Quote of the day

If all you have to do today is find peace of mind,

Come round, you can take a piece of mine

Cerys Matthews, Catatatonia – Road Rage

Sugarcraft Animals

My second cake decorating lesson and had loads of fun. It was a welcome break as I am in the midst of writing two essays then moving on to the scary dissertation!I learnt loads of interesting techniques and cant wait to practise them at home.

We made a panda first and he was to be the biggest of all our four animals. He was fairly easy to make though I drew one of his eyebrow far too low, it gave him a ‘THE ROCK’ eyebrow lift…

Panda Bear

Then we moved on to the lion. His mane was so much fun to make, making little spaghetti strands of different shades and positioning them on his tiny little head. I think the lion was my favourite!

Adorable Lion

Next,  we moved on to making an elephant. I called her Ellie the elephant as she looks a lot like the elephant character in Pocoyo. The fun bit was when we get to put a little bit of pink sparkle on to her cheeks – she has blusher on!!

Ellie the elephant

Last of all, we made a monkey and he was the most interesting! We even made up a little story for his surprised expression. He is happily eating his banana and a coconut fell on his head! Hence, the surprised mouth and the closed eyes! hehehehe

A coconut fell on my head!

We then made little tufts of grass,some pebbles,  a banana for the monkey, a bamboo shoot for the panda and a little pond in the middle of the cake board. I even made a little splatter right infront of Ellie the elephant and here they are all together in their happy home.

My little animal friends

It was such a fun and relaxing day! My sister is already planning a safari themed birthday party for my little nephew next year so I can start making the little animals now!! Hehehehe

My Tutor

My first cake decorating class!

Yesterday, as a treat I went to a cake decorating class in Putney. The class was on how to decorate with chocolate!!

It was such a fun experience, we were in a small room at the back of a bakery with everything we needed right in front of us. I learnt everything from covering a cake with white chocolate paste to making beautiful beading and yummy dark chocolate roses!!

The teacher was excellent! She was very clear in her explanations and helped me when I struggled. Working with chocolate paste is far trickier than working with sugar or modelling paste, it can’t be worked too much as the heat from our hands made it melt far too quickly and apparently, I have very HOT HANDS!!

Everything on my cake was chocolate.. and it was BELGIAN CHOCOLATE!! The roses, the beads, the fans, the cake… all glorious chocolate!!

Here is the final product!!

My Chocolate cake with dark chocolate roses and leaves, strawberry, orange and white chocolate fans and covered in white chocolate paste.

The back of the cake with more chocolate roses

Side view

With Erica, the teacher with her much better looking cake

I was a bit nervous carrying the cake home as I had to go on a 20 minute train ride home during rush hour! I was practically hugging my cake all the way home and it got home fine!! The only casualty was the top of one of my chocolate shards broke off but that was fine!!

With my precious cake safely home!

I didn’t have the heart to slice my cake last night because I spent the whole day working on it. I just stared at it lovingly as it sat on the coffee table until bedtime.

Today however was a different story. After swimming 20 laps at the gym, I was FAMISHED and the cake was far too delicious to ignore any longer. I did emit a little scream when I made the first cut though!!

Sliced open!

The first bite was heavenly! The chocolate cake had three layers of sponge and inbetween each layer was the yummiest filling. All feelings of regret about cutting up my beautiful cake was gone!! It was just far too scrumptious!!

I will definitely make this cake.. again and again and again and again!

Happy Father’s Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Happy Father’s Day to my very special Dad in Brunei. Once in a while he calls at 3am and laughs, I shoot out of bed then sleepily have a conversation about London and cats. I always go back to sleep.. Happy.

It’s his way of saying he loves and misses me.

I love and misses my abah too.

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Birthday Mayin!

Another birthday shout out to my youngest sister, Ammar Rina who has just turned seventeen! Hope you have a wonderful day sweety with loads and loads and loads of presents and good food! We do miss you! Love Ka Adik and Bg Peter

Happy Birthday Amar!!

Happy Birthday to my little brother Amar who has just turned  a not so little twenty one!

Hope you have a wonderful birthday with loads of great presents, cake and loads of laughter!

Missing you dreadfully too!

xoxoxoxoxox

Happy Birthday My Love

Another late post.

If anyone ever tells you that studying is good for you, don’t believe them.

I think my brain is fried.

Anyhoo, back to Pete’s birthday.

Pete’s birthday was on the 26th of May and he was very specific on what we should do on his birthday so I just tagged along..

Pete is a huge fan of modern art so he decided we should WALK from Waterloo station all the way down to Tate Modern. On the way, we stopped by a really cool canteen type restaurant and had lunch. It was really cool as the food was served in cardboard boxes.

Pete ordering food

Our food came in little cardboard boxes

The Tate modern used to be an old power station and what a beautiful building!! It had these beautiful gigantic windows and many many interesting levels depicting different eras and themes of Modern Art.

The Front of Tate Modern

Beautiful gigantic windows in Tate Modern

We weren’t allowed to take any pictures of the artwork in the galleries. We saw a beautiful Monet  called the Waterlilies and some of the statues were beautiful. Some of the art though were admittedly weird and surreal. Pete and I spend most of the time making up names for the weirder ones, ‘Chicken Tikka Massala Puke’ and ‘Splattered ‘Boobies’ are my favourites!

After a few hours of happy art viewing, we made our way over the Millenium Bridge also known as the Wobbly Bridge. Pete tells me the bridge doesn’t wobble anymore after a dangerous wobbling incident in the past.. ( I was very dissapointed!)

Compulsory posing on Wobbly Bridge

Birthday Pete!

Our next destination was St Paul’s Cathedral on the other side of the bridge, one of Pete’s favourite landmarks in London. I’ve never been so it was an adventure.

