vege-garden in the making

we live in an area that used to be an orchard. hence, the soil are naturally fertile. any compliment we get about the `good' state of our garden is scantly justified as we actually did little about the maintainence of our greens. obviously, we inherited these from our landloard, and even she admits do doing little to maintain the garden.

my mum who's staying with us until recently; started her vege-gardening with staples like spring onions, tomatoes, potatoes, melons and chili's. in a few short weeks, we could see the results almost `instantly'. the spring onion sprouted almost overnight and a the tomatoes are also growing in abundance.

for city dwellers like us in the past, it is almost like a small miracle to be able to grow and eat the vegetables we grow. not only we save money, we also get food that are naturally grown, free of any use of chemical/pesticide.

now, if we need spring onion for the dishes my better half whips up, we just run backyards and pull up a bunch we need.

pictures below
a. spring onion we grow on a wooden bucket on our backyard. they are probably easiest to grow.
b. chili plant. no chillies yet but hopefully we will be successful. chillies are expensive here but this is more for my wife since i can't take spicy stuff.
c. tomatoes. they grow willingly and readily and we will probably have more than we need ;-)
d. melon. not sure what kind of melon is this but we bought them and use them for soup. sprinkle some seeds on the ground and here they are now.....

school

school started on 2nd feb for all of them. by all accounts, it has been a plain sailing and a fun experience for all of them.

mingwei and shiqi are in year 6 and 4 respectively. orchard grove primary is 200m away from where we live, so they have the luxury of time. gone are the days of waking up at 6am to catch the school bus to school. here, school starts 9am and ends at 3.30pm. gone also are heavy bags, abundant homework and grumpy faces. they have each been to school camps in the last 2 weeks are they enjoyed them immensely. next week, they will have a 2 week easter break.

i remained their only nemesis in the area of study/homework as i have been stocking up all the assessment books i bought from popular bookstore whenever i am back in singapore. when i am there for good from may 09, i will start cranking up the homework volume. their 6 months honeymoon ends there and then. yes, i am a sadist as far as schoolwork is concerned.

shimun attends parkmore kindergarden 3 times a week. her school hours are shorter, about 3 hours and things also move at a leisurely pace for her.

happy when it rains....

this was a few weeks back in late march, when we were homebound due to a prolonged heavy rain. as the ps2 and wii are not fixed yet, the girls resorted to some good fun of miming to songs.
the props were my stereo set, wii guitar hero replica guitar and the end of my skipping rope which doubles up as a mike.
i was minding my own business but decided to tape this for the fun of it. if they pursue music careers in the future, at least they know where it all began....

flashback #1

while cleaning up some of the data on my pc earlier, i came across some old videos of shimun singing and showing some of her antics. she should be 3+ when this was recorded; so this is her pre-avril lavigne and hannah montana days.

the first 75 days....

come on, victoria!

picture source: john woudstra, the age

we are saddened by the tragic consequence of the bush fire in our beloved adopted state earlier this week. we hope the worst is over and affected victorians will find strength and courage to rebuild their lives and emerge stronger.

be strong, victoria!

australia open 2009

on 25th jan 09, we were at melbourne park to catch the action of the first tennis grand slam of the year. we were all there except my better half as she prefers the comfort of the home. (it turns out to be a good decision on her part as the sun sizzled that afternoon)

as parking in town would be a pain during the aussie open, we took the connex from boxhill and 25mins later, flinders street station beckoned.

we decided to walk along the yarra river to the venue. it was a busy late sunday morning at the riverbank with runners, bladers, canoeists and tourists all added to a bustling morning. by 11am, the crowd were steadily building already. a pack schedule awaits tennis fans all over the world.

as newbies, we weren't sure what to expect and spent the first 30 minutes wandering and just soaking up the atmosphere. we went to the canon photo booth to have our `official' photo taken (see 1st pic）.

we decided to park ourselves at the margaret court arena as there are a few meaningful matches in the line-up. first-up was the sania mirza/mahesh bhupathi (india) mixed doubles match. we thought we would support our fellow asian. and on the 3rd match on the schedule were the pairing of the awesome williams' sister, due to take on an australian pair. little did we realized that sania/mahesh and venus/serena will go on to win their finals and crowned mixed doubles and women's doubles finals respectively. apparently our `first timer' luck rubbed on to them!

it was really hot by noon time and we kept cool with lots of water and ice cream. even that, it became too much to bear for us. we decided to call it quits by 3pm. we caught a tram back to flinders street station to catch a train back to blackburn south.

for a first timer, it was a great experience for all of us. we could have been better prepared, especially for the heat and also `gunning' for the matches we wanted to catch, but i guess there is always the 2010 australia open. also, experiencing australia open is a childhood dream come true for me. to be able to spend it with my kids is priceless.

video: the wiliams sisters getting a warm reception from the crowd in their doubles match.