Touchy Subject

I am entering a big minefield but I am going to attempt it and hopefully not get my legs blown off.

Help or live in maids is a delicate area for discussion amongst expats out here.  It is hard not to come across as judgemental but of course, I am going to be judgemental.  Just as much as those folks with live in help are very dogmatic in their belief that as an expat I should have a maid.  I feel fairly justified in taking an equally firm stance to the opposite.

There are many reasons why we do not feel it appropriate for our family.  Mainly because our children are now in full time school, we do not have a massive home and like our privacy and as far as I am concerned the small windowless cupboard in the wet kitchen which currently stores all our luggage and domestic detritus is not a fit home for anything requiring oxygen.  Yet, we are most certainly in the minority in making this decision.

Don't get me wrong.  For those families with very young children, for parents who work, the elderly or infirm or the downright lazy,  I see the value in having somebody to take the domestic drudgery off your hands. I think I would have sung a different tune if I had a little baby as I would most definitely appreciate the cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping done as it would mean I would have all my time free to spend with my children.  That said, based on my parenting skills, that might not be such a good thing.  However, in theory it is a wonderful prospect.

Based on this, two things I saw this weekend baffled me.

We had a superb meal in a great food hall on Saturday at a place called Vivo City.  It has one of the best Hokkien Prawn Noodles I have ever tasted and I shamelessly drank the remaining prawn, noodle, chilli sauce liquids from my plate like an ill-mannered oik because I could not bear to waste a bit.  But I digress.

Vivo City is primarily a big mall and has a nice little play area for children including water shooting fountains in which small people can cool off.

It was here that we saw another family with a little boy, probably not even a year old.  The child was playing in the water in the sunshine with the maid while the parents stood in the shade and watched laughing, smiling and clapping.  Once I saw the mother run in to give the childs hat to the maid and then run back into the shade to sit down.  It is possible that both mother and father are allergic to the sun or to water or to their child. In fact, I am sure I have seen a Channel 5 documentary entitled just that,  "I am allergic to my children".  In this case however, the parents looked perfectly healthy but did not spend one moment engaging with their child but instead looked on very happily from the side lines.

I certainly will not win any awards for outstanding parenting of the year but I do love my children in my own unique way and the weekends living here are blissful. The fine climate and family friendly places make it a wonderful place for really quality time with the children.  Our weekends in the UK were boring most of the time because it was always raining or cold or glum.  Most of my friends would suck it up and say, nope, we just went out and jumped in muddy puddles and had a great time.  Well, good luck to you.  Not my idea of fun.  I refer to my point about good versus bad parenting.   So being the bad parents we are, we would watch back to back movies and nod off drunk on the sofa instead of taking our children out in the rain for some healthy outdoor merriment.

Here, however, we relish our weekends.  The island is so small, going anywhere is no hassle and transport is cheap and quick.  We have not spent a single weekend in since we got here because there are so many nice things to do and to eat that even if all you do is jump a bus and grab some food somewhere, it is still a really lovely experience and great time spent as a family, mainly because I am not cooking and am therefore instantly in a good mood.

So why on a lovely weekend would you choose not to be with your child while they are having such fun in the sun and the water and instead just enjoy viewing them from the distance as your help does, what I can see, is the really fun part of parenting.

A second case in point was a couple who left their maid with their child in the buggy outside and went into a coffee shop for about half an hour and then came out again and walked off together.  Parents in front, with the maid pushing the buggy, behind them. 

This is a lifestyle that is totally foreign to me but to some degree I should not be surprised by some families out here behaving in this manner as it is perhaps exactly the same way they were raised and their parents were raised so is the only life they have ever known.  We have heard some stories of newborn babies sleeping with the maids so they can manage the night feeds.  For me this is rather unsettling and unfathomable to our perspective on family life.

That said, the fact that I managed to notice all these goings on shows I clearly was not spending any time engaging with my children, because I was too busy staring at everybody else.

Also, a young Indonesian girl pushing a buggy behind a family out here is probably no different to some bonnet wearing aristo walking behind the Queen carrying her bunch of flowers.  In fact the maid probably has a better deal as the aristo most likely doesn't get paid to carry her Majesty's gerberas.

