Monthly Archives: June 2019

In My Hands Today…

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Medicus (Medicus Investigation #1) – Ruth Downie

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Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on his luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. His arrival in Deva (more commonly known as Chester, England) does little to improve his mood, and after a straight thirty six hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner.

Now he has a new problem: a slave who won’t talk and can’t cook, and drags trouble in her wake. Before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar. A few years earlier, after he rescued Emperor Trajan from an earthquake in Antioch, Ruso seemed headed for glory: now he’s living among heathens in a vermin-infested bachelor pad and must summon all his forensic knowledge to find a killer who may be after him next.

Who are the true barbarians, the conquered or the conquerors?

2019 Week 25 Update

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Another week and we are almost halfway through the year.

Early last week, we made a trip to get our Vehicle Entry Permit done. Though it has been in force for a while now, but will be strictly implemented come October for vehicles entering Johor from Singapore.

You need to apply online and once you get the confirmation email, you can book an appointment to fix the VEP tag. You also need to download the Touch n Go mobile wallet app and link it to your Touch n Go card. We booked one location and a day before the appointment, we got an email saying that due to unforeseen circumstances, that location had been closed for the foreseeable future. Luckily I was able to book another location immediately for the next day and it was available.

Once you get there, you drop your documents (which are in the email sent to you) and then wait for your car license plate number to be called. Then you are given a token number and you wait for your token number to be called. At the first counter where your token number is called, they check documents and you can also photocopy any document you forgot to do at a cost of RM 2 per document. Then it’s waiting again for the next counter to call you where they take RM 10 as payment for the VEP.

Then you wait for your car license plate to be called and they fix the tag and check if it works. That’s it! It took us around 45 mins from the time we reached the place till we left. We were around 25 minutes early and they only start at the appointed time. So all in all, it took us around 15-20 minutes.

The rest of the week was very unproductive to me, I am realising that when the children are home, I tend not to do much. Now I am waiting for school to start so I can start on my To- Do list.

Have a lovely week folks!

2019 Secondary Four Week 25 Update

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Holidays are almost over and luckily both have finished up their holiday homework too. Now they can spend the rest of the holiday revising school work.

GG has her mother tongue intensive lessons this week and then there’s the EAE portal which opens up this week too. I have all my fingers (and toes also) crossed that they both get their course of choice.

That’s all for our week, see you next week!

In My Hands Today…

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Unearthed: Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden – Alexandra Risen

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In this moving memoir, a woman digs into a garden and into the past and finds secrets, beauty, and acceptance.

Alex’s father dies just as she and her husband buy a nondescript house set atop an acre of wilderness that extends into a natural gorge in the middle of the city. Choked with weeds and crumbling antique structures, the abandoned garden turned wild jungle stirs cherished memories of Alex’s childhood: when her home life became unbearable, she would escape to the forest.

In her new home, Alex can feel the power of the majestic trees that nurtured her in her youth. She begins to beat back the bushes to unveil the garden’s mysteries. At the same time, her mother has a stroke and develops dementia and Alex discovers an envelope of yellowed documents while sorting through her father’s junk pile. The papers hold clues to her Ukrainian-born parents’ mysterious past. She reluctantly musters the courage to uncover their secrets, while discovering the plants hidden in the garden — from primroses and maple syrup–producing sugar maples to her mother’s favourite, lily of the valley. As every passionate gardener knows, to spend time with the soil is the opposite of escapism — it is to embrace our own circle of life and hold it close.