Macroflowers: Ginger flower

This post is to celebrate and congratulate my younger sister Margaret. She has been teaching at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak.

Today is the Sarawak Governor's birthday. Often on this occasion he would give honours to prominent people in the society. Margaret is to be awarded with a Pingat Bintang Kenyalang (Gold) on the occasion of the Governor's (TYT) birthday. This is the highest level for a government servant for that level. The next level is the Datuk category.

Our parents have died, otherwise, I am sure they would be very proud of her. The siblings rejoice with her achievement.


This was when Margaret was awarded with her PhD from the University of Christchurch. She did her studies in Lincoln College.


Last December, she visited New Zealand with her family. ( Sam is with them in the photo.) Her Alma mater welcomed her in Lincoln.

Margaret is an expert in plants, especially tropical plants. She conducts workshop for tour guides imparting her knowledge of Sarawak plants. I choose this native of Sarawak, the ginger flower to present to her. This is grown in the tropical green house in the Winter garden of the Auckland Domain.


I have joined this meme for a while now, and I am loving it. First I love flowers. Second, the badge for this meme is the North Borneo Orchid.

Join Macro Flowers Saturday, a photo meme for macro photos and close-ups of flowers, garden flowers, wildflowers, blossoms, flowers with insects and butterflies (no insects without flowers), flowers with raindrops and whatever beautiful plants, plant seeds or berries you have, in close-up.

First time visitors, please read the rules. They are simple but I do ask that you, please, use a MFS badge or link back to MFS in some way. Thank you.

Macro Flower Saturday

Chicken Pox

Callistemon citrinus - Crimson Bottlebrush founf both in Australia ans New Zealand. The flower spikes of bottlebrushes form in spring and summer and are made up of a number of individual flowers. The pollen of the flower forms on the tip of a long coloured stalk called a filament. It is these filaments which give the flower spike its colour and distinctive 'bottlebrush' shape. The filaments are usually yellow or red, sometimes the pollen also adds a bright yellow flush to the flower spikes.
Each flower produces a small woody fruit containing hundreds of tiny seeds. These fruits form in clusters along the stem, and are usually held on the plant for many years.




My nephews and niece in Australia have chicken pox and are off school. Thomas was vaccinated and still is affected. Helen is very creative and has a lot of things to keep them occupied. My other niece S says she had it twice.

When chicken pox was spreading in Singapore, my son S said he would stop eating chicken, in that way, he won't catch the disease.

My memories go back to when we had to shorten our travels when D was 9, and we found she had pox during her birthday party.

Grandpa's 71st birthday cake

This was a very formal event. The year was 1967. Here Grandpa aka Ah Kung was wearing the formal attire of a royal official of the Ming Dynasty. It was a black silk top. Underneath, he wore a loose fitting version of the modern day sexy Cheong Sum or Chi Piao. It was a black silk gown. Then he had a pair of pants. We were young and sniggered that Grand pa was wearing a woman's gown. Little did we know, until I grew up and watched Chinese TV.

Mum made his cake. It was a butter cake with royal icing. At that time, very few people had a western cake in Borneo. Mum had learned baking from the British wives of Dad's boss. An aunt brought some red Chinese paper cutting of auspicious words. Making it a perfect fusion of East and West. It was some sort of an omen. Five of the kids in the photo have chosen to live in Australia, New Zealand and England. The Chan Clan has spreaded far and wide across the ocean.

For breakfast, all of us were served with sweet long noodles. Yes, you read it right, the sweetness signifying a sweet life, and long noodles for long life to all who ate this noodles.

There was great feasting, and hundreds of guests were invited to a banquet lunch in a restaurant.

My dad told me that at the birthday of a very healthy and successful person, people like to come to these parties. Some even gate crash. They believe in taking away a bit of the luck of this birthday boy. They will take away uneaten food to share with their family at home.

Vice versa, if the birthday person was a sickly person, people will avoid going to the party. It is seen as taking home the bad luck of the sick person. They will try to give all sorts of excuse why they couldn't come to the dinner. These days, they even state, " Please no presents." People still won't come.

Raymond and Hui Fung's wedding cake

This is a cake that made people say "WoW! Raymond, did you say your Aunty Grace made it?"

Grace made this for our nephew Raymond's wedding. She did most of the work, and some of us gave a little hand. If you look carefully at the bottom tier, where there are those delicate spiral lace work, and notice a rough patch, that's was done by me. Raymond's sister Flora flew back from Australia and did a great job.

We had to send one of the nephews to scour the whole of Kuching town to get as much icing sugar as possible.

We even had an consultant engineer giving advice. Our brother in law Teo was worried the cake would cave in or topple. When he saw the piling or wooden dowels inside the cake, he had confidence that the cake wouldn't fall. Before that, he had always wondered how the multi-tiered cakes don't flop.

Transporting the cake to the hotel was an incredibly difficult job. Henry was driving very slowly, Elizabeth held the cake with the flowers. Her husband Kallang and I sat on the floor of the back of the 4 wheel drive trying to keep the cake in balance so it won't topple over.

We were all beaming with pride. I wish the cake was left intact because it was such a beautiful cake.

Grace's Wedding Cake.

My youngest sister Grace made this wedding cake for her sister-in-law KK. This is the product of great passion and talent. Grace wants me to tell you that the whole thing can be eaten, figurine, wedding veil, flowers and all.

Hello Kitty is popular over here in Singapore. She wants to show the photo of the cut up cake cos many people think that the wedding cakes here are fake. It is hard making a real cake because of the humidity.

Grace acknowledges and love and her desire to learn making by watching our mother and Sister Elizabeth. Our brothers also helped with icing the cakes. Henry used to play with the food colouring, he mixed green colouring into our nestum.

When Mum made cakes during Chinese New year, she would use 100 eggs, and all our us kids had to help in beating the eggs manually with a big spiral beater with the eggs in a big bucket. We took turns, beating the ____ out of the eggs, When one child is tired, the other took over.

We did so much together, that is why among the siblings, now scattered in so many parts of the world, we have so much to laugh and cry as we reminisce our child hood.

This Mothers' day, we think of the new baby that came and made us happy, the new baby that didn't make it and made all of us cry. We think of the mum who was sick and hospitalised. We think of the child alone in Canada.

In another post, I will tell you the scenes behind making the wedding cake. You can't buy these cakes, it is the fruit of love. Grace is not a chef, Grace is a computer expert, but a stay home mum by choice.

My sister Helen's cake

My mum taught us well. Here's another sister Helen's cake for her son Thomas.

This cake was made for Thomas. Kind of muddy disaster because the chocolate ganache icing melted in the hot hot Queensland Summer!!!. Thomas loved the cake especially when the fireman and firetruck got stuck and were sinking into the mud.
Helen

My Sister Grace's cake

My mum was a fast learner. She was one of the earliest in Sarawak who learned to bake Europeon cakes and ice them beautifully. My sisters followed her foot steps. I bake and ice cakes, but I am not sophisticated and don't make dainty cakes.


Grace, the youngest sister is very clever with her hands. She sews beautifully, and her cakes, well, this speaks for itself.