Lilliput Lane Cottage Part5

Every year I will tell my other half that I don’t want any Lilliput lane cottages anymore.  I have enough Lilliput Lane cottages in my collection and have no place to display them but… he still purchase them for me. Thank you for being able to read my actual thoughts hehehe.  He normally purchased them via eBay and get them to be sent to our daughter’s house in the UK as the postage within UK is free. If you intend to purchase them from the shop… be prepared to pay a very premium price as I think the price has gone up since the demise of the founder Dave Tate in January 2017 after a nine-year battle with cancer. So my advice is.. get them from eBay.

Let’s look at two of my collections..

Make A Wish.

It is from The British Collection and was introduced by Lilliput lane in 1988 and is now retired. This lovely little wishing well is truly amazing. It measures approximately 2.3″ H, 2″ L, 2″ W. You can find this type of fancy well head in a formal gardens or parks.

 

Gulliver’s Wishing Well

It is from Visitors Centre Special collections. It was introduced in 2003 was retired in 2009. Measures approximately 7.4cm x 5.6cm x 5.4cm. Gulliver’s Wishing Well was located on the original company site at Skirsgill, Penrith, Cumbria.  A lot of Visitor Centre tourist has had their photo taken at the well and Lilliput Lane finally decided to issue a memento for those dedicated collectors.

Okay.. that’s all that I have time for today. See you again next time.

 

Fridge Magnet London Europe Trip 2012 – Part 5

Switzerland is one of the country that I always wanted to visit… fell in love with its beautiful scenery and landscape. Switzerland is always breathtaking no matter when you decided to visit… its just amazing masha Allah.

Here are some great shots that we managed to capture during our last trip to Switzerland…

The lake at the bottom of Mt Cox and King, Switzerland

Tell me if this is not breathtaking….

Top of Mt Cox and King

Thrummelbach Fall from far…

Trummelbach Fall entrance

Jungrfau… Top of Europe

Okay… now these are my new FMs for Switzerland, France and Austria for your viewing.

Switzerland FM

My Swiss Army Knife FM

France FM

Champs-Élysées – the famous street in France

Mont-Blanc – Plate Number FM

Mont-Blanc – Coin FM

Le Mer de Glaze (Sea of Ice) – France

Aiguille Du Midi (Needle of the South)- France

Austria FM

Austria Symbol Flower – Edelweiss

Fridge Magnet London Europe Trip 2012 – Part 4

Assalamualaikum and a very good Monday to all. Hope you will have a productive week ahead. I know that it is only Monday but I’m so looking forward to Friday he he he. Gatal je kaki ni nak go window shopping this morning… but apakan daya, Sofea is on study break which means “day dreaming” if I’m not here to supervise… and my eldest daughter Aina is also on study leave. Her last paper is Thinking Skill… macamana nak study tu? She been doing lots of questions on that subject because that is the only way to prepare yourself for the exam. Want to have a peek at the question? Okay.. I’ll give you one or two just to test your thinking skill.

1. If you were alone in a deserted house at night, and there was an oil lamp, a candle and firewood and you only have one match, which would you light first?

2. You have to choose between three rooms.
The first is full of raging fires
The second is full of tigers that haven’t eaten in 3 years.
The third is full of assassins with loaded machine guns.
Which room should you choose?

3. To the nearest cubic centimetre, how much soil is there in a 3m x 2m x 2m hole?

Orait… enough with that. Let me know if you know the answers. Back to our business haha ha. Okay… Italy. The weather was so hot and humid during our visit to Rome, Venice and Florence, and we had to do a lot of walking while we were there. The temperature was about 40C and super duper humid. If you are planning to visit Italy, do not go during summer… you won’t enjoy it. We spent so much money on water and mind you, it was not cheap. A bottle of 500ml mineral water cost about 2 euros. Let me just just give you an example…  when the bus stop at the Colosseum,  we bought 5 bottles of water which cost us 10 euros and on the way back to the bus we need to buy another 5 bottles… so in total it cost is 20 euros which if you were to convert that to RM… it will be about RM 80 or in KD it will be KD7. Crazy…. duit habis memang macam air.

Anyway, I bought tons of fridge magnet in Italy… my other half said that I went “crazy” due to the heat… ha ha ha. So we decided to give away some as souvenirs. So these are all that I decided to keep for myself.

