A surprisingly lovely Sunday

Our weekend turned out to be quite surprisingly eventful in the end. Today, although cold, has been deceptively bright sunny and normally on days like this, I would have brought PMS and the two kids out somewhere for a breath of fresh air. However, I was traumatised by our car's recent breakdown and it was cold anyway so we decided to stay indoors.

We'd been extremely busy.

Puan Mama Sarah had invited our lovely neighbours - D & family - over for dinner, it'd be the first time D's husband would come over. It was a Japanese themed dinner.

Because the weather was so nice, I did part of the work outdoors. I put a matt on the concrete floor, took out Sarah's small desk, chopping board, vegetables - and happily did the cutting out doors. It was cold, but wonderful.

Meanwhile, Puan Mama Sarah stayed indoors to prepare her dishes.

Don't you love the look of those fresh, succulent king prawns.

Many hours later - the dinner was finally completed, against all odds. The menu was; salmon teriyaki (from scratch),

Tempura vegetables, squid and prawns. To be honest, when Puan Mama Sarah mentioned she wanted to make tempura I couldn't help but stifle a laugh as tempura is extremely difficult to make. I've read that the batter has to be mixed with ice cubes to lower its temperature, then the coated ingredients has to be friend in very high heat. The extreme difference in temperature would cause the batter to superbly crisp. Anyway, the joke was on me as PMS' tempura was actually quite good.

Above is Puan Mama Sarah's yakitori chicken, her grilled chicken on skewers. It was delicious. The picture above was taken by PMS herself.

Much less impressive was sushi, I suppose. I've made it so many times I think it's becoming cliche already. I managed to procure quite nice smoked salmon fillets from Tesco - and they were just luscious. Above picture ALSO taken by Puan Mama Sarah.


Pictured is Puan Mama Sarah's dessert, inspired by a post on Ifos' blog - about her eating sushi and then for dessert she was served with fruit sushi, with chocolate rice and strawberry sauce. Above is our rendition of the same. (We added the strawberry sauce later).

D's children, helping themselves to the food. Above picture also taken by Puan Mama Sarah.

The children's tea party/conference.

I've finally found myself a drinking mate. D's four year old is as almost as much into tea as I am! He managed to drink three cups of tea tonight, about as much as what I managed too. Cayalah. I have to invite him again for tea next time.

Wish you guys were here Rosli, Hila, Aida, Fazuan & families.

Sarah's Portrait by Puan Mama Sarah

PMS took this portrait of Sarah around two days ago. Actually, Puan Mama Sarah has been delving herself into photography lately. She's been taking lots of photos and learning camera settings (all of you beware!). Unlike me, Puan Mama Sarah has extremely steady hands and I notice that her pictures turn out sharp even with relatively slow shutter speeds.

Anyhow, the above is just an experiment in using the Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. I read today that Canon cameras apply anti-aliasing to the images to maximise colour accurise and reduce Moire effects. However, the anti-aliasing gives the photographs the classic Canon's "smooth" effect. I have ALWAYS thought Canon's images are less sharp compared to Nikon's - and now I know why!

Canon's official website recommends sharpening JPEG images in Photoshop starting at the following values:

Amount: 300% (300% is huge !!!!)
Pixels: 0.5
Treshold: 0

However, there's also a video tutorial on their website on how to fine tune sharpening. The above image of Sarah is an example. Notice that although I sharpened Sarah's portrait by 300% there's not much noticeable noise and the texture on her face is relatively smooth. The secret is simple - use a high treshold value (around 5-10).

Link here

Our family this weekend

This weekend has been a particularly uneventful one so far for me. The snow has finally stopped falling, and whatever's left of the snow has already melted, crushing my hopes of bringing the camera on an outing to capture more winter landscapes.

I have mainly stayed indoors with Amar today - while Sarah and PMS have been busy going out to town. Anyway, I just would like to share some pictures of the family.

Just now, I saw Sarah and Amar playing and joking happily together. They were laughing, poking, rolling and cajoling - it was so funny to see. It's very nice to see the two junior family members getting along so well with each other, I couldn't help but laugh along with them.


Sarah turned this good boy:


Into this:

Just look at the trail of saliva from him laughing so much!


Just would like to share one last picture of the recent snow. What I love about the picture is that the flash highlighted the falling snow drops - further emphasising the fact that it was snowing.

This weekend, the topic of the photography magazine I bought is "Low Light Photography". It's a topic I am most interested in. Anwyay, I have learnt something new - blending flash with ambient light. If you could compare the picture above with the picture below you'd see what I mean. Both pictures were taken using flash, but in the picture above I stand out too much and the flash seems harsh. In the picture below, PMS seems to blend in with the surrounding light. Notice the highlight on top of her hijab from the room's light.


I can't wait to try this technique outdoors - I hope it works!


Above is a picture of Sarah jumping on the bed. To me it's a study of human agility.

