The Last Wonder of the World

I know... it's been two months I did not update my blog. Been extremely stressed and busy at work and too tired to do anything at all in the evenings, besides following the new Heroes season, watching the Euro 2008 and Wimbledon, could not even find the strength to cook dinner or clean up, but Alex was a great help.

Alex got us away on our wedding anniversary to Venice, stories to follow... The thing is, Tweetey's very last comment on my very last post knew more than I did... Indeed just over a month ago, something did not happen... I waited, not too long but impatiently and anxiously, and it persisted at not happening, until I was forced to check out what's the hold up, and we are having a BABY!!!!

Finally, after all these months of practice, the much awaited little darling is here, growing at the speed of light, comfortably tucked away in his mother's womb. So it was almost two months before I realised I was pregnant, and you'd think it's a curse because just days after finding out, I was stricken like any good mother with morning sickness, nausea and quasi-total exhaustion. But this is now gone...

Since the day I found out a lot happened: work and problems kept on piling up my desk faster than I could cope, which left me so frustrated because that's no way to treat my little baby, I had to change doctors as my doctor was a real charlatan who could not care less about me (or my foot) and felt aggravated with guilt at the thought of all the alcohol I had consumed in my first month (in Iceland and entertaining customers) not knowing I was pregnant.

But this was made up with my grand mother's 80th Birthday back home surrounded with future Pepi and Memie, my cousins and the little cutie Antoine. It was a wonderful family reunion and perfect opportunity to announce my wonderful news to my loved ones. And this was followed shortly with Alex taking me to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary in gorgeous Venice.

Last weekend, we had the greatest pleasure of seeing our little love during my third-month scan; we were awestruck, we still are. Although thanks to Internet information, I followed closely the evolution of the little one, I still did not expect to see what we saw, in fact I was even surprised when the midwife confirmed that 'yup, that's a baby alright'. We were very moved to see our baby moving his little body and touching his/her face and twisting around, much to our delight. And although we knew it would be complete, we were still impressed with the little feet, toes, face, hands, everything, it is a complete minature human being, and it is mine!

Next time up is end of August and we'll find out the sex of our baby!!! yay!!! will keep you posted.

Iceland

What a trip that was. Where do I start? Firstly it was awesome seeing the South African bunch that I so rarely get to catch up with. Alison looked cute as ever and in spite of missing Dani very much, the new girl, Kate, is equally as lovely. Manny, the SA Manager, also invited his dear friend, now a partner of ours, Lindi to the trip. I had met Lindi two years ago, she's the kind of extra-ordinary fun-loving-ultra smart woman, and I loved her.

(Kate, Me, Alison, Lindi)

We wasted no time in celebrating our reunion at Heathrow airport with a free flow of Gin and Tonics for the girls and beers for the boys, it was 11 am... The trip was non-stop amazing sights and activities so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves... except the last one maybe, which will require a bit of explaining.

We started with the Blue Lagoon

The hot spring was so warm that when I went out in the cold and wind to take the pictures I did not feel the cold at all. These images were followed with a drinking session in the designated area of the Lagoon, specifically Blue Lagoon Cocktails which were lovely. It's a wonder no one drowned.

The evening was followed with something equally unique... A drink in Surely the Coolest Bar in Town (Me, Alison, Nikolaj, Lindi and Peter)

You guessed it! It's an Ice bar. Woo-hoo. Although, with my over-acting imagination, I thought it was going to be like in that James Bond film with Pierce Brosman, a giant igloo with ice scuplture and ice furniture, this was mostly a fridge freezer with ice on the walls but still Minus 20 degrees celsius.
(Here with Alison and Clive)

After a hard day of work, we went to a typical Icelandic dinner. It was a regal, I stuffed my face silly I enjoyed so much, sachimi, rainbow trout, cod fish and lots of delicious things I wasn't sure what they were.

Here with Torsten thanking him for the great organisation (he's the man who planned it all). He promised me at that point that I had seen nothing yet. Followed by after dinner drinks:

A little too much drinking

(Kenneth and Martin)

A little bounding

(Kate and Peter)

A little singing

(Torsten and Ron)

After a hard day's work and a hard night partying; we went on a tour of the island (in fact just a small portion, the island is gigantic and it would take 8 hours to drive to the next town just a eighth of the island away) This is where the Tectonic Plates meet, on the right, the American Plate and on the left, the Continental plate; in the middle Peter, Rudiger and Manny.