I don't really know what to think of it all.  It is a choice that people have made and I do not begrudge them.  I also know some families adore their live in help and cherish them dearly.  My struggle with this is reconciling caring for somebody so much as a member of your family and yet still being comfortable with them walking behind you in shops carrying everything you have bought while you carry nothing. 

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!

Singapore Deranged

I have had two interesting episodes with the deranged this fortnight gone.  Please note that I am not mocking the deranged, although I do feel slightly within my rights given I have had numerous hairy encounters with nut cases (yes, not PC) in London over the years.

As you know I have stopped smiling as a means of conserving energy.  I did the same thing in the UK following a very scary encounter with a mad cyclist who followed me and kept talking to me for about 20 minutes outside Senate House (the main University of London library) while frothing at the mouth and telling me how well spoken I am and that I must be a news reader and work for the BBC in documentaries.  He became insistent that he would walk with me to the three stations I said I was going to during this unnerving conversation as it got darker and darker outside.  I ended up saying I forgot something at Uni and ran back into Senate House knowing he could not get in as it was for college students only.

I often tell the children this light hearted story as we watch "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang", as Senate House doubles up as the War Office in this movie.  How we all laugh as I reminisce about running terrified into the building in fear for my life, wondering if this lunatic was going to wait outside until I reappeared.  Yes, it was certainly a hoot.  It was, in all honesty, very frightening and I swore that I would only ever wear the guise of a miserable cow from that day forth.  And it worked, as I was never bothered by any captain crazies again.   

Anyway, even though I have not smiled for 20 years and intended not to since we got to Singapore, I just can't help myself sometimes.  The weather is so warm and everything is so clean and I was going to buy mangosteens and so of course, I got caught again.  This time by a woman.  Probably in her forties. I don't know why being in her forties is relevant but I suppose it explains her taste in clothes. She stopped me not very far from our apartment.  The conversation went as follows:

Lady:  I really like your shorts.  Where did you get them from?
Me: Oh, these.  They are from England.
Lady:  Where are you from?
Me:  I am from England?
Lady:  Do you live here?
Me:  Yes
Lady:  You work?
Me:  We are here with my husbands job?
Lady:  Can I work in England? 
Me:  Errrr...
Lady:  Cleaning?  Is it possible?
Me:  Errrr...
Lady:  How much are flights?
Me:  Errr... well I just looked into it for my Mum and if you book early its about £670.  It isn't cheap.
Lady:  So can I work in England?  Do I need a visa?
Me:  Errr...
Lady:  Paddington.  Can I work in Paddington?
Me:  Err...
Lady:  I don't have big education.  Just little.  Grade 5 but I can do cleaning.  Can I do cleaning in England?
Me:  Err...
Lady:  How old are you?
Me:  Err... 38
Lady:  How old is your husband?
Me:  42
Lady:  Where is he from?
Me:  England.  He is English
Lady:  Do you know anyone I can work for in England?
Me:  Err.. no.  I don't know how easy it is to move from here to England and find work
Lady:  How old are your children?
Me:  6 and 4
Lady:  You have a girl and a boy?
Me:  Yes
Lady:  I know Paddington

I didn't know if she meant the station or the bear and by this point, I could not even see the children because they were half way to the village. I realised this lady might not really like my shorts afterall, so I excused myself by saying my children have run off and goodbye.

My second conversation with the mad was today when I phoned up Ikea to see if they had the Solvinden solar powered string lanterns in stock as they do have them pictured on their website but without any pricing.  The conversation went as follows:

