I'm Back!

It's been ages! felt like it anyway, not sure where to begin and how to write it but i'm gonna try and make it short. More than 10 weeks in Indonesia and I just came back a lil over a week ago,I spent every single minute of it with my family and friends, shared so much laughter and tears, endless flow of conversations 24/7 and i feel like even 10 weeks is not enough :p Lots of happenings while i was there, being picked up by my best friend at the Airport was a nice surprise, visited my dad's grave the next day and then went for a road trip as it's our family tradition that we go for a family road trip usually once every 5 years so it's long overdue for me and as usual we took Java - Bali route as we've done it a few times by car.

From Jakarta where my family lives, it took us about 24 hours drive and more than 1500km to reach Bali Island plus a 20 min ferry ride to cross from Java Island to Bali Island. Since all my nephews and nieces have grown up, this time we rented the second car a slightly larger one (3/4 mini bus ELF), total family who went? 18 people :p

Lots of Toilet trips along the way in every rest areas or petrol stations and sometimes when you really gotta go and cant find toilet? well in the bushes in the woods. I was appointed to be the navigator for the bigger car and my older brother became the driver and as for the smaller car was my eldest sister the navigator and her husband as the driver who came from Netherlands with their kids :) Thanks to GPS now that we didnt get lost too often :p I truly dont want to be the navigator next time coz when all the others were watching movies in the back or sleeping, I had to concentrate on the road and see signs and entertain the driver so my brother wont get sleepy or hungry hehe.

Lots of meal breaks too and experienced lots of lovely food from different towns/cities along the way, stayed at nice villas/bungalows, mom and aunt are in charge with the food with the help of my sisters/in law. Cook our own meals in the villa and the kids spent many nights awake playing cards and hanging out alot. I took so much pictures that the 8GB memory card in my digicam ran out of space and had to buy 2GB more. Watched sunsets every afternoon on the beach in Bali, truly heaven!

So much things to say, so many photos i've taken that I dont think it would be enough to put it into words in one page but anyways, when we came back from the road trip and had a long rest days, we attended my youngest brother's wedding and that too was a lovely family gathering, all my relatives were there and it was held in another town called Bandung so we also stayed in the villa, it was my chance too to meet my other relatives that i've never seen for ages!

so anyways, when my sister and her family had to go back to the Netherlands, it was a very sad moments, everyone was crying and then I too had to fly back to England. We don't know when we're going to have family reunion or road trip again as it's kinda sad now that everyone has grown up and have their own families and busy with their own things and I feel lonely the next day I arrived back in the UK, the house is so quiet and no midnight talks and kids' laughter while they're joking around. I'm missing them and feeling homesick already! :p

anyways, it's a long entry here, gotta say I miss blogging and i miss reading my friends' blogs and so many things i've missed! the jubilee, the olympic, my husband's parent's 50th wedding anniversary and i havent even unpack my suitcase, just finished cleaning the house that is sooo messy and I even almost missed my own birthday hahaha but got here in time and hubby cooked me a nice birthday meal, that's for another post as I've been on the laptop for quite a long time and it's still not fixed yet and I will give it a rest for an hour or so before I got online again and visiting my lovely friends' blogs one by one!

Full Report

...well sorta, anyway.

I've been taken ill, had cold and toothache, went to dentist and had fillings in my tooth but the dentist said one of my wisdom tooth had to be taken out *shudders* in another appointment. I also have allergy, i found out years ago that i'm allergic to pain killers, anything that contains paracetamol in it is a no-no for me, my face would swell up like a balloon or i'll get itchy all over my body, so yes i had to endure the pain if i had headaches but two years ago the doctor gave me another type of painkiller which contains no paracetamol, it's called codein, it's fine at first and i'm so grateful for that but last week i took it coz the toothache caused me so much agony and something happened, i got nauseated, dizziness and well...stomach cramp, so i stopped taking it, hence my 5 days of agony to endure all of those.

But i'm better now..I'm so touched by those who are so concerned and left me a sweet and lovely email and comment, thank you!

My husband's parents gave us two tickets a week ago to a theatre show called "The Spirit of Dance" and it was today and we almost didnt go as hubby was worried that i'm still fragile *his own words* and coz the weather is back to chilly and very windy but I told him that i'll be fine, besides it's a waste of the tickets that the in-laws have paid for £40 a pair!!

well, it's supposed to be our wedding anniversary gift from them anyways, so off we went to town at the sea front where the Dome theatre located, too bad it's not allowed to take pics inside, we enjoyed the irish dance performance and a mix of jazzy as well as ballet althought i did hinted at first i wanted to see the wizard of Oz show but i was too late, they dont perform in my town anymore, but i enjoyed seeing the dance and the singing.

I'm sorry i haven't been checking everyone's blogs and i do miss blogging! so I hope i'll be able to blog again as usual and visit other blogs tomorrow! off now to sleep.

Not In Sync

My day started with a slide down the stairs this morning, just woke up and put on the wrong slipper which was a stolen item from a hotel that we stayed in Indonesia 4 years ago (talk about karma), bruised my arm and thigh as I had to grab the railing to stop me from sliding further down.

I think i'll be sore tomorrow but i had put on some tiger balm. I then got a text message from my friend asking if i wanted to go for a picnic down the beach with her daughter and she'll pick me up around 11. I had my coffee, watched tv and I swore when i saw the clock at that precise moment it showed 9am so i had a lot of time to prepare what i'm going to bring food wise, I even thought of making cupcakes! but a few mins later a text came in again saying she's on the way to pick me up! I was rushing my butt off to prepare everything in 10mins as she's living close by! When I got in her car, i told her she's early! but she said it's already 11am!

Well anyway, We had a nice relaxing picnic for about 3 hours which i spent most of the time dozing off on the picnic blanket.

Anyways, I made vintage easter eggs yesterday from plastic easter eggs that i bought at £1 shop in town, took out the candy inside the eggs, slab lots of glue and printed out vintage paper from Graphics Fairy and cut them into small pieces overlapping each other to cover the whole egg.

I used laces and tied it with jute twine on the egg too. It's a sticky project coz i had to use lots of glue and each time i pasted a piece of paper i had to wash my hand when they started to stick on my hand rather than on the egg :)

Linking to:

George and Dragon

Well, George and Dragon is the name of a pub near where we live, hubby wanted a pint of a traditional Ale and I'm hungry, we initially wanted to go to the pub called "The Vine" as that is my husband's fave pub but when we arrived, it's closed for renovation, so we came to George and Dragon instead.

The weather is double freezing! So happy to see the fire warming the pub from the fireplace, I chose to sit next to it coz I was shivering! Ordered Prawn Toastie sandwich while hubby had his sausage and onion sandwich, he's enjoying his beer. I love the decoration in the pub, still has its old touches, the beams, the big fireplace, the silver trays on the walls and some trenchers hanging on the ceiling at the bar side, I also saw a husky lay asleep comfortably while its owner was chit chatting at the bar! Very homey.