Making Good Progress

It has been a week since my last post. Yes, one whole week.

I have been busy - to get some work done, and to distract myself from worldly worries. Unfortunately I find the latter best achieved by doing the former, as opposed to sitting at the computer or reading a book. Having said that I did manage to visit and left comments on a number of blogs, and was able to respond to your much appreciated comments on my earlier posts. So it wasn't so bad.

I have a string of lovely new followers too! Thank you all for gracing this humble blog of mine.





And I hope this comeback kid is coming back for good. I have accepted what had befallen me as fate and I have stopped tampering with it. As for the trauma - well, let it be a lesson, a bitter one no doubt, but nevertheless a lesson. I bet Denise of L'Aussie and Ann Best would think it'll be great stuff for my memoir.

Any volunteers - to write a memoir  pour moi ?


As always there are things to be grateful for. They say even if you lose every material thing, you still have your life. I say even if you lose your life you still get to meet some really nice people in heaven, don't you?

Anyway, I have been making good progress. So do the crop and my project:

The steps are 'rough-finish stage' - the step before the final smooth finish (can't wait for that to show you my handy work). Take a look:

Spikeys are growing bigger by the day. Now that the invites are out for the party, I hope they won't let me down, though two weeks without rain got me worried that it may affect the fruit quality somewhat.

The pole is to support and prevent the branch
from breaking under the weight. It looks too
skinny to do that job now..

All on one tiny branch. Each fruit will weigh
1-2 kg when ripe

The best is yet to come.

The biggest bonus of all for the entire week: eldest son Ikhwan called me up to say that he's bringing over Baby Zaq! How cool is that!

But the weather was hot. Extremely hot. So much so the leaves had started dropping off the trees. (For rubber or hevea growers February is known as 'wintering' month. No, not snowing, but that's when all the leaves drop - yes, like fall. As the trees are under stress they are normally not tapped. I say normally because some villagers resort to tapping at night!).

My son and grandson were on their way. I prayed for rain. And it poured. Thank God.

When they arrived just after the rain gentle breeze was blowing. It was nice and cool. I think they brought me luck, and rain. Thank God.

Ikhwan brought along two of his childhood buddies and now business partners (boy did we have a tough time with them when they were teenagers - sleepovers, loud music, you know, the usual teenage stuff. Their friendship is so strong it stood the test of time, and the testing times from the parents. I am really pleased (I'm sure their parents too) that they are onto something good and are making an honest living - not without the stress though. In fact it was my idea for them to take a break and de-stress at The Farm - only to find their Blackberrys buzzing away one after another!).

I really should have taken their photos. But I was so preoccupied with Baby Zaq I forgot all about that. While they walked around the farm plucking Chiku I was all the time beside Baby Zaq who was asleep - just in case he woke up and found himself in a strange place.

This was his first trip to The Farm.

I have been babysitting him, initially with the help of the maid, at our home in the city since after his mother's confinement was over when she went back to work. That went on for more than a year when they went to live on their own. Since then it has been like two or three times a week whenever I make the trip back. But it's getting less frequent. So I was thrilled when told he'd be coming over.

He slept in the car during the journey. And continued sleeping when he got to the farm house.

Big boy now - very soon he'll tell me not to call him
' baby' anymore, like his cousin Irfan did.

After he got up we were both excited and happy, like two long-lost friends catching up on lost times. So happy that I didn't take any more photos of him.