Sick…

Oh dear!!! Oh dear!!! Time is running out and there are a thousand and one things that have yet to be done, the cleaning and the washing of every nook and cranny in the house, the weeding and trimming in the garden and the putting up of the decorations…and the cooking and so on and so forth. Everything was going well until I fell sick, so so so sick!

I think it was the dabai! In the old days, the fruit season would be around the end of the year, all kinds of fruits – durians, dabai, lenggeng…

*Archive photo*

…mangosteens, rambutans, langsat…and everyone would feast on these and they say that this would be the time when doctors would be laughing all the way to the bank. These fruits are all very heaty and should be consumed in moderation or one will end up with a bad cough and other kinds of ailments.

These days, you may find these fruits at odd times in the year but the end of the year is still the time when they will come out in abundance. Dabai and durians have been out for a few months now – it did not use to last this long – and are cheaper. I guess people are getting tired of the fruits so not many are buying them anymore…but we did buy some dabai last weekend at RM16.00 a kg, very good ones that would probably fetch around RM25.00-30.00 a kg earlier in the season. Despite the drop in prices, I do not usually buy any to eat – even at the lower prices, I still think it is expensive but I would buy on weekends as my girl enjoys eating them.

We had a few on Saturday night for dinner but my missus “forgot” to prepare any for lunch the following day before we sent our girl back to her school in the jungle. She did not want to bring along any with her to eat there so there we were, stuck with the rest of the fruit. That evening, my missus “forgot” AGAIN…so I took the whole lot and prepared all of them to finish them off at one go. We cannot keep this fruit for long as the skin will become wrinkled and thick so it will not be nice anymore. I guess I lived to face the consequence and the very next day, I came down with a terrible cough.

I woke up with a bad cough the next morning but that did not stop me from doing the spring cleaning that had to be done and my t-shirt was a little wet with my sweat, just a little, so I did not bother to change it when I went and had my nap that afternoon…and later that day, I did get caught in a slight drizzle and that did it! I came down with a fever and started sneezing and had a running nose…and I was up all night, every half an hour, to go to the toilet and I was shivering away the whole time. By morning, I was already half dead! I stayed in bed all day the next day, slept a lot and was better the day after, still very weak but no, life goes on – there are things that need to be done. I guess with the little time I have left and since I am not in top form, I would just have to be happy with what I can do…and leave out the rest.

In the meantime, my god-son/ex-student, Andrew and family are home from New Zealand for Chinese New Year and they brought me these…

I guess I’m the only one in the house who can eat the Tim Tams now as it has wheat in its ingredients but I really wonder what this is supposed to mean…

I see this at the back of boxes and packets of a lot of products. Is this just a precautionary warning just in case someone eats it and comes out with some adverse reactions and the company ends up getting sued for it? I am pretty sure they do clean all the machines and their premises as well. I suppose this boils down to one thing – eat at your own risk?

I’ve tried the new Tim Tam, mango flavour…

…but I could hardly detect the mango flavour, maybe just a bit as it was almost completely drowned out by the overwhelming taste of the chocolate. It did come across like fresh mango though, not the horrible mango essence flavour that we may find sometimes in the cream in some of our local-made biscuits.

Nonetheless, it was nice…but like all Tim Tams, it was very sweet so I would have to confine myself to maybe just one a day which obviously means that it would be quite a while before I can get to try the pineapple…or maybe I’ll just keep that to serve to the people who drop by for Chinese New year on a first come, first serve basis – pineapples, very auspicious…ONG LAI!!!