A tale of two weddings and happenings sandwiched in between at autumn at Melbourne 2023

234! What's that when we first heard it? It was the date of Amanda and Ben's wedding in Melbourne on 23rd April 2023. So Sue Ann,Jason,me and Andrew and Lydia Seoh flew off to Melbourne for the autumn vineyard wedding cum holiday. And holiday we did!

22nd April 2024 Saturday.Margaret and Eric took us chestnuts picking since they were in season. We drove to their lovely home and thoroughly enjoyed their fruitful garden. Then off to Emerald in Dandenong Ranges while admiring the train track of Puffy Billy and for a very yummy brunch at Emerald Village Bakery and Cafe and photos around Emerald.

Chestnut picking at Chestnut Springs, Gembrook was one fun activity! We walked downhill to the lake and the chestnuts grove. We have to step (with proper shoes please) on the spiky fruits that had dropped on the ground ( only the dropped fruits are ripe enough) and then select the bigger of the 3 nuts enclosed within. We picked and audited the size of nuts and paid for 5 kgs. We climbed trees. We walked back uphill with 3 buckets of nuts. We saw oak trees grown for truffles and also colourful toxic mushrooms.

After that we went to Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden for a lovely walk.

Back to Margaret and Eric house for a sumptious dinner. Margaret is one superwoman who has cooked main dishes in advance. We help Margaret prepare 2 salads but I messed up big time by pouring the salad sauce into the wrong salad. Ooooops...Sorry.

Sunday 23423. We went to Planet Shakers Church service. We were very impressed by the young energetic ushers. Pastor's message started with a bad mistake he had made and asked us to remember our mistakes. I remembered pouring the salad sauce in the wrong salad and knew God wanted me to know there I had His forgiveness for my silly mistakes. South Melbourne market was just a few minutes walk from the church. Sue Ann lined up for a super long queue at Agathé Pâtisserie. We had oysters and seafood at Claypot Evening Star. We went home early to prepare for the evening wedding

The weather was unbelievable beautiful and sunny at 22 oC at the outdoor wedding in Hubert Estate in the Yarra Valley.The sky was so blue and sunset was glorious . The indoor dinner was fun with games,free flow and yummy food. Thanks so much to Chris and Serena Lum for the hospitality and congratulations Ben and Amanda!

The next day, we drove to PT. Leo Estate in Mornington for a fine dining 8-course lunch at Laura. It took 3.5 hours after we hurried them. We enjoyed the sculptures and drove to Coltwolds to enjoy dinner at Nelson and Susan's home and caught up with old times. Nelson's hobbies and expertise is being the DIY car mechanic for the many cars in his family and around his house. We enjoyed their lovely garden, saw Nel's DIY and plucked lavender.

25th April Tuesday. We went downtown for Chinese dimsum at Flower Drum and shopping.It was fun to ride the tram to Flinders and walked to Queen Victoria's Garden.We returned home to a yummy home cooked dinner by Chris. The highlight was Chris' Assam curry Tailors freshly fished from Tathra a few days ago. Amanda and Ben's house at North Clyde was our 5* airbnb with 7* meals by Chris and Serena, 7* butler service by Fong and butler with superb bartender service by Ben.

Wednesday 26th April - we dropped Lydia and Andrew at the airport for their Adelaide leg while we continued to Macedon, the hub for Bendigo gold rush in the 1850's. Autumn was in her full glory here both at Honor Avenue and Forest Glade Gardens.There were Korean drama pic and video poses. We completed our day with shopping and dinner at Chaddy's.

27th April Thursday. We went to Redhill in Mornington for wine tasting followed by fish and chips and wonderful ice cream in Sorrento. We attempted to find the Millionaire's Walk at PortSea - we were so very near and although we did view the Artists' Trail but we did not know we had to push past the door with label "Pick up dog poo". We went to Mount Martha with lovely sandy beaches and did silly giggly jumps from the colurful beach boxes. We ended the day with more shopping dinner and packing.

The Yeongs flew home on 28th April. The Seohs continued on till 1st May 2023. Thank you Chris and Serena, Amanda and Ben for the hospitality. Eric and Margaret's daughter Arielle and Adrian had the Dandenong outdoors garden wedding ceremony planned for 7th May 2023. Meanwhile, temperatures in Melbourne dipped to below 4 oC. We who had returned home prayed hard for them to have sunny weather. God was indeed gracious. The temperature was 11 and the sun came out at 2 pm just before the wedding ceremony at 2.45 pm. Hallelujah!

