Thursday 29 November 2007

Under siege

When I opened BBC News 24 this morning, something familiar on the screen caught my attention. Not the soldiers and some Asian-looking civilians behind them but the building. From the voice over, I knew that it was a hotel in Manila under siege. I then realised that it was the first floor balcony of the Manila Peninsula in Makati where we stayed for a few days in route to England a few years ago. So what's going on?
And was it really necessary to ram a tank inside the hotel lobby? More here.

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Christmas madness

I have finished my Christmas shopping for presents except for one, the important gift for the parents-in-law. K and I already have an idea what to buy but we're putting it off for a bit until the real shopping madness begins... or until we can't anymore think of other alternatives and be convinced without a shadow of a doubt that what we are about to purchase is the best ever present that could make the parents-in-law's heads nod for approval.

For several days, the whole clan discussed what suitable presents to buy for Zak and Lewis. Catalogues have been passed around, ideas ricocheted, a list of what-not-to-buy made, and finally, finally, we settled for just one thing: that the boys will only receive ONE gift each. One. Not one and a bit, but ONE.

Four Christmasses and Zak had been barraged with presents left and right. His joy seemed to lie in opening the presents and not in appreciating the contents.
So all three families in the clan contributed an amount of money towards the presents. Instead of opening several boxes during the Christmas morning and after Christmas dinner, the boys will open only ONE box, after Christmas dinner, and that's it. One toy each. No chocolates. No sweets. Just one box each from Father Christmas.
And before we dive into our Christmas pudding and buckets of coffee, we will go out for a brisk walk and enjoy the cold Christmas air (I heard the forecast for Christmas day is RAIN). If it does rain, as it's the only thing to be expected now anyway, I'll just prepare loads of microfibre cloth to wipe the rain off my eyeglasses.
Now that won't be madness for sure.

Tuesday 13 November 2007

Zak on his 5th birthday


Zak on his 5th birthday, originally uploaded by Soyy.

On the 30th of October

our lovely big Zak

turned 5!

 
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