We then went to the Gullfoss Waterfalls, absolutely amazing, I loved it, you walk along a long and narrow, snow covered cliff to reach the waterfall and it is breathtaking, there is three levels of falls, this is the third one and most impressive - I kept wondering what the debit of water was ?

but got even more mesmerised when I saw the first level of the fall, because you cannot see where the water is coming from? Then my brain went into a buzz of whether the power of the water could actually defeat gravity!!! (you also notice the geek in me)

So I walked back up above the waterfall and there I saw it, for miles the water is gently coming from the mountain in the distance.

This is a 20 meter geyser, I managed to catch it just as it was emerging. Martin who had been freezing his hands trying to video it ran out of memory on film just before it erupted.

Okay, at first, this looks weird, but it's not, it's my foot. Well, okay, it is a weird looking foot and that's why I am showing it and what looks like shadow under the bump is in fact a bruise. I have no pictures to explain why I am injured, so you need to use your imagination

On the last trip of the day, we were going to visit a glacier, we were in these huge four wheels drive and I thought, like everyone else that we were going to drive there - none of us knew what to expect. but in the middle of the snow covered mountain, were snow mobiles waiting for us. I was scared so I jumped on one behind Nikolaj who is a big strong man, he'll take of me. It was frightening enough because of the speed we were travelling at, my helmet was shaking and I was scared it would fly off and injure Martin who was right behind us. But we made it safely to the Glacier and it was impressive, I did not take any pictures because I was all wrapped up and could not reach my camera, we had a snow ball fight which was good fun and started our journey back. Half way back, we had to climb a steep slanted slope, Nikolaj and I were very good and as told by the instructor leaning as much as possible towards the slope so that the snow mobile would not roll back, but now that you've seen my foot you all guessed it, we did tumble - I never saw it coming, one minute I was leaning to the left and the next I was lying in the snow with the 280kilos snow mobile crushing my right foot while head in the snow I was whailing 'my foot is stuck, my foot is stuck and thinking it's lucky I'm wearing this helmet or I'd be freezing my face right now.' Martin jumped off his snow mobil and Nikolaj got back on his feet and the two of them heaved the machine back up and away from me. That is the story, so since I have been in pain. nothing's broken and my doctor was incapable of giving me something for the pain, so I am treating myself with herbal and natural remedies like foot bath in Dead Sea Salt recommended by my dad and lots of Arnica and Bach flower recommended by my mom. It seems to help, today my foot is less swollen and less painful but rest and foot up it is for me...

Anyhow, this remains the best trip we've had as a group and altough Iceland was never one of my top 20 destinations I would now strongly recommend it and it's only a matter of time till I go back there with Alex.

Brokeback Mountain

I am a bit late watching this film, mostly because there was no way in hell I could have made Alex watch it. This afternoon, I loaded the DVD in the player, poured a large glass of orange juice and put my feet up to watch the multi-award winner film. I have to say, I rarely talk about movies I watch (I think the last one was Crash and maybe Life of Others, if I did not review the latter I'd better get to work), I'm not a very good reviewer because I get so over-excited I cannot be objective and I would too readily give away the story... but this Brokeback Mountain, was a very - very - very good film, it strangely reminded me of Out Of Africa; possibly because of the amazing cinematographics, the breathtaking backgrounds of these incredible love stories; the social backdrop which persecute the characters (Karen Blixen was secluded just for being a woman on her own in Africa and a cowboy to be in love with a man in Texas - God forbid!) but also because of the drama behind the relationship, the impossible happy ending, which not surprisingly end in tears (mine mostly). I would hope that a film like this would inspire more tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality; I cannot understand homophobia; I think homophobes must be the same people who are racist, they have no or little respect for people who are different in any way. It's a shame really. The only conclusion I have is hands up for Out Of Africa just because it's a true story and Brokeback Mountain simply for successfully tackling a real yet unspoken issue.

Itchy feet or all that it seems, it isn't...

My dearest favorite reader That Girl - okay, you're all my favorite readers - made a very clever comment on my last post; the kind of comment that make one introspect oneself - hahaha, I sound like a freaking professor in just two words... really, I do love travelling, it is one interest Alex and I share and we make sure we go somewhere new and exciting at least every year if not twice a year. We want to make the most of it now that we haven't a little one to limit our adventures. So that's 2 new destinations a year. Of course Alex being Malaysian means we get to go home every year to see his parents and my brother and nephews for Chinese New Year.