My Italia FM

Venice Slippers

Venice Stamp FM

Venice

Florance FM

St Peter’s Square FM

Colosseum FM

Italy Map  – Wooden FM

Italy Map – Metal FM

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Fridge Magnet London Europe Trip 2012 – Part 3

Last Saturday Kuwait marked the golden jubilee of its constitution with a spectacular KD 4 million fireworks display along their Gulf Road. How much is KD 4 million again? Well, it is about $15-million, which is equivalent to £10million and if you want to know the cost in RM… it is about RM44 million. It is a really huge sum of money to be spent on fireworks don’t you think? Anyway, that night Kuwait made history… a total of 77,282 fireworks were displayed over a duration of  1 hour which earned them a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Mabrook!

Here are some of the images that I took from dailymail UK website.

Spectacular fireworks in Kuwait

Kuwait celebrates Constitution jubilee

KD 4 million worth of fireworks

Bright white fireworks

Red and purple ray of colours…. masyaallah. So beautiful..

Okay… back to our business he he he. Germany was one of the country that we visited during our last summer holidays. In Germany, we visited Cologne, Boppard, take a cruise along the River Rhine, Heidelberg, drive through Black Forest and our last stop was Drubba where the Cuckoo Clock Factory is located. And now I present to you my new Germany’s FM … happy viewing.

Germany Map

Deutschland aka Germany

Round FM

River Rhine

Heidelberg… education city

Cuckoo clock- Black Forest,Germany

Cologne

Fridge Magnet London Europe Trip 2012 – Part 2

Our 3rd country in this 15 days tour was Netherlands or to most of us it is referred as “Holland” which is technically incorrect, as “Holland” is actually a region in the central-western part of the Netherlands. “Netherlands” actually means the Low Countries… 20% of its area is below sea level and and 50% of its land lying less than one meter above sea level. So, due to the nature of  this low land, you can see lots of ditches along the countryside especially around farmland that are used as a drainage to drain water from these low lying areas. Their countryside sceneries are breath-taking…

Okay… enough with the facts… lets look at my new addition of FM… the Netherlands… where selling marijuana at “the coffee shop” is legal…

Marijuana in Amsterdam

My Amsterdam Alphabet FM

Holland is famous for their tulips and windmill

My Netherlands Map FM

Windmill

Clogs FM….

Pointed toes Clogs are for the fisherman

Rounded edges clogs are for farmers

Clogs (klompen)

Has to be farmer’s clog he he he

Fridge Magnet London Europe Trip 2012 – Part 1

Before we flew off to London last June, I told my other half that I’m not gonna buy any London fridge magnet anymore since I already have few of them from our last trip in 2010 but what can I say… I got to have the 2012 Olympic FM right …. he he he. So, I present to you my new UK FMs collection muahahaha.

Official London 2012 Olympic fridge magnet.

London 2012 Olympic

Bought this at Dover, UK before crossing over to Calais,France

Bought this in the gift shop at Dover

Beli kan mana lagi kalau tak kat Harrods.

Roman Bath FM that I bought on our 2nd day in UK

Brussels was our 2nd destination. Time given by the tour manager was rather short for us to shop around but we managed to grab a few FMs while we were at the Grand-Place…. siap kena marah lagi sebab lambat balik ke bus ha ha ha.

Brussels FM

Broodhuis at Grand-Place

Grote Markt (Grand-Place) Brussels

Brussels Architecture

Brussels

Brussels Map

Mannequin Pis, famous Brussels landmark

I love this rubber type of FM

Got to have this one as I got the similar type of FM from other cities he he he

Ebru Art

Ebru Art

Have you heard of Ebru Art before? Well, I didn’t know this kind of art ever existed and I was so impressed when I saw this guy creating this beautiful painting on water and then transfer them onto a piece of paper.  Yes… that’s right… painting on water. Me and my other half said that this is truly a water painting… So impressed by this we decided to stick around and talked to the guy. He told us that he was invited to do this art demonstration for 3 days as part of Mother’s Day celebration at the Avenues Kuwait (This was a couple of weeks back).

Artist demonstrating Ebru Art in Avenues Mall

Ebru is another name for Paper Marbling and it is one of the oldest Turkish arts. Paper Marbling  is the art of creating colorful patterns by sprinkling and brushing insoluble paint over dense water and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper or fabric.