5+ years after the stroke

On 1st of May 2023, I met some friends who had family struggling with recovery from stroke. The chat prompted me to write this post to encourage those connected with stroke patients that there is indeed hope for recovery post stroke. Early intervention is best but late intervention is better than no intervention. During this 5+ years recovery journey, I have met other strokees who have recovered. Please do feel free to share with anybody in need. The stroke struck me on 6th October 2018 ( please refer to the previous post. https://musingsdebbie.blogspot.com/2019/07/a-stroke-of-genius-and-stroke-of-love.html.) What are the things I can do with ease and what limitations are still with me? Definitely the one thing that surprised and pleased me was taking up water colour painting. I wrote about this on the blogpost Romancing my soul at https://musingsdebbie.blogspot.com/2020/. I have since then, framed some paintings and six paintings adorn our walls whilst some have been given to friends.

Another source of pleasure is improvement on my ping pong games, thanks to several dedicated and caring ping pong sifus; namely Reachman Lim and his wife Shirlyn Lim and Trixie Ch'ng all at Eco Warriors. They patiently drill me and other. I am just so happy to see the improvement and have great joy in playing. Our Sunday evenings are for ping pong and dinner with the ping pong group.

My current number of days where I walked 10 k steps daily is 806 days on 1st May 2023. Before the stroke, I didn't really bother about this and after the stroke, one of the first things I had to do was to learn to walk steadily without leaving my shoes behind. 2019 records a 31 days streak, 2020 records a 33+ 22 = 55 days streak. I did not take records for 2021 and 2022 but the accumulated days of 10k steps is 806 days. I cycle regularly and try to make 25 km a week.

I took up sour dough baking during the early days of the pandemic lockdown. It is an art and science and both mind and hands must be engaged to feel the the activity level of the starter, texture of the dough,the temperatures of kitchen, fridge and oven settings.

I spend time gardening. The early days of the lockdown also saw me learning and teaching basic Biblical Hebrew and again there was much joy at learning a new language and understand Biblical perspectives better.

Before the pandemic post stroke, I travelled under supervision with family and friends to Israel, Jordan, Japan, Thailand, Canada, USA. Post pandemic I travelled around Peninsula Malaysia and went on several trips to interior Sabah - Pitas, Kudat area and also to Semporna and Tawau. We then went to Sydney in 2022 and Melbourne in 2023 and also made several trips to Thailand. So I am have recovered well enough to travel far and wide and I travelled alone home from Tawau.

In January 2022, I started a fully online course - Master in Eduation. I chose the fully online version because I didn't know how long the pandemic was going to last and I did not want to risk my health nor the health of my 4-generation family. The stroke actually put off all thoughts of studying formally again since I had to learn to walk, write,drive, bike and other basic functions. I certainly did not want to stress myself and face the risk of another stroke. However I am pleased to report I am doing well in this course despite being the oldest ( in my batch) and that my brain neural recovery is on track. I am so happy to receive 92.94% for the recent assignment of April 2023.

What are the effects I still have from the stroke? My right arm is super sensitive to temperature changes, I often wear a sleeve over it to prevent the cold feeling. My right hand is not as dextrous as beforeand writing things down clearly requires far more time compared to previously I am grateful to the Lord Jesus Chrst for this recovery.Mentally I think I am stronger than before. Physically I am doing activities I did not carry out before. I am grateful to friends and family who visit and supported me during the recovery period.

My dear husband Jason has been the strong support through this crisis.

What a change from the days when I was first admitted to Putrajaya hospital. .

Reasons for joy with family. Thank you Lord. My cup overflows

Training Teachers and Students to learn Hands-On, Heads -On and Hearts-On.

