Making Connections

I wasn’t able to post yesterday. As I discovered last December there seem to be occasions when access to this Far Place from KL is limited, I think due to the slow connection speed (or whatever they call it) to the Internet. Anyway, here’s what I wrote yesterday, better late than never, I suppose:

Yesterday’s journey north was not exactly a smooth one, though we’ve known considerably worse. The first hitch occurred going through immigration on the Singapore side at Tuas. For some reason the authorities decided to stop every vehicle and check the thumbprints of all adults. Of course this created something of a jam, not a particularly bad one but irritating in its completely artificial nature. We’d not seen anything about such ‘enhanced security’ (I quote the young man taking my thumbprint) in the papers so it didn’t help that we weren’t expecting it. We assumed this had something to do with the Mas Selamat fiasco but it was difficult to be sure. I pointed out to Noi that it was unlikely even that master of disguise would have been able to transform himself into either of us so it seemed pretty useless to bother checking our prints.

Anyway we pressed on with two of our nieces in the back, picked up at Woodlands, to Melaka, where we added another three assorted nieces/nephews and one maid, having switched to a bigger vehicle. Sulis came on board to visit a friend in KL and do some cleaning for us (for which, I hasten to explain, we’ll amply reward her – no exploitation from us.) We also took the opportunity to replenish ourselves with a pot of Mak’s fine teh tarik plus a number of just cooked, succulent epok epok (curry puffs), which was a good thing as it turned out since we didn’t get to eat until late in the evening having got stuck in a major jam at Seremban. This appeared to have been caused simply by the sheer volume of traffic making its way to Kuala Lumpur, serving as a reminder to try and avoid coming up here on a Sunday evening in future.

Arriving on the hill we stopped off to eat at the Indian restaurant, roti prata being the popular dish of the evening, allowing Noi and I to reflect on the fact that the cost of living increases considerably with five young hungry mouths to feed. Again it was good to be fortified against the slings and arrows of what was waiting around the corner. The following problems manifested themselves upon arrival: smelly decayed food needing to be removed from the fridge as the electricity had been cut off at some point; no television (to keep the troops occupied) as Astro had decided to change smart cards to enhance their service and we couldn’t get the new one to function; a temperamental DVD/VCD player that wouldn’t (play); five kids who’d been cramped up in a van from Melaka with lots of energy to spare and only our house to exhibit it in.

I manfully went to bed as soon as I had the opportunity.

Most of the problems are now fixed and it seems our squad strength is due to further increase as Sharifah is now visiting with several more nephews & nieces and looks set to leave at least two of them behind. What larks!

I should point out that the squad strength has now increased by two (the number of Sharifah’s offspring left behind yesterday) and breakfast this morning was a major undertaking. Thank goodness for baked beans!