A job finally!

It has been a whirlwind week and plenty of good news towards the end of the week, just in time to celebrate the bank holiday weekend in Nottingham with the family and my closest friends here. I am really pleased how things have turned out finally. The picture above was taken in my mum-in law's garden and this little flowers growing by the side of the rocks just caught my eyes and I thought it was absolutely beautiful and this is how I feel right now.

We had our wedding party-BBQ here in Nottingham to do something for some relatives and friends here in England in between our civil wedding last year and the second part of the wedding in Malaysia which will be held in August this year. Everyone had fun and plenty of food, I enjoyed it really except for the freezing bit. Who would have thought you needed scarf, gloves, big jackets and a pair of Ugg boots for a BBQ?? Well, I didn't have any proper winter wear with me, anticipating a lot of sun and some heat. I was wrong so I ended up freezing the whole time! I had a great time catching up and spending time with my good friends and it is always great to be able to see them!!

Looks like I will be hanging around in London for a bit now, especially after accepting a brilliant job offer from a very large company. I am pleased, excited and just overwhelmed at such a great opportunity. I don't have much details yet, hopefully everything will come through next week.

Cheers!

W.

Hanging out in Beeston

Thanks to my dear friend Felicia who brought me here for some Thai food last year in 2008, I kept coming back to this place whenever we fancy a Thai. It's located pretty close to Laughton's home, probably about 10-15 minutes drive to Beeston. They do pretty good lunch deals at 4.50 pounds for a main course.

Thai green curry chicken with egg fried rice. I love it, very good! The place is run by Thai people and maybe that is why the food tastes really authentic! Good sign.


I think they do a really delicious Pad Thai here.

I found this hilarious and made him pose with a Look-look Asian fondue stall in Beeston. We call it Satay Celup back at home, in Malaysia. Laughton hates it after being down with food poisoning when he visited Melaka last year.  
Beeston town is quite lovely, got plenty of nice little Asian restaurants around and we always get our groceries from the Asian supermarket nearby. Plenty of Asian students too as this place is very close to Nottingham University, so you get a lot of students renting in this town.

Finally a white Christmas in England!

Merry Christmas everyone and have a blessed New Year's!

There has been only one Christmas - the rest are anniversaries. ~W.J. Cameron

White Christmas in Nottingham. A photo taken just at home just before Christmas. Looks pretty isn't it?

My second consecutive Christmas in Nottingham. Hope there will be many more to come!

Just like excited little kids unwrapping gifts!

Laughton posing with his new dressing gown, a hat and some wash kit from Ted Baker! Looking smart.

My new wool beret from Santa!

We had a good time with the family and hope everyone had a great time also!

May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace,
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.

Cheers,

Wendy.

Our Civil Wedding & Reception!

To all my fellow friends, apologies for the lack of update as I had been really busy in the whole month of November. I was busy planning a wedding and also holidays for my folks when they came to visit for two weeks. After that, we went to Rome, Italy for a holiday after sending off my parents and my little sister back to Malaysia. Anyway, I had a friend who was asking me if I stopped my blog because I have not been updating it for quite a bit. Haha, been really busy that is why. I had been posting photos on Facebook instead because that is so much quicker and easier to do since I had been on the go the past one month with all the holidays. Hopefully things will be less crazy as we have to start the paperwork to apply for my PR and also going to London again this Sunday to find a flat so we can move to London before Christmas and get everything settled and then back to Nottingham again to spend Christmas before Laughton starts his new job in January in London. Sounds hectic!

Okay, a brief summary of our special day!

Date: November 18th, 2009

Venue: Hart's Restaurant luncheon followed by civil wedding ceremony at the Shakespeare Street, Nottingham Register Office and reception at Victoria Pub in Beeston.

Everything went so quickly and we barely had enough time to take good photos. Anyway we managed a couple and this one was taken just before we went into the ceremony room.

My friend Sue-May, our witness that came all the way from Manchester. She used to be my primary school mate. Very sweet of her to join us on that day!

Night time reception at Victoria. Had a very nice and tasty wedding cake made by Laughton's aunty.

Have a good one everybody!!

Cheers,

Wendy

Parties and fish & chips

October 16th, 2009 Alex's 60th Birthday party at the local pub, The Manor. I didn't manage to take a photo with Alex that night so I got myself a photo with Laughton instead! Haha.

