Spring Clean

I was lucky that I didn't have to pick up the mop to do the cleaning. Our maid had one of her friends coming along, and the two of them merrily got the cleaning done.

And they were efficient. Our maid originally came to Malaysian almost 10 years ago as a private cleaner. But her income were a bit up and down. The agency she initially worked for had a change of management and the new boss had been short changing them.

She came to clean my Mum-in-law's house for almost a couple of years, getting to know us. Our children really liked her. She then decided to quit the agency, return to the Philippine, got her visa in order and came to work for me full time.

She still had friends doing freelance cleaning and when we needed a hand with cleaning, she would call them up. Great arrangement ...

Not My Kind of Sunday

After watching the Dutch getting the upper hand against Spain, I was full of optimism waiting for the England-Italy kick-off.

England wanted to inject pace to the game early doors, but Italy as the usually do, played at Pirlo-pace.

A dummy, a shimmy and a shot, and Italy was one nil up. England did not sit still and the old adage of teams being most vulnerable to concede when they had just scored applied here. Within a couple of minutes, Sturridge was at the end of Rooney's cross to bring the score level.

The scored stood tied until the break.

Then Italy got the upper hand. Ballotelli. Why always him?

England couldn't find a reply after this although I must say compared to the previous years, they played with more enthusiasm. They just lack the know-how at the final third. Their shoot-on-sight tactic did create a few problems for the Italian defence who were shaky at times, but they could do with a world-beating midfielder, somebody with a knack for the killer pass. Xabi Alonso, Xavi, Veron or even A Scholsey would do nicely.

Now to look forward to the next group game and come through from there ...

So Long Pahang Road

Ever since the passing of my Grandmother, there had been discussion about what to do with the plot of land she lived in at Jalan Pahang, Penang. It say right smack in town, next to an intersection. The lots next door had been converted into either apartments or shop lots. It was worth quite a bit.

She had 12 children, and the name on the title wasn't just her alone, but it had three other of my Grandfather's sibling on it. We knew that it was going to get messy.

I had decided from the very beginning to have nothing to do with it. My Dad and his cousins needed to sit down and thrashed things out. They had a good offer and the whole group decided to take it. And then came the nitty gritty of how to decide the proceeds.

There had been some disagreements but it was ironed out amicably. My Dad eldest brother was the most vocal and took the task of clearing up any disputes. The other siblings stood by him and a deal had been struck.

My Aunt who still lived there with her children had to move and the deadline was the middle of next month - June.

This afternoon, another Aunt of mine organised a kenduri as we were planning to move out from the lot, and well as for her plans trip to Mecca next week. That was the reason behind the day trip back to Penang today. And it was all worth it.

A lot of people turned up. All the siblings and cousins were there - mainly from the generation above me. I came along with my sister, Mum and Dad. Anita couldn't make it unfortunately.

I didn't grow up there - I went to school in Kepala Batas instead. Dad and his siblings moved there in the late 60s when my Granduncle brought the piece of land for his brother - my Grandfather - and his 12 children. My Granduncle was a famous Doctor back then, and he appreciated the sacrifices my Grandfather made while they were growing up. He looked after all my Dad's siblings and was close to me when I was young as well - he was a Paediatrician.

He retained the title to the land so that we didn't have to pay the taxes. I remembered that he even installed a phone line to the house when phone lines were not common yet.

My Dad younger siblings felt the loss more as they grew up there. My parents had their wedding there. Most of them had since moved on leaving only my Aunt who stayed with my late grandmother.

The crowd was too big for me to snap many photos. I still got some old ones somewhere on my hard drive. That would be a treasure. I realised today that that would be the last time I would see the old house as it was. It was kind of sad. Once I thought about purchasing the land to leave it as it was, but I knew it was going to be an idea that would not end well ....

So long Pahang Road ....

Catching Up

The last few days had bee hectic both on the professional and personal front. I finally got things organised and tomorrow, we would be heading for a short break at Kuala Kangsar, to visit Anita's kampung. It had been a while since I was there.

We used to have a house there ready for us to stay but as of last year, it was rented out. One of the teacher at a local school needed a place to stay and we decided to let them stay there. Tomorrow, we would be staying at a hotel in town, a place that Anita and her parents used to frequent.

The stay would be for a couple of nights, with me taking Monday off. We should be back on Tuesday. It would be camera time ...

Let's File

As they say, there were only a couple of things certain in life; death and tax. Tomorrow would be the deadline for the tax return for 2013. Filed and almost delivered - Puan Anita would be doing that for me tomorrow morning.

Could've done it earlier but I found that the forms were pretty straight forward and I waited until the weekend when I had some time to fill in the numbers and crunch them. Work had not been kind to me in the last couple of weeks.

So, I'll be looking forward to some free time on Thursday - Labour Day here. I'd probably spent most of the time either in bed or at the hospital I was sure. Let's see what the boys wanted to do on the day .....