One lazy weekend

I have no cooking or baking project yesterday. Just normal routine of grocery shopping, oh yes, a farewell dinner at Little Malaysia with friends. Our old neighbour is moving to Melbourne, so we had makan-makan, kinda open table on Saturday night.

Rain is finally here. 3 days in a row of raining, a bliss after a couple of hot weeks. And looks like it is going to rain again today. Well, summer is ending soon. We now understand, everytime the season is changing, rain will come, as if to mark the boundary, like a starting over for a new season.

Kids have new toys, so they didn't mind playing inside over the weekend. Plus they went over to our neighbour house, so mama had a few hours of privacy that allowed her to catch up on Nigina, Aliff Firdaus, and Jangan Tegur...huhu.

And... our dedicated kettle has decided to raise its white flag. So for two days, I boiled water in a saucepan. To lazy to go out to buy a new one (issshhh pemalas tul...).

And this was just what I made on that lazy weekend.

Instant jelly with vanilla ice-cream....yum

Penyejuk badan

Phewwhh just got back from sending yaya to school. Panas betul semenjak dua menjak nie. Smlm 38, arinie pun dijangka 38. Singgah kedai n bought a tub of vanilla ice cream, pepsi n watermelon. And make myself a float.

Adik pun pakai diaper n singlet aje...

Summer ended : Australian bushfire to Queensland Flood

Alhamdullillah, we survived summer this year round. This time it was hotter than last year....phewwwww... I think the highest recorded temperature (as far as I know) was 39 deg C. Luckily I spent daytime in the office (though sometimes it was warm inside the office, maybe they wanted to conserve energy, hence they have set moderate temperature inside the office), otherwise I will definately loose focus working from home. There is no air-conditioned unit inside the apartment, only a couple of table fans to cool the apartment. Guess that is why they took long vacation during summer, maybe to get away from the heat.


This summer the nation was shocked by two heart-wrenching tragedies. Maybe some of you are aware about a disaster happened at Victoria, Australia, the bushfire tragedy. To date around 200 people died because of the disaster. The state is still on alert because some places are still affected by bushfires. Victoria's capital is Melbourne, you can see the affected area from the map below (taken from http://enviro-map.com/victorian-bushfire-map).



In this picture (taken from www.reddit.com/user/antardis/, you can see in the background the bushfire engulfed the forest, and black smoke almost concealing the sun. Indeed a scary sight.



The aftermath (www.smh.com.au/.../2009/02/09/1234027889048.html). The red alert portal was setup to aid the community. You can find information about bushfire in the website.

Early in February, large part of North Queensland was affected by heavy rain and flooding. Actually the same tragedy happened last year, same part of Queensland. The only thing that is different, this time it was worst.





Picture taken from http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/environment/weather_and_climate/news.php?q=1233873708


I received a number of messages, via email, faceboook and YM from friends, asking me whether we were affected by the flood. Thank you friends for caring about us hehehe....Alhamdullillah, Brisbane was not affected by any of these tragedy.

Approaching summer

pheww....after the raining episode in Brisbane, it is getting warmer nowadays . Bright and sunny, with average temperature 27 deg C, yup that is a sign that summer is approaching.

Besides the obvious change of the temperature, I can list 10 things that mark the pre-summer season:

1. The sun will rise as early as 5 am. 6 o'clock here is similar to 9 am in Malaysia.

2. Daytime is getting longer. Fajr starts at 4.40am and Maghrib is approaching 6.30pm today, during winter it was around 5.10pm.

3. All sort of insects are out, flies (big and small), roaches (I hate roaches), ants (yes, this is common sight during the hot weather).

4. I bathe twice a day now.

5. Some people who have sensitive skins will get itchy due to dry skin (masa winter kering dia lain, summer lain pulak). Now I know why there are a variety of moisturisers on the shelf. Must always apply lip balm, moisturiser, sun block before going out (and this applies to man too). But I only used Palmer's cocoa butter, it works for me. Oh yes, don't forget shades (sunglasses, hat, cap, etc.)

6. If you go to the market, you will see many types of berry, going cheap, eg. cherries, blue berry, strawberry...yummy.

7. People starts planning for holidays and BBQing.

8. The surrounding is getting quiet, campuses are on break (except for summer classes). You can see students carry their suitcases everywhere, looking for a temporary place to stay, or going somewhere for the holiday .

9. Holiday promotion/package advertisements everywhere.

10. Stores are promoting/selling air cooling goods/equipment/products.

OK that's what I can think of right now.