Because of the current circumstances (aka the vile virus that is stuffing up all our lives in more ways than we'd ever have believed possible), we won't be able to attend the funeral of the family member who passed away recently. The rest of the family have been really thoughtful, however, in making sure that we're involved, and can contribute in various ways.

Yesterday, Nigel recorded a tribute that will be played at the ceremony celebrating his relative's long and full life.

Daffodils feature in the readings and on the order of service, so we chose locally grown flowers that were closest in colour, and set about transforming our living room into a temporary recording studio.


Our recently acquired stack of drawers was split into two, with one half functioning as a flower stand, and the other as a camera stand (aided by our new sofa trays and a few library books). My new sofa desk propped up the phone containing the script.


Needless to say, it's hard to recall years of memories of someone you love without breaking down, so we needed to do several takes.

And from a practical point of view, it was all slightly farcical, which the person we're commemorating would have found very amusing.

We'd remembered to turn the aircon off, to avoid the rushy sound, but it turned out the camera can also detect the sound of the fan. So we had to kill that too. Then we needed to wait for various bursts of firecrackers to finish, and wait for the local dogs to finish barking at the firecrackers. Kuching, I swear, has some of the loudest motorbikes in the world, and one of those also chose a key moment to roar its way up the road. And as for the local chicken -- well, that bird has no sense of timing whatsoever, and just goes off randomly throughout the day.

But we eventually ended up with something presentable.

The funeral, which we can follow via a webcast, will be on Tuesday.

In other news, we celebrated Valentine's Day, in a somewhat subdued fashion, trying not to think of the much more interesting time we had last year in Lisbon.

The same day saw the 15th birthday of the Sarawak Heritage Society, of which we are members, albeit not very active ones. A little while ago I joined their WhatsApp chat group, which is a treasure trove of information about a whole range of topics. 

And that was the day we were gifted some goats' milk by the lady on the ground floor who distributes this commodity.



Meanwhile, Chinese New Year celebrations continue. 




Yesterday (the seventh day of the Lunar New Year) was "renri", the day when the birth of humankind is celebrated (a Chinese creation story records that humans arrived on the scene on the seventh day after the world was made). The traditional thing to eat on that day is lei cha, with seven types of vegetables. I didn't find out about this practice until it was too late to order in any lei cha (and very possibly, the relevant stalls would still be shut anyway). But I'm pretty confident we had seven vegetables over the course of lunch and dinner yesterday. 

Today, the eighth day, is the day when Hokkien families come together for late-night prayers and dinners in honour of the Jade Emperor's birthday tomorrow (a celebration known as Hokkien New Year, or Pai Ti Kong). One Hokkien explains: "The best part of Chinese New Year has always been Pai Ti Kong for me. My grandmother lives in an area with a lot of Hokkien people, so the neighbours would normally compete with each other in terms of fireworks before we settle down to eat at around 3am."

This year, like everything else, the festivities are all going to be a bit more subdued, but it will be interesting to see if we get more fireworks tonight.

I don't know if rain is traditional for Pai Ti Kong, but after a dry week, it has bucketed down today. I guess you need plenty of rain for sugarcane to thrive (many traditional stories recount how the Jade Emperor rescued the Hokkien people by means of sugarcane stalks).



And just some odds and ends to close with: