Whizzing Through South West London

And then it was the year of the World Cup.

Lots of big beefy men gathering together to cheer on what can only be said as the world's largest and most influential sporting event.

Occurs once every 4 years.

And then there was Nigel the lad who decides to celebrate the first game of England vs USA by inviting a few of us over to his farm-converted-to-house home.

In Wiltshire.

Now.

Where on earth is Wiltshire??

Fret not. Nowadays, there are innovations called SatNavs.

And being the poor foreigner that I am, having no car really sucks.

It cripples your style, it decreases your quality of life by 10 fold and it just makes you the uncoolest kid around.

You know how in the past, it is all about what watch you wear in primary school?

Yes, the Baby Gs and G Shocks with its blue backlit face - if you can programme your name to flash the alphabets in its digital surface, you become top dog among the 11 year olds.

I don't even remember wearing a watch.

Probably a Mickey Mouse one.

Bought from Disneyland.
Hey, if I am cool enough to go to Disneyland, surely I should be highly regarded?

Oblivion is indeed bliss.

Then one graduates to secondary school and suddenly it is all about what bag you carry.

Yeah, Eastpaks and Jansports are the name of the game, if your bag had a suede leather base, you automatically join the popular crowd.

I mean rich crowd.

I carried a... gosh, so insignificant I can't even remember..

Timberland.

Aye.

Brand of shoes can.

Then when you proceed on to college, it's all about what car you drive. The ugliest and chubbiest boy in school can suddenly be head of the cool crowd if he powers a Nissan Skyline.

Or Mitsubishi Evo.

Or Mazda RX5.

Doesn't matter if it is daddy's car (of course it will be!).
I drove a golden Honda City. Shared between my sister and brother.
And mother.

It's cool the fact that it is gold in colour.

Enough said.

Then university comes and it is where you can afford to stay that puts you in the upper ladder of society.

So up in Edinburgh, if you stayed at QuarterMile, ensure you have signed a pre-nup before you get hitched.

If your parents bought the flat in QuarterMile, then seriously, just donate more to the poorer students can. Buy us dinner more often or something.

I stayed 4 years in a lovely university owned flat.

And now that I have officially joined the working crew, I find that I am left car-less and home-less.

While everyone had homes to go to during the boring weekends in Maidstone, I was left to be by myself most of the time.

While everyone had homes to go to during annual leave, I had to frantically find things to do, or plan holidays way in advance.

Not that it is bad, I don't have a car to drive to anywhere anyway.
Trekking to London with public transport can honestly be a bitch. But London became my home.

Or more like Liwan/Daniel/Mel's flat became my home.

Wait, I digress.

Back to original story; Alka drove us all in her little VW Golf to look for this farm in Wiltshire and that was when Lottie decided that wtf we should all just go to hers for lunch.


So drove to another even tinier village called Chilmark (I use to think villages were only associated with tiny and quaint English countryside dwellings from my childhood of Enid Blyton stories, or villages are kampungs; essentially rural and wooden houses on sticks, aka Malaysia kampungs), where the Carter household was situated.

I was pleasantly surprised I have to say - we arrived at a pretty Victorian style house with rose brambles crawling up the side walls onto the eaves.

What made it even more rustic was her back garden, where a solitary tree stood in the middle of the expanse with a whole load of roses in all its blooming glory draping casually off it's branches.

Very. Pretty. Indeed.

We shouldn't forget that our main purpose of getting here was for lunch. At this point, I was ravenous, ready to eat a whole pot of Bak Kut Teh.

Wait, digress again.

You know right, you are expected to call angmohs moms and dads by their first name.

SUPER WEIRD CAN!

Sorry if you don't find it weird, I do. I have already stopped myself long time ago calling them Uncle and Aunty and forced myself to address them Simon or Laura despite feeling really rude.

If my children call my friends parents Bob and Nancy next time, I will smack them.

Then you come to the part where there is ambiguity.

At Ben's house, his mom was English but dad Malaysian. Born and bred Malaysian. So when I enter his household, I say, hello Susan, and hello... er... Uncle ...er.. Patrick... er Uncle Patrick ... er...

Embarrassed max.