The Famous Dome

You do have to pay to go in but believe me, it is worth it. It is very beautiful and peaceful. And SO MUCH GOLD LEAFING!!

Look up and you see this!

There were many tombs and statues of famous people but I was only interested in one. John Donne, my favourite poet of all times! I’ve been a fan of Donne’s since studying him for A Levels. There is a sincerity and raw humanity in his poetry that I haven’t seen in other poets. His words are powerful and never fail to move me and were a comfort on countless times when I felt disillusioned or sad. He was the Dean of St Pauls in 1621 and he was rumoured to be buried there. A statue was built in his memory by Nicholas Stone commisioned by Donne himself as he lay dying. It depicts him covered in his death shroud with an urn at his feet.  We found him in the corridor to the left of the big altar. As I stood gazing up at his peaceful face, I felt overcome by emotions and cried.

John Donne's Monument

Pete thought it would be ‘fun’ to make our way up to the Whispering Gallery… What he didn’t tell me was we had to climb over 200 steps to get there! We weren’t allowed to take photos upthere but it was incredibly beautiful! There is a myth that if two people stand at opposite sides and whisper to the walls, the other will hear it. Pete and I tried it but we didn’t hear anything. Above the Whispering Gallery is the Stone Gallery, a viewing balcony running around the outside of the dome. Another 180 steps up! It was worth the climb though, the views were spectacular!

The Stone Gallery

You could see the Tate Modern and the Wobbly Bridge from there!

Could you see the London Eye?

After climbing down over 300 something steps, we went down to the crypt and the gift shop. In the middle of the crypt was Nelson’s tomb and other famous men. It was surprisingly not very eerie as it was very well lit. We had coffee in the cafe and inspired by Donne, I grabbed these two books from the gift shop. The small book is only a pound and I can keep it in my handbag whereever I go and the bigger book is Donne’s biography.

Donne-tastic!

Heading home, we took the tube down to Holland Park. The sun was just coming out and we had a romantic walk through the Park. We did find these awesome Tortoise Statues and could resist posing for a picture!

Pete on Tortoise

I am a lady so I side saddled it!

We got home quite late and by now, my feet were burning! We had a quiet home dinner and snuggled down for some tv. I did have a small surprise for Pete though, he didnt want a cake so I compromised and bought (yes, bought! Not made as I just DONT have the time!!) an eclair and a strawberry tart to share!

Seven candles! You work it out!

All in all, I think we had a pretty amazing day! Happy Birthday My Love!

Just for you, My favourite Donne Poem!

THE FLEA.
by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Finally, after so many years of asking why – we have an answer.

Pete and I have been trying to conceive eversince we got married five years ago and it has been a difficult journey. I guess I have always felt immense guilt over not being able to conceive while friends and family seem to do it effortlessly.

There is a stigma that surrounds infertility, barren women often portrayed as empty vessels, failures. To be loathed and pitied by society and I fought very hard not to be labelled so. People look at us in pity when we say, no, we dont have children yet but we are trying. A dialogue that often goes like this -

‘have you tried traditional medicine, I swear it works.’

‘My sister in law was on this wonder drug and she is pregnant now.’

‘It’s your cats, people say that if you have cats, you will have problems having children.’

‘Oh thats a pity. because your children would have looked lovely..’

Well meaning words, I am sure but often to us, more like thorns grating away at an already vulnerable topic. It is not like we have not tried, we have tried every traditional and modern drug available, we have sought numerous ‘experts’ and no one has given us an answer to why. Yet, every single ‘expert’ we see continue to feed us hope, that it will happen soon.

Once, I even got attacked by a well meaning friend who confronted me in our quest to become parents, we have put our own life on hold and she was concerned that we were putting ourselves in danger of continually being conned. She asked ‘Would life be so bad without children?’

For me, the honest answer would be ‘yes’.

So while we are in the uk, we decided to look for help one last time. After being on the waiting list for several months, we finally had an appointment with a fertility clinic in March. They made us do numerous tests and scans for months afterwards and last week we finally had a result.

I have PCOS, basically cysts on my ovaries that refuse to turn to ovulating eggs. When the doctor rattled off the symptoms, I was astounded at how many I had! Difficulty sleeping, high thyroid levels, sudden weight gain, acne, thinning hair, the list went on and on and I was mentally ticking each one in my head.

So now it has a name – that monster hidden in the closet for so long is now named. We can take it on, we can hopefully defeat it. I am on medication and hormones now and there will be yet MORE tests to do before we can proceed. But yet again… the doctors are hopeful and so are we.

If you would like to know more about PCOS, click here

The Battle of my toes

Sick and stressed over essay. Gone a bit mad. Enjoy!!

Curry Fever

Finally got around to doing a food blog!I tend to concentrate on one recipe at a time making it over and over again until I either perfected the recipe or Pete cries for mercy because he can’t eat the same dish for the twentieth time.

Lately, I’ve been playing around with curries. I’ve made beef rendang, Bruneian curries, red curries, yellow curries and I finally found a favourite and here it is!

Green Thai Chicken Curry with Chick Peas and Wild Rice

God, this was delicious and so easy to make! It’s especially good if you add a dash of lime juice right at the end before serving! Yum!! And (minus the can of coconut milk), its very healthy!

Here is the recipe:

Chop a few cloves of garlic, shallots and a red chilli, fry in a little bit of oil until fragrant.

Add 2 tbsp of Green Curry Paste and fry a little bit longer

Add two chicken breasts cut into cubes, coat with green curry mixture

When coated, add 400 ml of coconut milk, 1-2 Tablespoon of fish sauce and a dash of lime.

Add a can of chick peas

Serve with wild rice

Try it and tell me what you think!