmon Galettes

The Fennemores from UK

The sister I never had and hubby Martyn spent the past two weeks with us.  This lucky couple is just jetting everywhere now in their retirement so this year, they decided to come and visit us again in Ozland.

We did the usual, eat eat and eat almost every meal out and managed to do a few touristy things together.  They have seen most of what Melbourne has to offer some 13 years ago.  They missed out on the helicopter ride last time, so this trip, it was a mission for them to accomplish, so I made it happen for them.  The helicopter tour of the 12 apostles only lasted 20 minutes, but I drove more than 10 hours that day down the GOR and came home inland.  I even scored a speeding fine of $311 plus 3 demerit points on this leg of the trip!!!

CK managed to catch up with some other friends and her uncle as well, so it was a very fruitful trip for the both of them.

Gosh, I miss them so much and wish they were living down the road from me, just like the good old days when we were in the UK.  The Fennemores would come down to Worthing to visit us every fortnight.

I learnt how to make the Sichuan Spicy Smoky Chicken and she learnt how to make my Simmatines.  We both enjoy cooking, so it was fun to be able to spend time together in the kitchen when we were not dashing here and there!!!  It was indeed very nice of them to come and visit and hope they will come again soon. 

CK showing off the Sichuan smoked chicken



The Fennemores!



Along the way on the GOR

CK and her Fennetines!!!  She graduated with flying colours!!!



Ray's BDay/Early Misa Xmas Gathering 2016

Two in one...Ray's Birthday and the Misa's early Xmas celebrations as Chris and Val were going overseas!

As always, there was plenty of food to eat and drink, and the Misa clan is full of noise and fun!!!  Never a dull moment and everyone had a great time when it came to Chris Kringle.  This was different, you have to win your own pressie.  Bounce the table tennis ball into the cups, match the stickers to the prizes on display and you can swap around if you do not like the pressie allocated.

Even the dogs had a ball as there was Flame and Brodie there and the 4 of them played well together.

Ann's Choir

This is the Christmas Special - Hendel's Messiah and we always support AC's performances and you could say we are her raving no: l fans!!!  After the 3 hour performance, we headed for Mexican and it was indeed a lovely evening enjoyed by all of us!!!

Sook Ching's 5 Minutes Catchup

Old school mate hits town and what do we do??? We meet up and eat and catch up on all the gossips over good food.  It was a very short lunch meeting as SC is on a timeframe, so we landed up at Shira Nui and had a yummy lunch.  After lunch I dropped her off at Chadstone to join the madness of Christmas shopping!

That's all the time we had together - 2 hours max and a mini bonding session in the car on the way to Chadstone.

SC is a very busy lady and she is one of the boss ladies of KL's famous "Fatty Crab" restaurant.  She runs this crab institution with her sisters and business is so good that the queue stretches out to the road!!!

Hiro - busy as he was that day, he was not happy but he obliged us with this special cucumber sushi order that is refreshing and I could eat this everyday!!!  Glad to report that SC enjoyed her lunch and so did we.  Until we meet again SC... have a nice rest of the trip up in Brisbane with your children.

Long Lost Friend - YMS

Thanks to social media, my persistence and resourcefulness, I managed to hook up with YMS.  Yessss it was over food again!!!

It has been more than 32 years since I last saw YMS.  Even then on that day, I do not know what happened.  We hardly spoke and then we parted ways.  Eversince, I have always wondered what has become of him???

YMS and some of his friends and my special KL ladies

When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time at the swimming pool.  I cannot seem to recall exactly how, but it must have been my dad.  I guess he wanted me to "perfect my strokes" so he hired YMS as my swimming coach.  My dad always encouraged me in the pool and I know although I am a "Jack of all Trades and Master of none", but I did excel in the water.  Under YMS's coaching and patience, I made it to State level swimming and represented Selangor in my hay days and even held the record for the 200m breaststroke event for Under 18!

My special chool ladies and YMS

The pool days were carefree, even naughty but they were great days.  It was hard work being a teen and waking up at 4am and going for training and then come home and get ready for school at 7.30am.  When school was over at 1.30pm, its straight back to the pool for more training and we just swam our hearts out.  YMS was the best coach ever, he would pace me and together we just swam and swam and swam and I did this day in and day out rain or shine for so many years.  It was a "normal life" - a daily routine but I was very disciplined and took swimming very seriously although mom was not happy about it.  Mom always blamed being in the water for so long everyday was not good for me and contributed to my menstral problems I had when growing up!!!