Finally, our thoughts and prayers go to a friend ours who is currently recovering from surgery. We hope the surgery was 200% successful and that the recovery is swift and full. Our thoughts also go to his family.

PS
1. Picture above is stolen from someone's Fotopage - sorry! I'll take the picture down should there be any requests - promise.
2. After reading my post up there again, I've just realised how incoherent & inarticulate I have become - sorry readers. I have yet to fully recover from my blogger's block.

Snow in Coventry 2007

Part 1: It's Snowing!
Imagine our surprise as we woke up this morning to find our lawn and the streets carpeted in pure, white snow. It had been a year since it last snowed and YEARS since snow had actually settled like today - reaching 15 centimetres thick according to the BBC.

As for me, my colleagues have given me early warning of the snow, and I woke up extra early to prepare. By "prepare" I mean taking appropriate measures to make sure the car is road worthy in the snow, have an early breakfast and if necessary, set off early to work so that I could reach in time.

Everything went according to plan, thanks especially to Puan Mama Sarah who helped tremendously in prepping the car. At the same time I was also busy - busy taking pictures that is! An opportunity such as this comes but once a year and I was sure to make the most of it:



Unfortunately, I was quite pressed for time and I couldn't really concentrate. I was also extremely concerned that the wet snow would damage my expensive lens and camera. In the end, my pictures are what I would call "cincai" (the nearest translation to English I could think of would be "random"). I soon set off to work.

Part 2: The Scare
Now, driving in snow is one whole matter in itself. It's scary to say the least. In heavy snowy weather such as today the roads could be extremely slippery, the visibility poor, the roads congested and the car temperamental.

Speaking of temperamental cars, I had the scare of my life today. As some of you know, I drive 1 hour on the motorway everyday to get to work. On the dual carriage way, just two junctions away to the hospital, my car suddenly acted strange - it was putting out high revs but paradoxically was loosing power. After around 5 such occasions the car suddenly completely lost power and stopped! Thank goodness for the laws of physics - momentum propelled the car forwards and allowed me to bank the car as far as I could to the left. Unfortunately for me, there was no hard shoulder (meaning = no safety zone to park the car in case of an emergency) and the car stopped right in the middle of the carriage way!

Despite putting hazard lights, lorries honked away angrily while cars zoomed past at around 100 KMH. The visibility was quite poor and I was scared that a lorry might not see the parked car and just ram through. I immediately called the police.

I was half-way through talking to the operators when I saw a 4 wheel drive vehicle stopping nearby with 2 police officers. I felt so relieved!! After brief introductions the police officers towed my car away.

Alhamdulillah, that in the midst of such adversity there was a hint of mercy: my car broke down not 5 minutes away from a service area complete with a fueling station, Macdonalds, Costa Coffee and a shop!


I heartily thanked the two police officers who helped me at a time of need, and began my wait with a warm cup of coffee and a mood-soothing breakfast of Egg Mcmuffin and hash browns *big smile*.


60 minutes later, rescue arrived in the form of a van with the initials RAC (the breakdown cover specialists). It took the mechanic only 1 minute to diagnose the problem and only 5 minutes to repair the car.

It turns out that the garage I asked to repair my car over the weekend, a repair that costed me GBP 300 pounds (!), FORGOT TO SCREW BACK THE CAP TO THE GEAR OIL TANK. The car stopped because the tank was completely empty and a quick top up of oil later , the car was again good to go. The garage is certainly going to hear from me this weekend .... *snarl*.

I arrived at work at around 10:30 am to a sympathetic and understanding team (thank you!)

Part 3: Meanwhile ....
... the kids at home are enjoying their day playing in the snow - making snowmen, snowballs and rolling around: Puan Mama Sarah's account of the day could be found on her blog.







Part 4: Conclusion
At the end of the day I am both horrified and excited with the events today. I have a lot to be grateful for - that my life has been spared, that my car broke down so close to a service area, that the police's help came so efficiently, and that the problem with the car was relatively minor. The experience today left me charged and fired up at work (like a squirrel on sugar and caffeine). At the same time, I am AWFULLY annoyed that the garage effed up my car.

Anyhow, the journey home went smoothly and was devoid of any excitement/horrors. The events today has made me forgot that the landscape around Coventry was beautifully transformed by the snow. Please take a look at sights around our house in the snow: (most taken in low light as when I reached home from work it was already dark)









Thank you for reading.

Happy Birthday Anne

Happy birthday to my long time, dear blogger friend - Anne. It's been great knowing you through reading your blog, a blog that is full of positive energy, humour and wit. My favourite thing about you has always been the fact that you're "easy target" to make fun of (in a good way, of course).

Hope you've had a great day today on your birthday, and I hope for many more happy days to come.

Love from your friends: Mynn, Puan Mama Sarah & Family.

(Could you tell them apart? Mother and daughter looks freakishly identical! Don't you think?)


Images freely stolen from Anne's blog. (Help yourselves, feel free!)

