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.

************************

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.

****************************

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? ;)

Barbie

Last Sunday, I watched Barbie & the Diamond Castle on TV3 with my youngest sister. Needless to say, it was a great movie (especially if you're a Barbie lover) with the theme of friendship. Its mainly about two best friends, Liana (the pronounciation is like Rihanna) and Alexa who share a love of singing. Of course, somewhere along the way the strength of their friendship is tested. You can read the full review here.

I don't know what it is about Barbie that makes me still attracted to watch her movies...perhaps its the excellent graphic used in the movies, or the prettiness of Barbie and her friends (not to mention their outfits and the sceneries!). Or maybe its because I played with Barbie dolls when I was a little girl, so she reminds me of my happy and carefree childhood.

Back in England, my parents bought me and my sisters several Barbie dolls, a great big doll house which was even taller than us, plus some furniture to decorate the doll house with. The doll house had four levels - the ground floor consisted of a kitchen (which had a kitchen cabinet) and a bathroom (which had a toilet, a sink+mirror and a bathtub with a shower curtain). The first floor was the sitting room (which had a chair that could recline complete with footrest, a writing table table+chair and a side table), the second floor was the bedroom (2 single beds, 2 closets, 1 dresser. We even had the accessories such as shoes and clothes, pillows and covers and little hairbrushes and handmirrors). The topmost floor was a rooftop balcony for the dolls to hang out in the evenings. My sisters and I had a blast arranging and re-arranging the furnitures, changing the dolls' outfits and acting them out in various scenes. It's pretty funny recalling it all, but I wouldn't mind admitting that right now, the child in me is crying out for me to grab my youngest sister's doll and start playing with it. Just going to Toys R Us to ogle at the latest Barbie collection is enough, seeing as its not really worth spending my money on it. But of course, the more matured Me is saying...Grow Up!

A Little Digging...

Hmm...I was going through the thousands of pictures in the My Pictures folder of our family PC, and I found this picture:

This picture was taken 2 years ago when I was on holiday. I had nothing to do, so I spent some time tidying the bookshelf. Of course, the bookshelf is now a total mess because the newly added books keep piling up till we've ran out of space. The bottom most and middle shelves are filled with the Enid Blyton books while the 1st shelf is filled with the Sweet Valley series and the Babysitters' Club. This bookshelf consists of the rather "childish" books.

Here's another picture which I found (on the right). This bookshelf consists of the "adult-ish" books like the Little House series, Harry Potter, Sidney Sheldon, the Da Vinci Code, etc. There are several differences now...the Harry Potter series are complete, and there's all the Shopaholic and Nicholas Sparks books too.

There are three books on the left, bottom most row which caught my eye - the Linda Craig series. My first Linda Craig book was given to me by my dear uncle Pak Ndak when he came to England and stayed with us. Actually, he gave me the book before he returned to Malaysia, I think. Here are a few (rather bad, unfortunately) pictures of the book:

The Linda Craig Mysteries are about Linda Craig and her older brother Bob who live on a ranch with their grandparents. They solve horse-related mysteries with their friends Kathy Hamilton and Larry Spencer. I really liked this book because I gained a new insight on horses and the land of Mexico (seeing as I've never been to Mexico and I don't know how to ride horses). And I never knew that there were many horse crimes too. Thanks Pak Ndak! I've always liked mysteries, so you bought just the right book! :-D I bought another Linda Craig, but I couldn't locate the last set. Too bad.

Of course, now I'm having several flashbacks of the time Pak Ndak stayed with us in England. We took him hiking at Beacon Hill, we took him to our school, and goodness knows where else (which means I don't really remember where else. Haha.) But the best part was the games that he played with us in the evenings at home. One game that my sisters and I remember until now is the one where Pak Ndak lies face down on the carpet in the living room while me and my sisters would step all over his back and "massage" it. Luckily we weren't that heavy back then. Hehe. We really enjoyed his visit because apart from him, the only relatives who visited us back then were my grandparents on Ayah's side and Ayah's uncle & aunt who live in Singapore. We had a great time with them too and went sightseeing in London. Sigh.