There was no Keeper of the Rulers' Seal this time, but it was the Regent Mosque that made the announcement. We celebrated Hari Raya on Friday, 12th October this year. It caught us a little off guard as we were preparing for Hari Raya to fall on Saturday. But being in the UK, little did it has any impact.

We started the celebration on that night at Nik's. Then next day at Alex's and Hazmi's, but to top it all we went to Tengku Puan Pahang open house the next day. Not that the other open houses were not great, but from the food point of view, my oh my, the sheer number of kuih raya dwarf even some of the houses back home. But Open Houses are not done yet, this is only the beginning. Stay tuned for more photos from the other invites soon.

Oh ya, thought I should highlight one of the pictures below as well, briefly met with Nurul Syuhada (TV3, Nona), at Farid house. She is here after the interview with Malaysian Astronaut in Moscow. Pity, I couldn't have more time to speak to her.

Special mention for this particular photo below, that was me in front of Colin Montgomery aka Monty's residence. What a shame that he wasn't celebrating Eid.

"Approaching port, fenders ready, ropes and lines are ready, mainsail reef", all sounded very familiar as Hazmi and Alex commanded the ship. I was a little dubious and skeptical when Hazmi and Alex extended the invitation to go onboard Yacht Impala. Well, it turned out to be a great outing for all of us. Alex, Hazmi, Myself, Zahid, and Hanafi started motoring the boat late Friday evening from Southampton to Isle of Wight. Weather was rise and shine, and sea water was as calm as it can be the next day. We managed to set sail for couple of hours and moored near Portsmouth by the evening. Samad and Bakhtiar rendezvous with us that night. Headed back to Southampton on Sunday, but much to our disgust this time because we had hoped that the wind would go round enough to set sail but, it was not to be.

Nonetheless, it was a fine trip. One thing for sure, we now know who have been snoring at night!

Dania made it through the end of her second year. She will be leaving and moving to a junior school on the next term. Graduation day was a bit grand considering it was only for the second year leavers. It was nice, we had an hour of singing and then the ceremony. Great event, I'm sure this will be remembered closely to Dania's heart.

Dania is getting her very first lesson on horse riding today. She was delightfully cheerful since early morning. The stable is somewhere near Hampton. We went there about an hour early for today. Well, before you start riding a horse, you need to know how to take care of them, and the first lesson was just that. From feeding the horses to grooming, it was all showed and told. It was a bit rainy but by the time she had her way on a horse, she could not be bothered with the rain anymore.

Unfortunately, the summer fair for Hampton Wick and Infant School was also on the same day. We managed to be back with just about an hour to spare at the fair. Dania got her face painted. I didn't do much, went back after 20 minutes at the fair. Wina stayed for a little longer with Dania.

Dania tried to hit a little bit of golf balls as well. She went with Azah and Dania Omar, but then Hani joined the group. Hani and Dania Omar are getting proper lesson but Dania has lost interest at the moment.

We have been quite busy lately. Will update this blog by end of the week. Plenty of news to write now. So stay tuned.

Weather here has been at it's low. It has been raining since couple of weeks ago and has no sign of stopping. Tennis at Wimbledon has had serious impact, with the tournament now has the longest backlog in it's 25 years history. At the end of this month, The Open will be played in Carnoustie, Scotland, hopefully it will not be in the same predicament. At the back of my head now lingers, why did we ever leave KL?

I've been lazy now but will try my best to put together all the events we had since we came back from Disneyland in one go here. Will catch up from there on next posting.

Event 1:

Dania friend came to visit after school. She is her classmate. They spent the evening together before Shenel's mom came and collected her.

Event 2:

The weekend after we had an afternoon tea together with Zahid, Niza and Hani by the Thames at our place. Weather was perfect that day. Two hours seemed too little.

Event 3:

Then we had birthday party for Azah, youngest of the two daughters of Alex and Zilah. Food was great. We managed to dig out old dvd's and watched a Hindi and couple of Malay movies. Who says home is far away? 

Dania was over the moon this week. Took a trip to Euro Disneyland in Paris. We took early morning Eurostar and were practically there in the afternoon. Quick checked in and a lunch later, we were already at Disney Studios. We did miss couple of morning shows but the rest of it was among the best, particularly Cinemagique (Real life guy who got sucked into the movie show) and Animagique (Disney characters glow in the dark show). There weren't much of rides at Studios but Dania really enjoyed the Flying Carpet.

Next day, we were at Disneyland Park by 10AM in the morning. The crowd was ok considering at this time of the year. We got to meet many characters and Dania was ecstatic especially during the parade. We managed to get on most of the rides and by 8PM just before the park closed, we were still on one of the rides.

Last day in Paris Wina managed to drag us to shopping outlet (which is not that far from the hotel) but it was nothing spectacular. It wasn't anywhere much better from those ones in UK.  Took the train out from Disneyland to London Waterloo around 6PM. Well, the trip was really a treat for Dania, we just tagged along.

Enjoy the pictures;

Mummy and Daughter

We took the opportunity of long Easter weekend to venture a bit further than Kingston. Drive to Stonehenge was very lovely along the A303 highway. It was by the countryside. It wasn't that far, took us about one and half hour before we got there. We took the self guided tour and went inside. Me and Wina were busy taking pictures, so Dania the only one who actually listened to the audio tour. We are still clueless what Stonehenge is all about. Might ask Dania to explain later .

Bath, near Cathedral

Roman Bath

Later that day we went to Taurnton, Devon to pick up couple of important things and then drove straight to Bath. Bath is a known for a roman bath, of course, but the city itself has a plenty of great scenery to offer. We wandered around the city and left pretty tired that evening. We drove back along the M40, so there was no view and driver was the only one left staying up for the whole journey.

Iman and Dania at the park

It has been a series of eventful weeks for us. We had Sam came with the family now, wife Ita and Iman, their daughter. Showed them around Kingston as usual.

Noni (far left) hosting a farewell, with the ladies

Haslimi and Noni moved to Aberdeen. They left Guildford after few years staying there. They will be missed by us all. We had a farewell a week before they went back to KL to renew the visas. There goes one of my golf mate.

BK, Roslee, Wina, Azah, then Dania and Yana at Heathrow

Eddy Azrai aka BK, called me up one night and said they were leaving, so I invited him and family (Azah the wife and , Edriana daughter) to visit us. He had planned for Venice that weekend but they did stay for a night afterwards. Me and BK went to high school together. It was nice to do another mini reunion, one shortly after Boye.

A special edition to present video arrangement by Dania herself. Please excuse the quality of the video. The quality reflects the size for easier replay. Click on the link for the videos. This is the First One. And the Second One if you have not got enough.