Ebru Art - Flower and birds

If you look at the photo above, you can see that the background of the painting has some sort of marble effect. This can be obtained by dabbing your desired colour of paint in the water so that it creates blobs of paint on the top of the water and then used the other end of the brush to drag through the water and create the marbling effect. Well… same technique used to create marble effect on your cake really! Drawings or patterns can now be added onto this background. Flowers, birds, geometric designs and calligraphy are common choices for the Ebru Artist. The brushes that are used here are made from horse-tail and rose wood. Once the artist is satisfied with his painting, the absorbent paper is gently laid onto the surface of the water. Then the paper is lifted off and hung up to dry.

The artist - Garip Ay

Completed paintings on that day...

These are some of Garip Ay paintings that I took from his blog. Beautiful….

Garp Ay painting from his blog

Garip Ay Kervan

Garip Ay collection

Fridge Magnet – Paris & Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris FM

We went to Disneyland Paris during our UK-Paris summer holidays 2010.We had a great time in Disneyland and 3 days seems to be too short to cover all rides and shows in the Disneyland Park and the Walt Disney Studios.

Walt Disney Characters FM

We stayed at the Sequoia Lodge inside the park and it was totally awesome!

Mickey and Minie show FM

We spend 2 days in Paris and to tell you the truth, Paris is not a city for family with small kids… the bus and the subways (tube) are not design for baby strollers.

Eiffel Tower FM

Eiffel Tower FM

We took Paris City Hop On Hop Off Tour… it was worth it as we get to choose where we want to get off and get on the bus again.

Basilique du Sacre-coeur FM

Places of Interest FM

Paris FM

Flag of France FM

Paris FM - souvenir from a friend

Fridge Magnets

Brunei Darussalam - from UMRAH trip in 2001

First time FM really captured my interest was way back in the 90s when we visited my other half’s boss. The boss’s wife, Kak Mala collects FM and from the look of her super big fridge, I knew that she has been collecting them for quite some time. Every time I visit , I will definitely spend sometime admiring her collections and it was then that I decided to collect FM.

Kuwait... you know we get this right?

Unfortunately both of us just started working then and we do not travel much, so most of my FMs were the one that we  managed to grab whenever me or my other half went outstations or souvenirs from friends and families.

Malaysia - got this during our last visit home

My FM collections grew after we moved to Kuwait… we did a bit of traveling, so I managed to buy some whenever I traveled and not to mention that I also received FM souvenirs from friends in Kuwait whenever they traveled.

Switzerland - from my Honeywell ex-boss

Finland - from my Honeywell ex-boss

Lebanon - from my other half's office mate

David Winter Collection – Part 2

Our landline has not been fully functioning for the last 3 weeks. Last week I went to Ministry of Communication on Sunday to complain about it. They said they will fix it by the next day but came Wednesday the line was still not working. So, went again to see them and they said I need to call my internet provider to come to the Ministry and fix it. Alhamdulillah, the Gulf Net manage to fix it on the next day i.e Thursday but  guess what? Last Sunday it was not working again…. heeee tension betul la!

Today is the second time I went to the Ministry to sort things out and the lady at the complaint centre said they will fix it by today, insyaallah. Susah betul kalau kena deal dengan Ministry ni…. the only consolation is even though the land line is dead, the internet is still working…. thank God for that. If not, mati kutu la semua orang kat dalam rumah ni.

Never mind… relax dulu, let’s have a look at my cottage collection pulak. These are David Winter Cottages and they are absolutely beautiful. I bought them from eBay UK and have them shipped to my niece who is studying in Kent.

Single Oast cottage

This is Single Oast from the David Winter Regions collection.  An Oast house is essentially a farm building, typical in southern parts of England, used for drying hops and it has a very distinctive conical-roof. Nowadays there are a lot of this type of barn building that has been converted into a beautiful home.

The Bakehouse

The Bakehouse is from David Winter Main collection and was first introduced in 1983. Bakehouse by definition  simply means a building or area in which bread is made,  so that why I think you can see lots of fire wood  at the side of this cottage and it also has a large and high chimney.

Little Market

Little Market cottage is also from David Winter Main collection. It was first introduced in 1980. This cottage is gorgeous and to further appreciate the detail of this piece you will need a magnifying glass to pick out the baskets of produce and also fish on the counter outside the house.