And because I am French and just a short flight away from home means that we get to either go to my grandma' s place by the seaside with long walks on the beach and long lunches or to my parents' summer home near the famous Provence, with its cricket songs, never ending dinners and lazy afternoons and of course the Christmas reunion back to my home town where all the family resides. So that's already 4 more ensured destinations a year, which wouldn't stop when we have a little one in tow.

Plus there might be a quick local getaway visiting beautiful English towns like Bath or Oxford, both 2 to 3 hours drive away. When Alex parents come and visit, we'll take them to Cambridge where my mother in law has got an old friend. (Cambridge is also where I learned to speak English in the summer of 1993, although my English really took off in Malaysia in 1994 because I had to pick it up real quick if I wanted to communicate with my friends.) Then I am also very blessed because my job takes me places every year, with the Kick Off meetings in January that take us to gorgeous cities all over Europe and our more secluded sales conference in April where our team meets up for training and the incentive to do a good job for the year. This year, the meeting is next week, on Sunday in a week I will be flying with my colleagues to the fantastic and one and only Reykavik in Iceland, with apparently straight from the airport to the Blue Lagoon. So that brings up my travels to really 5 new destinations and 4 usual destinations, although still exotic to some extend.

So I travel all the time indeed but most of all, why I report it is because I want to share my adventures with anyone who might not get a chance to go, so they still get to discover the place through my eyes and stories, but mostly because I think that this is what makes me interesting, I am convinced that what I do defines me, not who I am, so all the extra-ordinary things I do, I know make me interesting. I don't think I'd be very interesting, I like quiet things, I play quiet games, I work quietly, I take pride in being quiet too. One, because I want to be left alone most of the time and two, because if I make a mistake, no one will think it's me and three, when I do/say something silly, which I love, it stands out drastically against my more obvious personality. I love to make people laugh, but it depends who I am with, and with the right people, I will make them laugh and people will remember me being good fun. But I am also a normal person with fears of rejection and my greatest fear is people being disappointed in me / or not liking me, even the people I don't like, I must get their approval (it's mad I know!). Anyhow, these latter things that make me who I am, I can't put on the blog... because of the many different people who may or may not read my blog, so all that's left that I can safely talk about is what I do and travelling is what I do best. ;)

Edinburgh, Scotland

Like most people without children, I haven't celebrated Easter since I was a little girl chasing for eggs in the garden, but, I keep a wonderful memory of Easter day as that little girl, with the bells of the church down the road ringing continuously from 10 to 12, with a blue sky and shy sunshine wearing a little cardigan to protect from the lingering cool wind of April, and victoriously finding my first (and usually only) egg hidden behind my great-grand-mother rose bush. My brother would have found every other single eggs by the time I got to my first one.

Nowadays, Easter is the opportunity to go on a break; two years ago we went back home; last year in Prague and this year, it was the wonderful city of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. Honestlty, wonderful seems to be the adjective always associated with this town, but it did not make my heart jump with excitement at every street corner. It was sunny yet looked grey, it was cold, it was windy and it is on a hill and requires to walk up and down and up and down and up and down so I spent most of my time looking at the pavement rather than up at the buildings.
(the steps up to the castle)

The castle was great, build over and maintained for the last 28th centuries as they discovered part of the castle dating back 8th century AD. It supposedly fires a canon at 1pm everyday to this date, but we did not have a chance of hearing it. It is still used today for official functions and has a church where names of all the Scottish soldiers who died during any wars recorded are listed in beautifully bounded folders.

(view of the momunent erected in the memory of Sir Walter Scott, poet and writer; it gives a good idea of the up and down)

(In a pub, where we tried the local dish Haggis. The other specialty of Scotland is whisky, here a window promoting Jack Daniels.)

The main attraction of Scotland is the ghost tours; that was not my cup of tea to start with and much to our disappointment we did not see any ghosts, nothing, nada, niet, rien. But it wasn't without a fright and a scream in the dark (to my surprise I realised it was my own might I add). But it was scary enough as I was busy looking over my shoulder the whole time, expecting someone in a mask to creep up behind me and scare the hell out of me.

One day, we went on a coach tour of Inverness and Scotland country side, working our way to the Loch Ness; the best bit of the day was meeting Amish a 12 year old woolly cow.


