Gone

The children were gone and I was a wreck on Monday morning.

Having moved from a town where I knew everybody, my children knew everybody and the transition from an adorable pre-school into a lovely infants school was just so easy due to the close knit community we were part of, the horror of packing your 4 and 6 year old onto a school bus to be deposited on the other side of the island was traumatic to say the least.  My little one gradually slumped into a worried ball in his seat and neither of them could really look at us as the bus pulled off.  After finally ushering my dithering husband out of the door I managed to have a good old cry.

Then I thought to myself.  Honestly!  There are children in some African nations who walk miles on their own to get an education and kids in rural parts of the UK who have probably taken buses from a tender age to get to school and here I am crying over my lucky children who are getting into an air conditioned bus to be driven half an hour to their state of the art school and will be dropped back at my door in the evening.  I felt like a tool.  But as is always the way with these musings and guilty feelings, after about 10 minutes I thought, well, I don't know those kids in Africa or those kids in the Highlands of the UK so ultimately I don't really care and started crying over my poor little offspring again. 

My initial worry about my small children heading off on their first day on the big scary school bus was mainly because the bus amah (a lady who is installed in the bus to take care of the younger children)  was about 100 years old and therefore left me with little to no confidence as I saw her strap in my youngest with his rucksack still attached to his back.  

Anyway, once I had collected myself, I grabbed my organic cotton John Lewis shopper bag (why do we get so terribly flag waving when we are abroad?) and then popped to Holland Village to buy a few extra ingredients that were missing following my back breaking trip to the Chinese supermarket on Sunday morning.  I thoroughly enjoyed my shop there but my trolley was so full and so heavy I could not lift it into a taxi so had to drag it all the way back home.  Unfortunately, the exertion, weight of dragging my trolley and heat combined, has resulted in a thrown shoulder, muscle strain across my abdomen and some other physical problems which I will not go into but if I say bunch of grapes you may comprehend.

Anyway, I picked up my last few ingredients.  I was missing one item exactly from the three meals I planned to cook.  I did manage to get everything I needed in a variable form to that of home.  So, I cooked goulash (worth more than gold due to the price of beef here), some Thai salmon burgers to go in the freezer and Chinese braised pork with ginger and Shaosing rice wine.  I could not get Shaosing rice wine so had to settle for foochew rice wine. I believe "chew" means "wee wee" in Tamil which was a tad worrying but it was all they had so it was going in.  I also could not get spring onions of  the variety one gets in the UK so bought some sort of purple spring onions that were about 5ft long.  I picked up a beautiful non-soggy fresh bunch of coriander for 25p which made me very happy and then trooped home.

What I discovered on my first day alone with both my children in full time education:

1.  I cannot skin fish.  No idea. Four large fillets of salmon were bought to make these burgers.  About three fillets actually went in.  The rest were attached firmly to the skin and went in the bin.  Given I did this with a laser sharpened fish knife was a pretty poor show on my part.

2.  Crying, after your kids have left is terrible and sad but cooking while listening to old skool ska is truly joyful and triumphant.

3.  Cooking, in this country is hot sweaty work.  I moved one of the fans into the kitchen while I was cooking.  Problem with that is it blows the gas flame out.

4.  I completely burned my Chinese pork.  I have a freaky steam oven that I don't know how to use.  Clearly.

5.  When I asked my husband to get some household products including a bottle of Cif, I did not expect to find a yellow bottle of concentrated yellow gloop Jif from 1978 in the cupboard.

And, on an unrelated cooking point:

6.  Week 9 and my skin is a disaster.  Flawless skin is sadly not found amongst the majority in Singapore which is rather worrying.  Society here is unfortunately rather acne clad and not just a few spots here and there.  I am talking pebble dashing.  I have been advised that it takes five months before ones skin improves in line with the sweat glands adjusting to the climate, so I will just have to accept my skin feels like braille and I look like I am the victim of some sort of chemical attack for the next few months.  

I plan to buy myself a handkerchief to keep from using my germ infested hands to wipe the buckets pouring off my face, which could be causing the spots.  Handkerchiefs are normally the preserve of gentleman who blow and pocket (yuk) but will now be my Elinor Dashwood style dab and pocket.  Realistically it will be more likely a violent wipe, wring out and pocket and then two minutes later, do it again.  This will all simply result in an ongoing sweaty face, as well as a sweaty pocket.

I planned to be lazy this week and just read and swim and rest but I have discovered that while the children have been at home I have not done any of the domestic essentials that one would do when you arrive in a new country like registering with a doctor and a dentist.  I only just organised a cleaner today and bearing in mind I complained about my inability to clean in this heat about two months ago, you can imagine what a cesspit my apartment is now.  I still need to get my pictures and mirrors hung as I had to cancel Ricky Martin last week due to our rum tums.

Once I have done these things, which will probably take all of this week.  I will dedicate next week to myself to relax and work out how to fill my days.  I have been invited to a few lunches and I do need to sign up to Pilates again and would like to give yoga a whirl.  Given the grapes, this is really a matter of urgency and as I now lug grocery trolleys and shopping bags around unlike the terribly civilised Sainsbury's deliveries of yester year, I need Pilates to straighten out my rounded shoulders, separating core and back hump that combined with my polonium face is making me quite the catch!