What We Did On Our Holidays

Just woken from a very satisfying doze on a very satisfying bed on an extremely satisfying wet and windy late afternoon in Melaka. We drove up (down?) here around noon pausing only to pay a sewage bill at Ampang Point and drink a cup of tea there and then fill up with petrol at a Shell station where they wouldn't let us buy the cheaper grade of the black stuff that we wanted as we were driving a Singaporean registered vehicle and, therefore, not eligible for the government-subsidised stuff - depite the missus being Malaysian. I reckon there's a bit of an issue there, even though I suppose I can see the justice involved somewhere or other.

We've done a fair bit of bill-paying on the trip, to keep the afore-mentioned government in business, including the one where we seek out the cunningly hidden complex in Gombak to pay some odd property tax on the house and get shuttled for no obvious reason from desk to desk. The system, if one can call it that, requires you to show the bill at one desk and pay at another. We were delayed at the second desk as some gentleman had dropped in with a case full of rings and such like and was selling these to the various clerks, who'd abandoned their posts to check out his wares. But delays are a matter of routine here. That was the day on which we explored Puchong in order to pick up the latest Karcher cleaning device that Noi got cheap through Rohanna. We ended up hiring a taxi which we then followed to get to the Karcher office with just five minutes to spare before they closed for the day. I've now put in a request for one of those GPS thingumees that tells you where to go as you get lost in KL as this year's birthday present from the missus.

We also did a bit of entertaining, with Hamza and Sharifah popping around on the Friday evening. Though they brought most of the grub with them so I'm not sure that really counts. Other than that, it was a matter of us entertaining ourselves. Irritatingly the phone lines were down yet again so getting on-line to do so was not possible at the house itself. I found myself blogging and checking mail at the restaurant on the hill, the one opposite the Giant supermarket. I'm okay with it, but it's not really my style. I like to concentrate on a cuppa, not have it linger at the edge of the table, sadly neglected.

I listened to a fair amount of music (including a complete run through of Strauss's Salome) and Noi watched a fair amount of television; but she got a huge amount of cleaning done and I chiseled away at the marking and other pieces and bits. Oh, and I finished a couple of books - but more about that another time. Now have to prepare for an evening of prata at Wati and Aziz's new place. It's all go, isn't it?