In preparation for my retirement, I'm taking leave every Friday. Should there be important meetings scheduled for Friday, I'll replace the leave with the coming Monday. That's the deal with my PA who's keeping tract of my daily schedule. Yet with a major meeting Friday and the corporate monitoring scheduled for Monday, I have to make some exceptions. That was Wednesday last. Checking through my calender, my Thursday was free of commitments. So a day earlier leave for me. Nothing scheduled in particular but just to get used to be away from the office. There are loads of things to be done in the house, though retired friends usual experience were that, that carefree retirement life will only last for three months before one gets bored to death. I'll have to see to that.
I had my eldest delivering a load of durian to the house the night before. Never before have I seen such a pile in the house. Her quarters is endowed with mature fruit trees, including three grand durian trees. Bless the former residents. With only three of them in the house and only one durian eater (only my son-in-law takes durian), even after give aways to the neighbours and her immediate staff, there are still plenty leftover. So they took the one our drive to send us the fruits. So it was durian for after dinner (they arrived at about dinner time), durian for breakfast, lunch and you know when, for us. We had the besan over Thursday afternoon and again another durian feast complete with pulut and coconut milk for us. Nothing can be more finger licking good. Knowing our besan's love for the fruit, they have take-away fruits too.
In the evening we have hailers warning us to be prepared for a fumigation job by the Health Ministry. Seemed that somebody in the neighbourhood was down with dengue. So it was a rush to have our crockeries stored and food covered. With permission, the fumigators will come into the house to fumigate. And that was just what we did, allow them into the house so that the mosquitoes and other insect pests will be dealt with. The fumigant used for in-the-house fumigation is water based. The ones used outside is oil-based and smoke-type. Wish we have gone far away for either way both were equally suffocating. Should have taken pictures of both operations. Too bad for us, we just have the house vacuumed and mopped in the morning. Looks like we'll need to make a repeat of that to remove the fumigants from the floor. We have insect-proofed the house but with the family cat going out and coming in at liberty the proofing could not be a 100%.
Got this message from the KP's secretary to be in the office Friday to receive HE the South Korean Ambassador. It was to be an informal visit. But thinking it over now, we should have been better prepared for this is a rare opportunity for us to sell our organisation. The group was really keen on tropical fruits and the ambassador claimed his family as durian maniacs! So we promised to have three durian clones, mangosteen, papaya and rambutan plants to be delivered and planted in the ambassador's residence. We will also be supplying them with potted guava and wax apple plants. After some discussion and a view of the corporate video, the group was taken on a tour of the nursery. I'll need to remind the PR to get some of the our prized fruits for the embassador particularly durian, rambutan, mangosteen and papaya. The embassador was of the thought that papaya are creepers as the water melon! Not surprising for sometimes ago the Japanese thought the same of the durian. Imagine their surprise on seeing the durian fruits borne by those giant trees.
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