I can sit up!

It's amazing how quickly kids grow up. Timmy's now almost 5 months old and can pretty much sit up on his own. He's still a little wobbly and has the tendency to overbalance and topple over if he isn't careful. But nowadays he's quite loath to be in any position other than upright. I guess he can see further when he's sitting up (the kay-por boy just wants to know what the rest of us are up to).

Anyhow, we'll be back home in just a few more days so you can see all this for yourself soon! =)

What is it about boys and cars??

As most of you probably know, Matty is very keen on cars. He's always liked playing with them, building convoys and putting his Playmobil people into them. We've never quite figured out what it is about cars/trains/aeroplanes and pretty much all vehicles which he finds so fascinating.

There are of course some advantages -- it's quite easy to keep him occupied when we go out since there are always some cars around for him to look at. He's recently started to enjoy naming them when we walk past, so we have regular background chatter something along the lines of ".. Peugeot!.. Toyota!.. Renault!.. Mercedes!.. Mercedes!.. BMW!.. Volkswagen!..". Actually, to be a bit more accurate, he tends to run ahead of us and shout out the names, and gets very upset if we name them before he does. His favourite cars are Jaguars so parallel to the shouting out cars' names, he also keeps a running tally of how many Jaguars he's seen so far.

Odd isn't it? Sigh, boys and their toys..

In memory of Ernest

Most of you who have come to visit us would have had the chance to meet Ernest, our porter. He was an interesting person who always had a friendly word for those he met. Sadly, old age caught up with him and he passed away suddenly last weekend after a stroke. It was a bad shock as we had just seen him a couple of days before that and were making plans for dinner in the near future.

It is a stark reminder close to home of how ephemeral life is, how we are here today and gone tomorrow. Only God our Maker knows the number of our days, and we should treat each day as a precious gift, not leaving till tomorrow things which we would surely regret were they never to come to pass. We'll never really know when we or those we love will be called to meet our Judge..

Ernest, you will be missed by all of us.