Archive for February, 2009

The other morning, I heard something moving around up in the attic. It was unnerving at first as I just heard the scuttling of clawed feet and I couldn’t tell where they were coming from. I searched the area directly around me, scrutinized the walls, then finally looked up at the ceiling, cocking my head as if that would help me see and hear better. Yup, there it was again.

Yikes! I felt quite panicky for a moment. But the sensible side of me knew it couldn’t be anything more sinister than some kind of little animal that had got in from the garden. But I was alarmed nonetheless.

I called Rentokil and they said it might be a squirrel or rat or mouse. They would send a man round to take a look.

Well, that’s a relief. Only a squirrel, rat or mouse.

I don’t know what I was expecting them to say. This is England after all. I guess the scuttling sounded so loud that my imagination went a bit wild. And I expect that the strange animals that sometimes got into the house when I was a child in Malaysia also conditioned me to be more fearful than you might expect to be in a tame London suburb.

When I was a child, my parents house in Kuala Lumpur was surrounded by a few empty lots that were thick with undergrowth and trees. In the garden and in neighbours gardens, there were many fruit trees - rambutan, banana, avocado as well as coconut trees, jacarandas and a flame tree. The air was always loud with birdsong, cicadas, frogs and insects.

Whenever anything got into the roof, it was most likely a civet cat - loud, noisy and stinking of its distintive feral odour. For us kids, it was scary for its wild crashing around. We also sometimes had bats flitting through the air vents, spooking us with their dark shadowy wings.

Once, my mother put some of the house plant pots out into the garden to water them and give them some direct sunlight for the afteroon, before bringing them back in again. That evening, as we sat down to dinner, we noticed the tall, bamboo like fern moving in the corner. Perhaps it was just the breeze from the fan, we thought. Until it moved again and we looked over more carefully. And scattered to the far end of the room in screaming tumult. It was a snake, entwined in the tall spine of the fern.

So, a squirrel, rat or mouse - that’s not so scary! A nice cup of tea will do to calm me down and remind me that I’m not in the wild tropics anymore…

Photo: thanks to tantrum_dan from flickr.com (CCL)

One of my resolutions for 2009 is to be more creative. And inspired by our friends’ Nasi Lemak Lunch, we have been experimenting with creative creations in the kitchen, with some degree of success.

On Valentine’s Day, instead of going out, we cooked a lovely lunch of Yellow Prawn Curry together. In my book, the couple that feasts together, stays together…

The recipe is very simple and it was all done within 30-40 minutes:

• Mix some yellow curry paste with a can of coconut milk in a pot or wok.
• Add some fish sauce and dash of salt and sugar.
• Simmer for about 10 minutes to reduce it.
• Add prawns and tomatoes.
• Simmer for another 5 minutes or so (if you are using fresh prawn, until they are cooked).
• Serve on rice and garnish with fresh coriander, lime juice and slices of red peppers.

We added some green beans stir-fried in garlic and soy sauce.

Mmmm.

The great thing about being creative cooking is that you can eat it afterwards (unlike creative writing - eating my words is not my favourite pastime…!)

I was not expecting to be very enthralled by the London Transport Museum when we went there on Saturday, not being into trainspotting and the like - but I was pleasantly surprised at what fun it was.

We went specifically to see the small exhibition of poster art used in the tunnels of the London Underground throughout the last century, being interested in design, art and communication. It was fascinating to see the way that the Tube was advertised in the early years of the 20th century as a link between town and country and also to learn something about the evolving technology that defined the kinds of styles and illustrations that were used - some lovely paintings by reknowned artists of the mid-century had to be rejected because of the limitations of the lithographic print technology or because of the costs of reproduction.

Since we were there, we then took a look around at the rest of the museum and had a grand time exploring a claustrophic underground carriage from the Victorian age, sitting in the first ever (horse-drawn) omnibus and clambering up the stairs of a double-decker tram. I particularly enjoyed one of the tube carriages from the 1970s with mannequins dressed in bell-bottoms and big collars - I remembered not only the musty old carriage style but also the fashions from my first days in London as a child! It was also mind-blowing to learn some of the history eg that most of the early Tube tunnels were hand dug by armies of navvies under the streets of Victorian London.

The gift shop has the most amazing array of books and videos on railways, trams and buses I have ever come across including time-tables and maps of all the different rail and bus networks across the UK throughout the ages. You can get box sets of videos about all aspects of trains and trams and buses, many of the sets running to 18 hours or more!

For me, it was a cultural and historical eye-opener to an aspect of our daily lives that we tend to take for granted - or moan about, especially if you’re a Londoner - as well as an glimpse at an area of interest that I would not normally consider, well, interesting, but is a topic of fascination for many other people. I’m definitely not going to look at another tube train or bus in the same way again!

I got up at 6am this morning as usual to go to work but found that all London buses had been cancelled and train services were severely disrupted due to a massive amount of snow that had fallen overnight. There was nothing for it but to stay home in the suburbs and frolic in the winter wonderland.

Fortunately, thanks to the internet and broadband, I could work remotely from the snug warmth of my study - and, in fact, I was quite productive without the interference of phone calls and other disruptions! For businesses who haven’t yet invested in remote working facilities, it really is worth it to make the most of your team during times like these - and in the UK, if it’s not the wrong kind of snow disrupting transport, it will be some other kind of weather that will do it (wrong kind of heat, leaves on the track, flooding…)

The famous British “Blitz Spirit” was very much in evidence - people were friendly and chatty and going to extraordinary lengths to rise to the challenge of the snow. I met a couple of women who were walking to work, kitted out in hiking gear and rucksacks: “Charing Cross is only seven miles away. Mind you, once we get there, no-one else will be in.” I also bumped into the manager of Dulwich Park at the park gates: “It took me 3 hours to drive up from Folkestone.” If there ever is a test for being True Brit, this is what is required: a cheery demeanour in the face of inconvenience, hardship and adversity!

Here is a slideshow of my photos of snowy London, including snaps of the rugged individuals I’ve just mentioned, and a boy with a giant snowball who was “waiting for my sister to come outside…”

To view the photos without the slide show, go to Snowy Dulwich