Ikea:  Hello, how may I assist you?
Me:  Hello, I would like to find out if you have a particular item in stock.  It is the Solvinden solar powered string lanterns for the garden
Ikea: Can you give me the article number?
Me:  No, I am afraid not, as it is not listed on your website, only pictured
Ikea:  How do you spell the name?
Me:  S O L V I N D E N.  They are solar powered string lanterns for the garden
Ikea:  It is not coming up on the system.  Can you tell me what they are?  Is it a table or a chair?
Me:  They are solar powered string lanterns for the garden.  Solar powered.  By the sun.  For the garden.
Ikea:  No, they do not have it in stock at Ikea Alexandra.
Me:  Can you check if it is at Ikea Tampines?
Ikea:  Yes I will just check.  Please hold the line while I assist you.
Ikea:  Hello ma'am.
Me:  Hello
Ikea:  No, they do not have it either.
Me:  Do you know when either store will have it in stock again
Ikea:  No they will not have it in stock as this is a summer product.  If you come back next year and quote this number 301.457.809 you can get it then.
Me:  Yes, thank you very much.
Ikea:  Can I assist you with anything else today?
Me:  No.  You have been very helpful and I will come back in 2014.  Goodbye.

The deranged part of that conversation was:
1.  It is a summer product. Yes, Singapore has a wet season but basically it is 30 degrees all year and is noted for the fact it has no seasons... therefore.... there is no summer.... as it's all summer... 365 days of the year.
2.  She asked me to come back next year.

I am definitely enjoying the Singapore lunatics so much more than the ones back home.  I think it might be the nice climate.  Everything is so less threatening.

Quiet

I have been rather silent these last two weeks due to much excitement.

Firstly, a lovely weekend in one of the Singaporeshore islands.  A bit like Geordie and Jersey Shore but without the Geordies and Jerseys.  The island is called Bintan and ridiculously, is bigger than Singapore.  It was a wonderful break with the family, much needed and enjoyed. Plus, the visa takes up a whole page in ones passport.  I think that is capital, given it only took 45 minutes to get there.  A few more weekends on Bintan and my passport could be mistaken for Michael Palin's.

Secondly, our sea freight arrived the Monday after we returned.  Needless to say, I was in seventh heaven and spent the rest of the week unpacking, arranging, shifting, manipulating, building and tweaking.  I have a handy gentleman coming over on Thursday to hang our numerous mirrors and pictures and then we will be complete and the apartment that has so far been the preserve of two adults and two children, quite a lot of spiders and every trades person in Singapore, courtesy of the resident idiot developer, (see Singaportrait A Week) will feel like home.

I do expect the handy guy whose name is Ricky to hate me as I am rather pernickity about how pictures are spaced on a wall.  I have not decided if I am going to call him RI_IY from Eastenders parlance or roll my "R" in the Spanish form a la Rrrrrricky.  I might just call him Ricky.

Thirdly, the Thursday and Friday of the same week were public holidays in Singapore.  Thursday was Hari Raya Puasa which I believe is the end of Ramadan and Friday was National Day in Singapore.  Due to my ignorance I didn't even know who Singapore were celebrating their independence from.  I asked my husband if it was from the Mongols, then the British, as everyone in the world has celebrated that at some point or perhaps Mauritius?  No, apparently they are celebrating independence from Malaysia.  Need to do a bit of work on my south east Asian history.

Since we arrived in Singapore we have witnessed a daily fly by of chinooks, various helicopters carrying giant flags, tornado jets blasting past, all we assumed in rehearsal for the big celebration on Friday.  The country has looked great with flags being hung out of windows across entire blocks.  A veritable sea of white and red.

We were contemplating attending the ceremony but my little boy came down with a fever and tummy bug and we decided dragging ourselves down amongst the crowds was probably unwise.  After watching about twenty minutes of the broadcast on TV I was very glad I did not go to the trouble.  We turned on about half an hour into the official show and were watching a demonstration of how the police deal with hostage situations, many of the police going into the crowd and mock shooting the "terrorists" down as families in the audience watched on.

There was then a huge amount of tankery, gunnery, shootery and blastery going on which I found rather odd.  Singapore is a very small nation, multicultural, successful, peaceful, safe and I apologise for saying this, a fairly minor player in the global scheme of things. I was therefore confused as to the need for such a chest beating army dominated performance.  We came to the conclusion it was small man syndrome.  I talk too much and have a loud voice because I am short.  Same principle with Singapore.  Anyway, we stopped watching shortly after the military eight year olds stepped up to do some sort of hip hop dance in uniform.  Bless them, they would not have won Britain's Got Talent.