My reflections on early childhood led me to an incident where my dad had bought me a fascinating magical toy. I took the toy apart in an attempt to understand how the magic worked and never was able to put it back again in the original condition so that was the end of my toy. So all my life, I have got the "itchy" Hands syndrome. I never really understand something unless I get my hands on it. The first official school I was posted to SMSS Sekolah Menengah Sains Selangor was a fully residential premier science school. Here they had 6 fully equiped science labaratories. They had the apparatus to conduct every single experiment and activity found in the textbooks. It was very good for me as here I received proper excellent hands-on training in conducting science experiments. My next school SMK Padang Tembak was a day school surrounded by Malay villages, police quarters and migrant settlements.In all honesty and without disrespect in any way, the majority of the students came to school more to socialise than to study.There was no way to get their attention unless.... they had fun learning via experiments, activities and competitions. We did many fun competitions; who could hold up the tallest inverted container filled with water without the water spilling out; who could support the most weights using a suction pump, build the best water rockets etcetera. We certainly had hands-on and hearts-on fun times but the cognitive heads-on learning was more challenging. But when ICT came in to the Malaysian schools system, the kids created beautiful and interesting personalised powerpoints that had slides showing them conducting the experiments and activities as well as the explaination needed to score the marks for the examination. It was here I saw how the hands-On learning engaged the heart and finally the heads-on cognitive learning clicked and they experienced learning in all 3 aspects of pyschomotor, affective and cognitive.And so through the next 2 schools and post retirement, I realized teaching and learning the entire human being with the hands-On, Heads-On and Hearts-On skills to be more meaningful.

During the pandemic, implementing this via Zoom seemed challenging but I had some happy times still. I was asked by Jimmy and Wee Lai of Starfish Foundation to purchase scientific lab apparatus and equipment for SK Methodist Kapit. It took some time and effort to source the apparatus and send them to Kapit. I decided to also purchase the lap equipment for my own use in my house since i could not go down to Kl to borrow lab apparatus as be fore. I did several sessions online with SK Methodist Kapit Science teachers.

Somehow I find great joy in teaching in this style ad the response of the learners are very encouraging.

January 2023. I decided to go island hopping from Semporna in Sabah with Loo Kee in December as I had an air ticket that had to be redeemed before 15th January 2023. It was however with some trepidation as I was just recovering from a left knee injury. Soon after, an invitation to teach 1 day in Tawau Vision School came as I had taught them last year in January 2022 via Zoom. There was even more trepidation. I prayed and asked friends to pray that I continue to recover and would have the strength to teach 2 slots for students and 2 slots for teachers. I was fearful that if the pain struck me, I would spoil the trip for Loo Kee and also I would be unable to do the program in the school. My redeemed ticket allowed me a baggage limit of 35 kg. It was great as it allowed me to bring in about RM3500/-++ worth of science apparatus ( paid for by the school) in a big red suitcase as it was difficult for them to purchase apparatus in Tawau. The weight was more cause for trepidation but I heard God's reassurances. Two boys from Tawau Vision school met us at the Tawau airport and ferried the lab suitcase so I did not have to handle the bulky suitcase anymore in our travels to Semporna 106 km away. God has certainly been faithful. I did not need to wear any knee braces during the 6 days despite doing 6 snorkeling sessions a a fair bit of walking. I only used my TENs machine once on the last night.I used the Eli cream when needed only. We saw 3+ 6+2 turtles in the 7 islands hopping! The last day was the Tawau training. It started early with Chuu Wei picking me up at 6.15 am. I am amazed and happy at how God 'adjusted and steered' each session. The physics slot was ' shortened' because the Powerpoint I saved was truncated but the timing was perfect. The science slot was ' lengthened' as there was no LCD in the lab so we focussed totally on the 15 teachers learning hands-on, heads-on and hearts on skills. I was most concerned for the teachers session as we had teachers from primary, secondary n international section. Also apart from their diverse backgrounds, I had a very short time ( 45 mins) because I had to rush for my flight back. God gave the idea to get the science teachers ( 4 groups) to demonstrate 4 different experiments to the other teachers. Normally that takes a longer time for people who have just learnt the skills ( from 12 - 2.30 pm) to demostrate ( 2.45 - 3.30 pm) but they knew my time constraints and they sportingly, quickly and happily demonstrated what they just learnt and we all enjoyed the ' students- teachers centred ' approach. When I unpacked my bags last night, I found a delightful thank you card from Tawau Vision school. My lab apparatus suitcase - empty of apparatus - was now filled with seafood goodies - gifts from the school.