YMS was also a good springboard diver.  Under his wings, I was good on the l metre board too and was always mucking around and "showing off" as back in the days, girls are not supposed to be good at diving!?!  Well, I was!!!!!

I still have so many fond memories of those times spent training, competitive wise and through inter-school and state meets, I made so many friends but like everyone else, we all grew up and left the pool and gone to further our studies etc and have lost touch except for CFN.  She is the best pool buddy I have and we have always kept in touch whenever possible and when I am in KL, I try to pop by to see her at Central Market.

There is another pool friend, CTT that I would like to find, but so far I have not had much luck tracking her down.  Finding YMS was like finding Nemo except way harder, but I never gave up.

Lesson to be learnt - good things comes to those that believe, better things come to those that are patient and the best things come to those who don't give up!!!  Now I can tick YMS off my bucket search list!!!

All the years and water under the bridge did not seem to hinder our long lost friendship.  We are just picking up from where we left off and getting re-acquainted again.  It has been fun so far catching up on all the happenings and we are filling in all the gaps.  Looks like happy times are here again although we are still a world apart!!

What can I say - but a big thank you very much for technology!!!

Hasnah - my lst island daughter

KL 2016 Shenanigans

Durain craze this trip round, and I was lucky I managed to catch the tail end of the season.  Also SF and EW managed to freeze some for me, so I had a durain party almost everyday when I was there.

Roadside durain eaters!!!

Sitting by the roadside and eating durain is just part of the Malaysian culture!!! Don't be surprised as PR loves durain too and he likes Musang King!!!

Being in KL means eating, eating and more eating!!!  Yessssssss I put on 3.6kg and managed to lose it when I came home, but when the Fennemores arrived, I slabbed it all back on again.

My favourite KL ladies

Musang King - da King of Durains

Andre - one of the youngest eating "kaki"

LAST RV TRIP FOR 2016

We spent the last few days around the Bellarine Peninsula and just plodded around.  MB was on his last legs of his 3 month road trip to the mainland.  I guess by now, he was happy it was coming to an end.  I did not have any particular place I wanted to go, so we just hung around the Bellarine.  One of those days, we went to visit SW as we were around Ocean Grove and it was good catching up with Sing.  He is another carefree soul doing his own thing and was good we decided to take time out to have a coffee and muffin together!!!

Nothing exciting or out of the blues happened.  It was just chilling and winding down for MB so we just sat around and watched the day go by.  We cooked a lot of meals in the RV and MB also had a bad bout of stomach trouble, so one of those days I was even allowed to drive the RV!!! hahaha

I was supposed to follow the RV back to Hobart on Friday 9th but it never happened because I was down with a bout of bad hayfever plus the flu - bear in mind this was not the main reason!!!

Anyways, I decided to abort mission and felt the best place for me was in my own bed so we headed back to WHill.

So this about wraps up my RV adventures for 2016.  Now I am just relaxing at home and spending some quality time with the doggies as I will be heading off to Malaysia on my yearly pilgrimage to the islands.





Until who knows when .... let the RV go back to sleep mode for the time being!!!

Buttercup Ladies

Good friends just pick up from where they left off!  Well, SM and I go way back more than 30 years ago when I started working at Buttercup (Goodman Fielder) in 1987.

This is a pix of us having a great time in Kuala Lumpur together many moons ago!!!

Since I left GF in 2001, I have lost touch with SM.  Everyone is busy doing their own thing, and it has been more than 15 years since we last met.  I found SM through Facebook and together with JS we met up for lunch at The Rocks in Mornington Peninsula recently.

Oh, at this luncheon I also thought I lost my wallet as when the time came for paying the bill, I did not have my wallet in my handbag!!!  SM offered to pay for all of us and it was a nice short but sweet catch up.  Now that all the festive season is coming to an end and everyone's travel plans are done and dusted, hopefully we can meet up again in the new year.  My shout next time!!!