Renovation Next Door

Finally the deal for the house next door was done. The new owner happened to be an old Cardiologist colleague from my UMMC days. He had since left for private practice at about the same time as I did.

He bought the house and proceeded to do a wholesale renovation of the old house. Once completed, I suspect it would look unrecognisable to the old owner.

I suspect that he might raise another floor to the house .... We shall see ...

Afternoon Wedding

It was a pleasant wedding I attended yesterday lunchtime. It was also the first time that I attended the venue, at Taman Melawati.

The bride is our next door neighbour in Gombak, and Anita knew her since they were in school. She was married before, and her only daughter was born within a couple of weeks of Idlan. Unfortunately, a few months after that, she was separated, and a messy divorce ensued. It was only finalised recently, paving the way for the wedding.

The wedding itself was a very cosy affair, with the family members organising almost everything, except the cooking I supposed. The bride's brother was the emcee, and he certainly stole the show. Everything was straight forward, and was done on time.

The bride was certainly happy yesterday, and so were we, knowing what she had gone through. So, many congratulations to our dear neighbour. To the bride .....

Aqiqah

Aqiqah is an Islamic sunnah event to celebrate a new member to the family, hosted by the parents. No, there were still only Idlan and Irfan for us. We were talking out neighbour here. The neighbour right next door, celebrating the arrival of their baby daughter a couple of months back. It was a really happy day for them, since they lost their first child last year - a stillbirth. Syukur, everything was well this time around.

We got there by 11 am, starting with doa and selawat, followed by the event of cutting a small amount of hair from the baby’s crown. The baby was well-behaved, no drama. I remember when we did Idlan’s back in July 2004, we gave Idlan some cough mixture. We actually separated the haircutting - cukur jambul - and aqiqah. The aqiqah was held in Kota Bharu instead. As for Irfan, it was done only with the lady’s present. It was also done during working day, and I was not even present. My mum-in-law wanted it that way you see.

After all the readings were done, we finally settled for lunch, which was initially for the people from the mosque - a simple rice affair. The initial party then adjourned before another one for relatives and close neighbour. The main attraction for the afternoon was the roast lamb, prepared the Malaysian way. Great stuff! They were also freshly fried koay teow, prepared on the spot and curry laksa, which I must say, turned out to be better then the lamb and koay toew. I missed the cendol unfortunately from the earlier event. Puan Anita said that it was really good. Shame!

The roasting was done right behind our kitchenUnfortunately, since it was a rather personal event, I did not bring my camera over. I don’t think my neighbour would appreciate me snapping away at their event. We initially wanted to take the boys out to the park in the afternoon, but they were already too tired by then. I decided to take the 7D out on my own for a proper spin. I’ll post those pictures in a later entry.