Our Unplanned Weekend

It has been a hectic weekend, and I finally have something to blog about. We've finally managed to get ourselves out of our winter hibernation.


We had the pleasure of Rosli and family's impromptu visit to Coventry on Saturday. They told us about their plans to come on Saturday morning itself! No matter, as it is always a pleasure for any of our friends to come over. I was slightly worried by the fact that my car was at that time undergoing repairs but thankfully, the car was miraculously fixed the same day despite the mechanic initially saying otherwise. That's one whole other story.


Whenever Rosli comes to visit, two things are a must: (1) Food (2) Photography. In terms of photography, our experimentation this weekend was outdoor photography with multiple flash units. The concept is more or less simple: we used two flash guns - the master unit on Rosli's Canon 30D and the slave unit overhead the model. Outside, the day was extremely sunny and Rosli was shooting against the sun. The picture above is one of the, shall we say, less extreme example. It was a brilliant session, one that I have learnt a lot from.


Another thing about Rosli and wife is that, they are EXTREMELY spontaneous. Probably even more so that yours truly. Anyway, without any prior plans at all - on Sunday we all suddenly came to the consensus of visiting Oxford, in the quest to find the legendary and mythical "Halal KFC". After almost an hour of circling the town centre on an empty stomach to find even an inch of parking space and failing miserably, we gave up the search and instead, settled for lunch/dinner at a halal restaurant called Chicken Cottage instead. Chicken Cottage has been a long time favourite ours - ever since our days in Cardiff.

No visit to Oxford is complete without meeting our Fotopages photography friend Alynn. I have always wanted to meet up Alynn & Rosli - both are extremely creative and enthusiastic photographers and I'm sure a meeting between the two could produce terrifying results (whoops, I meant "terrific" :p ... or did I?). Above is Alynn alluring a young one into the addiction of photography - tsk tsk. Again, we would like to heartily thank Alynn for her hospitality despite her busy schedule. Thank you so much, and please come to visit us in Coventry one day if you can!

All in all, it has been a terrifying (I meant "terrific" but "terrifying" is also appropriate what with the number of hyperactive little ones climbing, pushing, jumping, wrestling, crying and pooing) weekend. I'm already looking forward to the next!

Later! Oyasumi readers.

Cheeky

This was a picture I captured and edited only today - of my cheeky little Sarah. The picture was taken at sunset, and I had to beg and plead for Sarah to lie on our bed, the radiant setting sun shining on her through an open window. It was a bonus that Sarah, who didn't want to be there in the first place, wanted to cheekily stick out her tongue. The wonderful catchlights in her eyes are from bounced light from the flash.

The Cardiology Team

It has been such a long while since I've last updated the blog that it doesn't feel second nature anymore logging in to my account! Anyway, this time I just would like to share with you guys some pictures of my current cardiology team. By the end of this month, some of us will be staying and most of us are leaving. It just so happened that this week most of us in the team were present for work that I thought it'd be a good photo opportunity to remind me of the great team I've had the pleasure of working with these past couple of months in Cardiology.

Above is some of the team members but by far not all of us. Many are not in the picture due to (a) religious reasons - apparently some people do not believe in their pictures being taken (b) some of us were on annual leave (c) some were oncall.

This is one of my registrar - and also a great friend. I have absolutely learnt A LOT of cardiology and medicine from all the discussions we've had. He is extremely dedicated, helpful and supportive to all of us juniors and I wish him all the best in his future career in cardiology. I couldn't have wished for a better senior.



Above two are some of my best friends in cardiology. Together, we've ploughed through good times and especially the worst of times sorting out various difficult situations all that funnily seems not that terrible in retrospect.


In the background is our extremely organised ward clerk. Thanks to her the notes are all well organised and streamlined. This spot seems to be our favourite for various discussions - probably due to the strategic proximity to the x-ray viewing box.


Didn't I say this spot is our favourite for discussions? Above are our two registrars - our seniors if you will - engaging in heated discussion regarding patient management. Seriously, both our seniors are absolutely excellent & supportive. Darn intelligent too, both of them.



No medical team is complete without caring and hardworking nurses - and above are ours. Top picture shows our nurses in what is called "barrier nursing", measures we take to prevent cross infection between patients - a rampant problem in hospitals nowadays. The picture below is a nurse diligently preparing an intravenous medication.


This is our house officer - the youngest in our team. Despite fresh from medical school, our house officer is extremely efficient, hardworking, earnest and quite knowledgeable too.


Above is our (messy) doctor's station - the tiny desk we all share, complete with a computer terminal for checking blood results, x-ray films and write referrals.

Yes, it has been an educational, fun yet sometimes hairy past couple of months - it's difficult to think that 6 months in cardiology has come and gone so quickly. I've been blessed with an excellent team; from the consultants right down to the house officers - that most of the working days have been tolerable at worst.

Here's to our cardiology team!