Well, now that I have insulted a nation and no doubt the Singaporean Big Brother satellites who are watching me as I type this heresy will be stamping a big black mark next to my name and having some ganglord plant a bag of heroin in my luggage for my future trip to Thailand, I can lead on to the fourth reason I have been quiet.

The kids and I have been stuck in Monday and Tuesday of this week because my nail biting son, who no doubt got his stomach bug from the bus bogeys he injested by chewing his fingers, making the fact he is very vigilant about washing his hands when he comes home utterly pointless, has now passed his bug on to me.  I foolishly shared his drink as most stupid parents do because they are still our little darlings even if unwell.  So I have been in the last two days with stomach cramps and a headache. On the plus side the kids are having such a boring week so far, they will be gagging to hit school on Monday morning.

You might have gathered from my last few posts that I am rather excited about the children starting school having being alone in the water with them since early May.  Yet, I know come Monday I am going to feel pretty choked up.  Mainly because I am not taking them to school, but they are being collected by a school bus at 7.45am and will be deposited back at our apartment at 4pm.  Between those two hours, I will have no idea what they are doing.  I do plan to hop a taxi and hide out at the school peeking through door cracks and hopefully blending into the surroundings like one of the X-Men and making sure they are not unhappy, not that there is much I can do about it.

Anyway, watch this space and think of me next Monday as I stand in the road wearing my slippers, nicotine stained pink flannel dressing gown, ratty hair and a vodka tonic in my hand at 7:45am waving my children away, the youngest for his very first day at big school and know that I will be missing home and specifically the convivial school drop off at that precise moment, I will be wondering what the hell I am going to do with my future now both my children are in full time school, but will probably start this new stage of my life by watching the Ice Age movies back to back without childish interruption, just to get me through my first morning alone.

I will probably go dress shopping after that as my Singapore uniform of shorts and vest top combo is not working as I continue to be mistaken for domestic help.  Not that I mind being mistaken for domestic help.  I just do not like the indifference that is afforded me because I am thought of as domestic help.  Fairly poor show by Singaporeans and Westerners alike to treat these young ladies with such disregard.  I guess sweating around with a trolley and a couple of latte coloured children does not help me much in looking the expat missus.

Anyway, I have had enough and I intend to buy some nice floaty dresses and will no doubt attempt to do my best impression of Madonna trying to pass for an English rose.  I am sure I will fail, as did Madonna and as my dear friend back home said, with a tone of disappointment that I was no longer going to be an expat undercover maid, will instead end up looking like Hyacinth Bouquet.

Mass Murder

Following my death by fugu poisoning slump last week I entered week five of living in Singapore with a spring in my step.  We had a lousy Friday and Saturday which requires an entirely separate article but our Sunday was probably our best so far.  A fantastic day at East Coast Park cycling as a family in one of those weird canopied shopping trolleys with bicycle wheels and two baskets in the front to store your children.  We had a super feed of chilli crab and then a lovely stroll along the beach counting the hundreds of shipping containers who have their own particular style of terrifying grace and then back home for a well earned swim after the days sweatathon.

By Monday, we realised that our 6 year old daughter's ability in the water had improved hugely given she can now swim faster than me (well, that isn't really anything to crow about given I only doggy paddle) and was therefore deserving of a super new snorkel.  It was purchased and applied to the child and she took to breathing underwater with it like Potter on Gillyweed.

On Tuesday we had another lovely day.  Lunch in the village followed by a trip to the cinema with a short diversion to buy fins to match the snorkel and less exciting; an epilator. This contraption has been owned by me for three days now and I am too scared to use it given the instructions talk about the pain, redness, swelling et al that one can go through on the back of having the hair ripped out of their legs one at a time with tweezers.  I am also worried that the constant pulling of the hair might pull my veins out and I will end up with varicose veins as well as hairy legs.  I am not entirely sure I know how one gets varicose veins.  Anyway, I have spent a small fortune on this item and being a bit of a simian it is a necessity as shaving is becoming a nuisance.  I digress.

So, to sum up, Sunday to Tuesday were most jolly.