The second best bit of the trip was this castle ruin on the side of the Loch Ness, it was well pretty, but I lost Alex in the ruins (it wasn't that big though). Then we went on a boat ride on the Loch Ness, it was lovely, but again, no monster. such a shame, I was looking forward to seeing what I imagined is a gentle giant beast. Although it was all a great trip and that I would recommend to anyone, I won't be going back anytime soon.

The Brie, The Bullet and The Black Cat

You have to read this blog post with a heavy French accent... To celebrate the New Year, Alex and I were invited by Alex' friend Grit and her husband Sean.... We met Grit and Sean in Heathrow before Christmas and they invited us to the dinner, a Murder Mystery party.... Grit told us this much and thus the story begins.(remember the French accent)

October 1942. You have been invited for dinner at the Official Residence of the Deputy Mayor of Casablanca. Morocco is a colony of France governed by the Vichy French regime. The guest of honour was to have been France's greatest living mime artist. He fails to arrive, he has been murdered.

I was Nicole Le Grandbutte, the hosts' daughter, 18, both snob and rebelious.
Alex was Otto Von Pinkelwurst, a fanatic gestapo officer.

The party included :

HUGHES LE GRANDBUTTE - Deputy Mayor of Casablanca
EDITH LE GRANDBUTTE - his wife, a former dancer
NICOLE LE GRANDBUTTE - their daughter
OTTO VON PINKELWURST - a Gestapo officer, fanatical and possibly mad.
KIRK RANSOM III - an American who runs Kirk's African Cafe in downtown Casablanca
COUNTESS BOGOV - an exiled Russian aristocrat
MONSIEUR OILY-CARTE - booking agent for the Moulin Bleu in Paris
PIERRE PAYANSKI - a 24 year old half-Russian poet
CHERIE BOOT - a French cabaret singer in her mid-20s
INGRID PITH - a Danish art dealer

I shall not tell you more, for I shall recommend that you gather around enough friends and have the murder party yourself.

The dinner was great, everyone was in character when we got there. Alex played a very good mad fanatic gestapo agent and everyone put on their best French accent, possibly better than my own genuine French accent!!! dinner started at 7.30 and the night finished at 1.30 am! It was so much fun, it can't hardly be described.

I was a great night, excellent fun and now we can't wait to have a place big enough to have an oriental murder mystery night of our own.... to be continued....

The Comtess Bogov, Nicole, Cherie and Edith Le Granbutte (Mother)

Hughes Le Granbutte (my Father), Monsieur Oily Carte, Pierre Payanski (My boyfriend), Otto von Pinkelwurst and Kirk Ransom III (The lover of both my mother and ingrid Pith).

(We were so much in character, that I failed to remember their real names....)

Julie's Birthday

Julie is my colleague, she is in Customer Service and is possibly the loveliest person in the company. She has taken over a lot of the Marketing when I moved to Sales, so I guess I used that as an opportunity to get closer to her, besides we work in the same open plan for the last 2 years ++. In the last few months, I participate to decorate omy colleagues' desks on their birthdays. For Peter last year, I put his face on Borat and for Hannah, who shares the same birthday, I put her face on Jodie (a British Hottie); but this time, I outdid myself for Julie, because she is extra special, I gave her a whole new family. Julie has a weight complex which I don't know where she gets it from because she is very fit and slim and as she left work on Thursday, she begged us not to put her face on The Vicar of Dibley, a funny British comedy, where the Vicar, played by Dawn French is a very big lady. We wouldn't have thought of it if she had not mentioned it, Hannah came up with the idea of using a picture of the cast instead of just the character and I went to work...

Bottom row: Hannah, Ann and Julie. Top row: Ron, Nick, Me, Peter, Martin, Mike (The company Director) and Jane.

The Best Birthday

Another year, another digit, the clock keeps ticking... but hey, I sound like my boss!!! :P It's been an awesome 31 years so far and I lived so many experiences, visited so many countries, felt so many feeligns that I could be 60, so 31 is plenty young and I possibly have another 50-odd years to continue my journey of discoveries - world, culture, feelings, friends and experiences. My next big projects include:

• Buying a home - big enough with a proper dining area to throw dinner parties
• Starting a family - you'll hear plenty more about this when it happens
• visiting Egypt; and
• Japan; and
• Mexico ; and also
• San Fransisco and Arizona

My birthday this year was awesome; it was on Mother's day Sunday, on the Friday, Ron, called me into his office, to ask something silly about work, and after 3 minutes I wanted to go back to my desk, because this was truly wasting my time, so I went back to my desk only to find that the girls had decorated my desk with the traditional birthday card, bottle of champagne and photos on the wall and desk. They're so lovely (including Ron who was actually trying to by them time!)