Mumbled something in a very deep undertone hoping people would pass it of as one of Rachel's inability to pronounce words.

Ok, back to Bak Kut Teh lunch dream.

Not disappointing whatsoever, we were served a lovely refreshing salad and bread with butter.

I really did not expect much because I know English people are essentially much much more simple at heart compared to Asians.
If you go to someone's house in Asia for lunch or dinner - expect no less than a 5 course meal. Full fat, cholesterol laden and calorie overload.

Step down to 'I am coming for tea' - no less than an array of scones, cake, chocolate, biscuits, kuih, currypuff and possibly some of the pasar pagi makcik's specially-made-super-best-only-available-on-today's delectable delight of some sort and form.

Wash them down with bottomless tea and coffee. Have to have both.

No such thing as I serve you salad.
Eat leaves and grass for your meal?!?!
No class.
At All.

But whole different story across continents.

It was a lovely fresh salad with feta cheese (another of my newly found loves) and bread with butter.

So butter.

Comes in all sorts and forms, but I do agree, good butter tastes different. Difficult to explain, sort of good red wine and cheap red wine, you get my point.

Well, I was so hungry, I ate loads of bread and butter, and later washed it all down with tea. I have become impartial to drinking English tea with milk.

Milk here tastes different from Malaysia.
A cup of tea in Malaysia with local milk just does not make the cut. I have to figure out a way to bring back an English cup of tea when I return home in the future.

Then we explored Lottie's house for a bit - low ceilings with beams, carpeted throughout, lots of small rooms - the study, the wet kitchen, dry kitchen, living room..

They even had an Aga. My virgin encounter with this old fashioned boiler/stove was met with a whole explanation of its works by Lottie's dad who actually made us tea and coffee by boiling a kettle of water on it! It doubles up as a central heater too and keeps the entire house warm during the chilly winter months.
According to Uncle.
I mean, Charles.

We concluded our afternoon with profuse thanks (of course, I am Asian, must say thank you 10,000 to the power of 1 million) and made our way to final destination - Cuckoo Farm, Wiltshire.

Like how you get to all farms, you need to go through a maze of narrow, meandering country roads with a one way system; all sporting the national speed limit.

Madness.

Lots of close shaves and screaming by driver Alka, but we finally made it to THE farm.

Massive 3 storey building with a kitchen I would kill for.

The boys were already there, and we spent the evening watching England draw with USA and lots of booze.

Yeah, celebrating when England scored the first goal. We all know what happened after

Wah, I know I say many a time that my alcohol intake has increased 1 million fold since I started F1.

But really.

Thinking back again to this weekend, there was just beer everywhere. That would naturally tempt you to drink despite not really wanting to drink as your peers are doing it.

So pick up a beer of can you will, pop it open you do and down it you must.

Good thing the deficient gene always helps by reducing the amount I can cap.

Dinner was BBQ that was really quite good, with lots of banter and horsing around.

That night was spent lounging in Nigel's comfy sofas and talking about random things.

Fast forward to next morning.

We went for a walk in the woods - another flashback down memory lane from Enid Blyton and we finally ended up back in his kitchen preparing Sunday roast.
My, Nigel's friend Duncan is Quite the cook.

What would I give for my future husband to be a good cook?

Quite a lot.

Roast chicken with au naturale gravy (non of these granules nonsense), roast potatoes, parsnip and butternut squash mash... made 12 very happy human beings.

Did you know that butternut squash is uber difficult to cut up? Not worth it to eat at all.

So a full weekend of doings and we were heading back to Maidstone when Alka piqued up - she wanted to stop en route to her house for a rest.

Just off the M25, we arrived at the Savani Mansion.

From the top of the backyard that overlooks a golf course

The bottom of the backyard looking towards the house

Look like football field can.

It was modern built, huge rooms, built in radio for all bedrooms - just a click of a button away, Madagascar granite table tops... conservatory that doubles up as a dining/party hall...

Wah.

See. Should have done pharmacy instead of medicine and be as well off as Uncle Savani.

Although, I think it is time to come clean now.

That middle big white thing is really my home ok.
And the other small independent bungalows around it?

Part of the family collection.

Don't.
Jealous.