For My Uncle

While going through some personal stuff, I found a very familiar-looking Hunchback of Notre Dame notebook which contained several short stories I wrote as a child when I was in England and many other childhood scribbles. But I wanted to post this short story because this was how I got the notebook in the first place. This is dedicated to my uncle, Pak Ndak.

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Thursday 24th October.

A wonderful evening

When we came home from school, Aishah found that she had a new Postman Pat Lunchbox. And then, Ayah gave us each a halloween sweet on stick. After that, Ummi said, "And this is the best of all." And she took out a packet that had 3 'renda hair bobble'. They were very nice. After we've prayed and eaten, we said 'thank you' and ate our halloween sweets. They were ever so delicious! And then Ummi and Ayah went out for parents' evening. We played tunnels with Pak Ndak and then he said, "I've got a surprise for you." He went to the corridor and came back with three Hunchback of Notre Dame stationary set. There was a ruler, rubber, pencil sharpener, pencil case and book in each of the pack. We said, "Thank you." When Ummi and Ayah came home, we showed them what Pak Ndak gave us.

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Unfortunately, I didn't write the year I wrote this, but it was the time my uncle came to visit us in England. He was studying in Medina at that time. I remember we had great fun playing with him and showing him our favourite places. Do you still remember this Pak Ndak? ;)

Toys Galore

While packing up the stuff to bring to our new house, my sisters and I discovered a whole cabinet devoted to our toys back in England. Well! My uncle predicted that I wouldn't finish packing my books because I'll simply pick up a book and start reading halfway through packing...his prediction didn't come true since I asked my Ummi to pack the books for me. But it sort of came true while I was packing the toys...we just had to play with them before packing them into boxes. Here are some pictures of the Barbie furniture I previously described in my Barbie post:

Barbie's armchair, writing table, closet, dresser

Barbie in the bathoom

Barbie in the gym

Barbie and her twin babies

Other doll houses belonging to my youngest sister Sumayyah. Only the boot (on the leftmost) came from England.

The Lego set was also something we played a lot of back then. It really brought out the imaginative side in us as we built two storey houses, designed bedrooms, living rooms and various other things. The picture below is a sample of a living room:

See the two Lego people? They're sitting on armchairs/single sofa. The thing in the middle is a fireplace with a clock on the mantel. There's also a fire burning away (the black lego is the firewood, the yellow lego on top of it is the fire) and two lights on each side of the clock. The thing in the middle of the room is the coffee table, complete with a flower in the middle. The yellow legos on the door and windows are the lights, and of course, there's a garden outside the living room. Pretty creative for a 9 year old and a 7 year old.

It brought back some really happy childhood memories. Who knew that playing with your old stuff can leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside? ;)