I did notice over the last two weeks that my daughter had been very pensive and in fact had been looking really quite sad.  I thought she might be going through a similar dip to me but being of the opinion that six year olds are rather simple minded I was sure all the distractions, outings and activities would be enough to help her ride out these fun but aimless weeks until our sea freight arrives and school starts.

As it turns out she is a bit more complex than I thought.  On Tuesday night after our really lovely day she sloped off to bed and when I went to kiss her goodnight she had tears in her eyes.  When I asked her what was wrong she started sobbing saying she wanted to go home, she wants her friends and she is really lonely.  It was a heartbreaking moment for a parent, as even though she is a drama queen, these were not crocodile tears.  We both felt so bad for her.

Unfortunately, there is little we can do other than continue to keep her busy.  My clever husband suggested we went back to England for a few weeks to which I responded with the contempt that comment deserved, "this is the reason I did not want to come out until term ended as two months with no friends, no focus, no routine and no stuff from home is incredibly tough for the kids as well as for me".  As you can see, I do try to protect his feelings as much as possible.  Furthermore, as much as I love home and do miss it I don't think I could cope returning to the post Murray jingo madness and now the royal baby sickophantia (that spelling was deliberate).  Think I would rather be a bit down in the dumps here than bilious at home.

Anyway, after the drama of Tuesday night she seemed better on Wednesday but I did notice that she was displaying the symptoms of fugu poisoning.  We had depression and now she had moved to anger.  She has been repeatedly bullying her little brother very violently I might add and on Wednesday while in the pool having a splash about she splashed me so aggressively that I did think for a minute she was trying to drown me.

This took me back to We Need to Talk About Kevin which is a fantastic and terrifying book and for those of us who have children were almost certain that if we had not had children prior to reading that book, we would not have had any at all.  I never thought that she would be capable of mass murder.  I thought my son was a better candidate based on his toddler years.  But after her recent behaviour and aggression towards her brother and to me I can only assume that I will end this week tied to our balcony with a bunch of arrows in my face.

As we do near the end of this week I think her desire to murder us is still there but following our second excellent trip to Singapore Zoo on Thursday which always promises a different experience, she seems a bit happier.  This is because she got to play in the aqua park, feed and stroke the kangaroos and the white rhinos, which was awesome.

My plan for the next three weeks, while my hubby is travelling with work, is to keep taking them back to the zoo so they can feed as many different animals as possible as that seems to be the one thing that keeps her happy.

Of course, whether my husband will get to China next week is another matter.  He has a very important meeting today presenting to the CEO of the company.  Colleagues have flown in globally to see this address to the President.  Not one for great emotion or conversation regarding work he has been very nervous about this presentation as I assume anyone would be when presenting to the Grande Fromage and his Babybel's for the first time.

I helpfully wished him good luck this morning as he left and encouraged him to take his little carry-on bag with him just in case he gets fired and needs to get his taxi straight to the airport and not be allowed back in the house.  In which case we will be coming home too, so Eleanor will get her wish to see her friends again, Arthur will get to see his Grandparents as they are really the only people he would choose to live with and I get to go back to my house to sit there without any of my stuff for another eight weeks as it is all being unpacked in Singapore. 

It would be a bit annoying if he did get sacked as we have just booked two holidays.  A short break in Bintan and its neighbouring island Botox (that's not true) and an October vacation in Bali.  After huffing and puffing about organising holidays last week, having actually done it now, is a good feeling.  It does make a difference having a few vacations in the diary as it provides a focus and I think that is all we need at present.

In two and a half weeks we should have our sea freight and in the meantime I have booked Beavis and Butthead into a five day summer camp next week to play tennis.  I am hoping five mornings of sport will wear them out, give them a challenge and provide Kevin with somewhere to grunt, hit and smash other than in the swimming pool or on her brothers head.  But most importantly give me three hours a day respite from the thought that one day I might find some autopsied rodents in her cupboard and a pistol.

