Birmingham, Moving Day and Husband-School

Tuesday, 2oth June 2005

A few more hours and I will be homebound. Leaving Brimingham for Dubai, with nary a purchase and loads of pounds. British pounds, that is. Rarely does this phenomenon happen, this sacred event of Raihan hardly spending on a layover trip. Shine, blue moon. Shine.

Oh wait.

I take that back.

I will be spending a wee bit at WHSmith. Foreign magazines have always been my weakness and this season's specialized weakness is....no....not Glamour. Not Red. Not Vogue. Not even Marie Claire.

It's home decor fever. So it'll be a toss up between the likes of GoodHomes or 25 Beautiful British Apartments. Or something to that effect. I really don't want to think about it now.

The new Birmingham crew hotel is beautiful. At first, I was a little peeved at the fact that they changed hotels and now far, far away from the cosy old town of Stratford. But Sollihul, where I am at now is just bursting with flowers, bushy green gardens, old English cottages and red-brick homes complete with red-brick driveways. I wish I had Ixus with me. Wistful, wistful, wistful...

Oh well, can't stay that way too long.

For as soon as I reach Dubai, I'll be on leave,baby! I'll hit the ground running. In some sort of crazy sequence (or not!) I'll be recharging, resting, packing, driving, screaming, arranging, re-arranging.....and decorating.

Yeah.

We'll be moving.

I cannot be in company-provided accomodation any longer. I feel like a college girl in a hostel sometimes. Especially this building...21st Century. All who reside here are young, boisterous and very very fun. Too fun sometimes coz all 53-stories house Emirates crew. Cabin crew and some pilots, though I think all the pilots have moved into their own homes by now. But one can imagine the atmosphere here in Club 21st Century. No cover charge applicable. Heh.

So we're moving to an apartment building with real neighbours I hardly know (and don't have to know), who will not diss me if I don't feel like extending cabin crew courtesies and whom I do not feel obligated to acknowledge since I am quite anti-social nowadays. Heh.

The place is a five-minute drive from Crew Briefing and a mere seven from the airport. It has everything and it's even a five-minute walk to THREE (yes count one,Al-Taawun Mall..two-Sahara Center..three-Al Ansar Mall!)SHOPPING MALLS! Ohh....the Mothership IS calling me home! Double heh.

Yeah, bliss. Moving into our very first home as husband and wife.

And so now, let me point out that we'll be in the midst of insane moving, frazzled furnishings, messy knick-knacks and everything in disarray but the love of my life is currently insisting that we take a short weekend off and fly up to Cairo since it's our first weekend off together in a long time.

"Takpelah...we fly over to Cairo kejap, see-see, do-do then fly back again in a few days and resume everything. We can also see Azzat and his school grounds and all and accompany Mak (his mom is in Cairo now)."

Glib is your tounge yet dense are your thoughts, my love.

He forgets that we have to fly back to Singapore as soon as we are done with our new place. He forgets that we have to see a few new babies and their gorgeous moms. We have to attend Mad Noor's wedding. I have to partake a little in the tempting GSS. We have to drive up to KL with Shireen and Malik. We have to live a little of our Singapore life or be forever damned as exiled Singaporeans. We have not even gone for our honeymoon yet.

He wants to go to Egypt for the weekend.

I think this is where husband-training is in order.

Manipulation mode sets in.