Hello, Mr. Sun

"Nothing good ever happens after 2am."

Right after quoting this line from How I Met Your Mother, the girls and I (all mabuk and mamai) made a decision to watch the sun rise at Primrose Hill the next morning. It was 2.05am on a Saturday, and the sunrise was at 7.40am. I don't know why we even agreed to give the plan a go...

A few hours later I was woken up by a chorus of alarms, none of which was even mine! All six of us got up for Fajr and got ready to head out, all in silence simply because it was too early for any noise. I sleepily said to Bihah, "Bihah, remember when we made a decision at 2 in the morning?" "Uh huh?" "Yeah, let's not do that again."

It was super cold outside as we were all dressed for a pleasant autumn's day – thin jumpers/tops, light jackets, sans gloves. By the time we reached Primrose Hill it was already a few minutes after the actual sunrise, but the sky still had hues of purple and brilliant orange and we could just barely see the sun peeking out on the horizon behind London's skyline. MasyaAllah. It was just so breathtaking that no words or pictures can do it justice. We took a few pictures with the magnificent background (of course), and then we just sat and watched the whole thing unfold. Something as beautiful as this cannot and will never be properly captured with a camera lens.

No idea what these two were up to

Sheera, the tiny genius behind the lens

London's skyline

A random group of joggers who thought we were tourists and so insisted that we took a picture with them

When it got a little too chilly on the hill we took off and had breakfast at a tiny cafe nearby. The area was still so peaceful at the time; such a contrast to London's usual hustle and bustle, and I have to admit that it was kind of nice. After breakfast we made our way to Emirates Stadium to bring the little Özil fan (Sheera) around for a quick tour outside the stadium. I sent a picture to my family group just to let them know what we were up to and my dad replied, "Apahal lak pi Emirates?" Hahaha I had to explain to him that we were just being tour guides.

Guys, I'm pretty sure I'm at the wrong place

We went back home then, to do the laundry and pray before going out yet again to meet a few of the KY boys at Malaysia Hall for lunch. It was only supposed to be lunch, but after that the Southampton boys wanted to go around London for a bit, so (surprise surprise!) we took them to Buckingham Palace. From there we walked to Big Ben through St. James Park. It was such a lovely day to be out! People were walking their dogs, hanging out with their families, feeding the animals, lounging on the grass... It was basically the epitome of a perfect weekend.

In this last picture, I was actually calling a squirrel because I had a piece of biscuit in my hand and I wanted to feed it. But instead this duck came to me, and when I didn't want to feed it, it got mad and grumpily bit the metal railing a few times. Hahaha it was just so funny.

So anyway, after Big Ben the girls and I rushed back home to cook. The boys (and a couple of others) were coming over for dinner. We were gonna make chicken rice for the first time... and among the six of us, I was supposedly the 'head chef'.

No, that's not a good thing.

Shaza & Sheera made banoffee pie for dessert, while the rest of us were cramped up in the little kitchen, panicking and trying to get everything done in less than 2 hours. "Does this taste okay?" "How is the soup supposed to taste like?!" "Is this how you marinate the chicken?!" "Do we have enough rice?" But alhamdulillah, everything turned out alright and everyone enjoyed the meal. We also surprised Safwan with candles on the pie because it was his birthday only a few days back.

By 11pm all of us girls were so damn lemau from the eventful day that we had. It was difficult to even form a proper sentence. It was a crazy day, really, what with all the spontaneous plans and all after only 3 hours of sleep. But I definitely had a fantastic day with the girls. Sooo much love for them lah. Really looking forward to spending another weekend with them again.

I guess our 2am decision wasn't so bad after all :)

Photos by Shahirah Hasbullah
(I give up trying to align the pictures together. I'll just have to pretend that it doesn't bother me)

A piece of heaven

I think many people would agree that one of the best things in life is seeing your parents smile and hearing them laugh. What's even better is when you know that you put those smiles on their faces. When you were the one to make them laugh. I love it when that happens. It feels so rewarding and, as cheesy as it sounds, it always fills my heart with warm bubbles of absolute joy.

It's one of the little things that I miss the most about home when I'm in London. Back at home I was always up to silly and weird things that would make my mother facepalm herself and wonder loudly, "Where did I go wrong?!" But in the end it would still make her laugh and say, "Menyampah la tengok awak ni," and for some reason that usually makes me really happy.

This morning over breakfast, I randomly decided to watch a video on Bayyinah TV about mothers. In the introduction video, Nouman Ali Khan explained the definition of the Arabic word for 'mother' and where it was derived from. This is what I love about the Arabic language: a lot of the words are derived from old terms, so each word has their own 'history', so to speak. In this case, the Arabic word for mother, 'Umm', has different implications – leadership, uniqueness, foundation, and the most important unit (to name but a few). I'm not going to elaborate on everything, but the bottom line is, obviously, our mothers are the most important person in our lives and in the shaping of our being.

Most of the good things happening to us right now are a direct impact of someone's prayer for us... and that 'someone' is usually our mother. Isn't it? No matter how old you are, and how old she is, a mother's sole concern will always be the wellbeing of her children. There are times when the only person who can make things better is your mother. There's a saying that goes, "A mother is she who can take the place of all others, but whose place no one else can take." Damn right.

I don't know whether watching the video was a good or a bad idea, because now I'm feeling a little homesick -___- I wish I could quickly fly back home, give my mom (and my dad, and my siblings, and my maid, and maybe everyone in KL) a great big hug and a kiss and come back here. But that obviously ain't gonna happen.

I just wanted to share this and make you guys homesick too because I didn't want to be the only one. Haha, kidding. I just figured that it would be nice to remind everyone that there's at least one person in our lives who will keep cheering us on no matter what happens, and that that person is none other than the one who gave birth to us. I think moms are a piece of heaven.

Towards the end of his video, Nouman said, "The joy of our mothers is not just a gift of Allah to them (i.e. our mothers); the joy and happiness of our mothers is a gift of Allah to us. When our mothers are happy, we will find a good life." 

I think that statement's self-explanatory. Time to make our mothers happy!