Green Green Grass of Home

Someone asked about my garden recently (well, quite a few weeks or maybe a month ago) and said I should put up some pictures of how the garden is doing now. Last time I really blogged about it was when I dug up the whole place and totally changed its look. So here there are now, some AFTER pictures of the garden I spent the last May Day holidays on.

"Ang Ang Ong Lai"

The above in hokkien literally translates to RED RED LUCK COME in English. That's how our home is like this year to usher in the new year...since we will be here for the New Year, we thought we'd decorate the house up a bit. After all, whether we need it or not, a little bit of extra luck is always welcomed.











Pineapple - 'ong lai' in Hokkien. That is why one will find Chinese houses decorated with pineapples during Chinese New Year - including ours :)





















Ah yes, our garden has turned out nicely and ang pows everywhere for the new year.

The Gardening Project

We were cultivating a variety of weeds in our garden for the last 7 months or so since we moved in. There just wasn't time to do much and getting a professional landscapist was not at the top of our "To Spend On" list either. Until one day I looked down from the upstairs window and realized we could be encouraging some varieties of wildlife to move in as well.

Hence I decided to execute the plan that had been on paper for a while now. I had sketched some landscaping ideas for our side and back garden a few months back so on a long 5-day weekend, I prepared a shopping list of pebbles, soil, concrete slabs and plants and off I went to several nurseries and hardware suppliers around Miri. All of the usual friends I spend time with were bobbing around in Sipadan for a diving trip and Fabian was in Spain (yes, it was the same trip) so I had the whole 5 days to myself.

And here it is !! Our garden, finally done. Took me four and a half days, countless mosquito bites and a few aching joints. Most people might think, what is the fuss over some wild grass.....but it was driving me crazy! But it's all over now....yippee!

Contrary to Popular Belief, the Modern Woman Can Manage Gardening

Since moving to the new house, I've been spending more time in the evenings tending to the garden and adding touches of green to the house. The latest project, which took 30minutes of planning and sketching, 7am shopping at the nursery on a Saturday morning and one-and-a-half days of sweating outside; was to make the front patch of lawn decent. Small area, HARD work.

Having grown up watching my parents tending their own garden, I probably picked up a few tips and managed to keep my plants alive :). To me, a home without a garden is not complete. And when Fabs walked by and said how pretty our front lawn looked, I felt very pleased with myself indeed.

Need gardening tips anyone? :P

P/S. The flower picture is for Angel. Just because it's PINK!

Liq's Aquatic Kingdom

Our friend (and Fab’s ex-housemate) Patrick once owned a wonderful marine aquarium which he then sadly had to give up when he relocated to another country. The poor thing (aquarium) sat outside on the porch of the bachelor house until my brother, all the way from Singapore, talked me into bringing it back home to our new place.

It took me a while to build up my case to convince Fabian why we should take the aquarium:

1.) It’s such a waste. (He would say ‘it’s not your problem’)

2.) It would look nice. (He would say ‘The dining table will do just fine’)

3.) Our fish needs more space. (He would say ‘It is ONE fish…4 centimetres!!’)

4.) Blah blah blah….

Until one night when we were sitting side by side, and he reached over to move my mobile phone across to the other side of my glass of water. And he dropped the phone right into it! BLOOOP!!!! Wide-eyed, I was speechless for a few seconds and then went totally hysterical while trying to fish my precious barely-one-year-old phone out of the water. Fabian did not know what else to say but SORRY, and I just blurted out – “YOU BETTER SAY YES TO THE DARN AQUARIUM NOW!”

And there it is now, acting as a partition between the dining and living room. Of course I expanded the lonely ONE fish to a whole colony of tiger barbs. I am so proud of my pretty aquatic habitat and am spending hours watching the fishies dash about.

Our 2 oscar fish are now in rehab as they kept chasing and eating up the smaller fishies. Uncle at the fish shop said they have very short term memory so by isolating them, they will forget who's boss and stop thinking of the big aquarium as their territory. Funny! Oh well, we'll see what happens when they return.