Later on the Friday, I received lots of emails and text messages from Dani and Alison from SA; Dan (Blah Blah Blog) and Jay (Kill the Goat); even Alex friend' Justin remembered thanks to Facebook. In the evening, I went out with Sarah and Alison but we celebrated Alison's boyfriend Hywel's birthday.

On Saturday, I got to chat with the whole family in Malaysia and my dad opened a bottle of champagne, Anna baked my favorite chocolate cake and we all 'tchin-tchined' over MSN.

In the evening, we had invited all our friends who did not know each other, but as you would expect, everyone got along famously and we had a fantastic evening at the Nyonya restaurant in Notting Hill, where I got even more spoiled; Nadine gave me a fantastic grey scarf and matching necklace that I wore all week this week; Grit gave me a spa balm for hair, Orla gave me more spa treatment creams to pamper myself with and Seow Ling a book voucher that will buy the guide book for our next holiday - Edinburg. I also got a fantastic pair of shoes from Alex and a guide book from Sarah and Alison, 'Time Out London - for Londoners'. It made me proud, since they are the ones who helped me settle in England three years ago.

It wasn't over until Sunday, when I got phone calls from all the family, including my cousins, whose birthday I always forget, and even Rudiger, the EUMEA Marketing Manager from Germany remembered to text me his wishes.

Baking cookies

Anna, my sister in law, inspired me to bake my own cookies, since hers were so delicious and she made it look so easy to do.

I used to bake chocolate cakes often many years ago; chocolate cake was my favorite and the only dessert I ate. I enjoyed baking because I did not have to cook anything else; in Malaysia it is not more expensive to eat a fantastic exotic meal outside at the stalls. Since I moved back to england, with all its familiar ingredients; I enjoy cooking every day, trying new dishes, cooking family recipes and old favorites from my childhood, so I never took time to bake... until today.

This is my fridge; it was so full of pictures and magnets from our travel, that I started using the side as well.

My kitchen was very soul-less so I moved around some items to decorate a little.

This is the recipe before... I went to the shops this morning, and bought everything from the baking section, baking powder, baking soda, self raising flour, plain flour, butter, chocolate chip, hazelnut, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon juice (just in case).

Ta-da! The end result. The cookies were lovely just out of the oven, but they got hard after a couple of hours, I followed the recipe to the gram, so it may be the wrong recipe to my taste, I'll have to ask Anna to give me her recipes, in the meantime, these will be great with a cup of tea.

Holiday... again

Yeah, I know I'm on holiday again, right now I'm under the sun, my hair still dripping from my afternoon swim, eating my sister-in-law's freshly baked delicious cholocate and cream cheese cookies. I did not use to tan but this time around I tanned on the first afternoon I arrived, thereafter, I am just cautious not to get a sunburn on my nose. It is a very cool holiday, except that because of Chinese New Year all the stalls are closed and I haven't had a chance to eat all the great food I miss so much, next year my in-laws will visit us in England for New Year and we will come at a later time when we can eat anything we like.

I occupy most days playing Pokemon or PS3, here Jacques is teaching me to play Pokemon, I borrowed his cards 'Leaf deck' against Nicolas' 'Fire deck'; it is a surprisingly very clever game.
In the afternoon, we swim, but only for a short while, most of the afternoon is spent playing 'Shark', so Tata (aka me) is the shark and the corners are home and I am supposed to lure and catch the fishes: Jacques, Nicolas, Kitem and Anna. That can go on for a whole hour at a time.
On CNY's day; Anna 's family celebrate in a traditional manner where the youths and children must serve tea and wish a Happy New Year to their elders and in exchange collect red packets Ang Pows.

Alex and I had a more relaxed New Year, my mom in law cooked a traditional vegetarian dish and spring rolls and the whole family played Nintendo Wii games all day.

Mr Garden and Kitem have started a tradition of inviting once a year the whole family, both Anna's and Alex' parents and sisters for a nice family reunion. Julien worked with my father in law for a short while many years ago, so they are always very eager to catch up.