Akak Tik Passed Away

My cousin, Tik bt Madon passed away at 2 pm today at her home in Taman Uda Jaya, Johor Bahru, after a long illness. She was 92 years old. My sister Zainab, long deceased, was of the same age as her. Alfatihah.

Safely Home

We left LHR on Sunday 3 May at noon by MAS Airbus 380 MH 003.  It was an uneventful flight and we got to KLIA at 7:50 am on Monday 4 May after a 12+ hours flight.  Going through Check In at Heathrow was fast because in our group we had two wheelchair users.  That's the trick next time, if we need speedy treatment.

The only problem experienced was at the VAT Claims where Bobby and Nani were unable to claim VAT because they didn't have the Customs Declaration form for some of the goods and service bought.  Reason: the salesperson didn't give them one to fill up saying it was not necessary.  So, one lesson learnt.

Aina came to visit

Aina Kadir, Ham's niece who has been working in London for many years, came to visit us today Saturday 2 Apr. She came around noon and we had lunch together. She obviously enjoyed the home cooking by Ham. Aina is an IT consultant, although all the while I thought she was an accountant (probably because she started work with PwC.)  We had a good time together and she left to catch the train to London all too soon at 6:00 pm. Here's Aina doing a selfie.

Relaxing today

Not doing much today Thursday 30 Apr. Returned the X-Trail to Enterprise Car Hire and got refund of GBP 200. So now the X-Trail hiring was actually GBP 331 for 1 week. Divide by 5, that's about GBP 66 or RM 364 each. Not bad.

Eton, Nani and Bobby are leaving for London tomorrow morning. Our friendly Pakistani taxi driver Mr Kazim, has agreed to take them to the Holiday Inn, Camden Town for GBP 140.  Ham and I will leave for LHR early Sunday 3 May morning from Ida's place for our flight back to KLIA at 12:00 hrs. Ida will drive us to LHR. Eton and party will make their own way to LHR.

Visiting Cardiff

Ida had a day off Tuesday 28 Apr.  So she took them to Cardiff to have some seafood, teh tarik and a climb up Cardiff castle. No shopping apparently. Cardiff is a city up the Bristol Channel on the west coast. It's just over an hour away from Stroud.

Shopping again

Gloucester had a factory outlet too called the Gloucester Quays. Got there after lunch on Sunday 26 Apr by GPS postcode of course. Spent about 4 hours there.  I bought an educational toy for Soraya and some shirts. The girls were disappointed, however; not too many designer labels.  So next day Monday 27 Apr we went to Swindon Designer outlet where Nani had a grand time. I wonder how she's going to carry all those handbags she bought. Probably will have to buy another suitcase. I only bought a bow tie and some shirts for the boys.

Before all this shopping we visited Windsor castle, the Queen's occasional weekend residence. Arrived just in time for the Changing of the Guards ceremony. That was at 11:30 am.  After lunch Nani, Bobby and I decided to tour the castle. Ham and Eton sat it out. Nice big place.

The crooked house of Windsor near the castle next to the Museum

Visiting Phil's Parents in Birmingham

On Saturday 25 Apr we had an invitation by Phil's parent to visit and have dinner with them at their house in Birmingham.  The girls wanted to do some shopping also.  So we left early 11:00 am heading for the latest shopping mall called the Resort World by Genting. Yes, Genting our Malaysian casino multinational. But it was not to be; it's not quite ready yet.  So we settled for the Bullring, an ugly armadillo like shopping mall, where Selfridges had an outlet. Quite an interesting place, though.

We left the Bullring around 5:30 pm to drive to Jenny & Peter Gordon's (Phil's parents) place some half hour into the suburbs.  They also had a makeover; lovely modern kitchen, dining area and patio. Peter said landscaping the garden is his next project.

Longleat and Stonehenge

Having got the 5-seater Nissan X-Trail we decided to make full use of it. So on Friday 24 Apr, we motored down to Longleat (famed for its collection of wild animals.) It was quite a drive with the GPS taking us along narrow farm roads to finally arrive at the entrance of the Animal Safari Park on the ETA given. It was nice to drive through the property with the animals roaming free but ignoring us completely. And of course the handphone cameras got busy.

After lunch at Longleat we drove off to Stonehenge about 1 hr east (near Amesbury) in the Salisbury plains.  Stonehenge had a makeover; now it's got an Exhibition Centre, a shuttle bus service from the Centre, gift shop and restaurant (of course.) Lovely. When I came way back in the '80 there was nothing of this sort.

Family visit to Ida's new house

Ida and Phil bought a house last year. We were so pleased and Ham wanted to visit.  So we decided on a late April 2015 visit, hoping that it'd be quite warm then.  Eton, Nani (Awang's wife) and Bobby (Eton's son) came with us to make a group of 5.

Ida picked us up at London Heathrow (LHR) airport on the 21st April at Terminal 4. The Airbus 380 MH 004 was quite full and going through Immigration took quite a bit of time.  We emerged at 6 something to be greeted by Ida who had waited since 2 hours earlier. We then piled into the 7 seater Alhambra (Spanish) van for the drive to Stroud.  It was still daylight; sunset being around 8:30 pm.

Eton had booked a flat in Stroud at the Bell House.  Quite a nice place and close to Tesco (by car) and the railway station (by foot.)

Ham and I stayed with Ida at her place called Hillside (no house number) in The Edge on a no-name road (one moves around by GPS using Postcodes in England, just like being in a kampung in Malaysia except for the Poskod bit.) Her place is 4x4 country really with farms all round. Good thing Enterprise car-hire gave us a 4x4. And the view from her lounge is stunningly picture perfect.

We needed a car to move around, so on 23 Apr we hired a Nissan X-Trail 4x4. Actually we just needed an automatic but they had only this 4x4 for the same price at GBP 148 per week.  Add full insurance cover and another driver, the cost finally came to GBP 531.