And another with Gil. ;)

My regular local fish & chips from the take-away place nearby. Pretty good stuff, though tastes better with some Lingham's chilli sauce. ;)

Fancy an afternoon walk in Toton?

We rarely get sunshine here really, I miss it sometimes because I keep making excuses for not going for my walks if I don't see sunshine haha. The English weather really makes you feel lazy and just wanna stay tucked up in bed and just messing around with your MacBook Pro really. :) Okay I probably should stop moaning about the English weather if I am supposed to be here for some time. Anyway I was still quite pumped up about my daily walking habits I started back in Melaka before I got here, so it was quite a nice day and we (me, Laughton and his mum) put on our walking shoes and brought my Nikon along and started walking. We had a pretty good walk maybe close to one and half hours and we had a look around at the Garden Centre (just a big name for nursery basically).

Still feeling a little cold, I could use my windbreaker really, but it's still in transit from Melaka. Need to wait until my parents come with the rest of my bags. :)

Laughton's attempt at taking a macro shot at the little bee while I ran away avoiding the bee. I had always wanted to do a macro shot on a bee but guess it's a bad idea if I don't have the astronaut suit on.

I love the purple tone of this cabbage like flower. It had the texture of a cabbage too!

Pretty colour of the chrysanthemum.

Cute dainty flowers growing from the bushes and they were so sweet, really!

Beautiful purple chrysanthemum. So vivid.

Arrived in England!

Hello everyone, I got here to England in one piece and so did my bags. Quite a pleasant journey, 13 hour seemed short actually after my long trip to and back from Bermuda! I flew Air Mauritius I guess they are having an alliance with Air Asia X and the ride was pretty good actually. Cabin was probably nicer than some of the old rattling MAS planes but I didn't enjoy the food. Anyway, I was extremely pleased to get all my bags arrive safely to Toton (that's where his folks are living right now and us)

My special treat. I was complaining about how boring English breakfast was and I missed nasi lemak or chicken rice balls or wan tan mee and Laughton made this corned beef sandwich with a poached egg for me. It was good and I had it with some Lingham's chilli sauce we got from Tesco. :) By the end of the week, only one-third of Lingham's was left in the bottle. So versatile you can eat it with almost everything.

Outside his home, Toton, Nottingham.
Across his home.
They have this wheely/eye thingy all around the world must be? Posing with the eye in Derby.
Enjoying a cuppa caramel macchiato from Starbucks after shopping in Westfield Mall, Derby. I was looking for green tea latte but I think they don't do it in England Starbucks. Damn.
Autumn in England.
Guild Hall in Derby.
We are still in Derby here.
Up close.

Christmas in England, 2008

December 25th, 2008

2008 was an awesome year, I had never visited so many new places before and it was great being able to experience and see so many different things. This was the final trip for the year 2008 ended and we had a trip to England and France. We managed to get our 3 weeks' holiday and headed to England just a week before Christmas as Laughton wanted to spend Christmas at home, after spending a miserable Christmas in Bermuda the year before that all by himself; while I was partying away at the Playboy's Club in Las Vegas. Well, I did extend the invitation to him to join us in Las Vegas and San Francisco but I remember him telling me about wanting to experience something in Bermuda. Haha, I bet he regretted not taking the offer! Anyway, I was excited myself too because I have never really spent Christmas away from Malaysia. Deep down, I was hoping for a white Christmas but it did not quite materialize. More like an icy and chilly Christmas! It was a great pleasure meeting his family and spending time in Nottingham and we managed to extend our shopping to London and Manchester before having a weekend in Paris.

Fireplace that kept me warm. :) I thought it was really, really cold at one point I started to miss home. I think I told Laughton, I prefer it hot so I can turn on the air-conditioner. But now, after being home for couple of months, I dread the hot weather. It's like sitting in an oven all day long, it was really crazy! Look at all the presents lined up underneath, actually there were many more and it sorted of extended all the way even on the opposite room.

I didn't want to wake up and as you can see, I am pretty much not a morning-type of person. Well, here I was trying to open all the presents, one by one.

I was smiling from left to right simply because of this particular gift from Laughton! Yay!! The purse that we went looking all around London for this particular purse. Finally got it from Old Bond Street in London.

He wanted to take photos of each wrapping I unwrapped and I was just trying to get to the purse as quickly as possible but they probably had 4 or 5 wrappings before I got my purse!
Come on, hurry up. I was almost there!

Another smile..
Me purse!
Laughton's Grandad.
Laughton and his lovely Mum.