Eating Fugu

The children have a favourite episode of The Simpsons.  Namely, when Homer eats a Blowfish at a Japanese restaurant that has been cooked by someone not trained in the dangerous art of cooking Fugu.  Anyway, he has 24 hours to live and Dr Hibbert runs through the four emotional stages of coming to terms with this news.  It was something along the lines of 1.Anger.  2.Denial.  3.Desperation  4.Grief  quickly followed by paralysis and death.

After the last couple of blogspots guffawing about life in Singapore,  I think I am honestly at stage 1 if not 3.  I am hoping I don't get to paralysis and death before the kids start school otherwise life for my family could become tricky, logistically speaking.

One discovers a great deal about oneself when out of the usual routine.  I think I have learned very quickly that I am not so good with endless amounts of free time and nothing to do.  Not that I am crazy to fill that time as I am inherently lazy and the humidity here makes my laziness tenfold.

Summer breaks were not so difficult back home.  Mainly because there were activities for the children that stayed constant and you simply built all your free fun time around those constants with trips out, time spent with friends and of course throw a family holiday in there somewhere along the way.

I think I am having a full day circadian dip having been out and about over three consecutive days with the children which is very tiring in this climate.  We have had good fun, although I think exhaustion was setting in yesterday when my husband started shouting at the staff about the lack of chips on our plates at Jurong Bird Park.  Fair enough I say, after spending $50.00 on three burgers.  We didn't actually feel like eating all the chips when we were given extra after all the yelling, but had to on a matter of principle.

We are in week four of our time in Singapore and following last week's rudeness, I am at Stage 1 of death by fugu poisoning: Symptoms of anger.

Yesterday, we decided after all the stress of this year we needed a short break.  Just a long weekend escape from Singapore where we can relax, swim, vegetate on a beach while the kids paddle and we can snorkel.  The choices around here are endless.  Bali, Thailand, Malaysia and countless little islands that are a short plane or boat ride away.  I spent about three hours trying to find somewhere for us to go and by the end of my search I was ready to throw the laptop over the balcony and decided I didn't want to go anywhere on this damn continent because I hate beaches. (This is not true as we have spent our last two holidays in the Caribbean) and my wanderlust is at fugu poisoning stage 6.  Dead!  This might be true but should be recoverable.

Anway after losing control of my laptop and my senses we decided perhaps to wait and not go anywhere until the October half term holidays.  This does make sense as travelling in August is pretty stupid given it's peak season and we can go to any of these islands at anytime.  Also, I think trying to organise holidays when we still have not found our routine in Singapore is probably a bit foolish and is the main reason I am feeling so frustrated.

It is amazing how little a home is a home until your crap is in it.  And how I long for all my crap, which is literally on a slow boat to China and should be arriving at the spooky container ports in Singapore at the beginning of August.

I am no Delia but without my pots, pans and essential Le Creuset I have no idea what in the heck to cook.  The wet markets are wonderful but other than 50 Shades of Pak Choi and some vegetable that I can only describe as a snozzcumber, I am struggling with my greens.  Fruit is easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Fish is simple and cheap but cooking anything from back home, just to have a bit of a break from the wonderful local cuisine takes a lot of effort and expense.  All of these small trivialities are getting my panties in a bunch. 

Furthermore, until the children are in school I am really not going to find my mojo and when I say mojo I mean that strut in your step that you have as you walk to the shops while the soundtrack of your life plays in your head.  Most likely "Stayin' Alive".

My annoyance is really compounded by the fact I have the children in tow.  Sadly for them, they are having to get dragged around every wet market, supermarket, shop and foodhall and being 4 and 6 they complain incessantly, that everything is "stinky".

I was an outstanding Mum in that I spared the kids any trips to the supermarket or shops with me in the UK. Never did they have to trail behind me as I squeezed avocado's and sniffed mangoes, a decision that I now regret as they are making every shopping trip out rather trying.  As a result, I am not shopping at the wet markets or supermarket very often and our fridge only contains two jars of jam, some potatoes, olive spread and milk.  Not a great improvement  from our first week in Singapore!

All our eating is done at the hawker centres locally which are fantastic but still a fifteen minute walk up and down a big hill which they of course do not enjoy because the end of the journey does not end with lego but instead some pontian noodles that I force them to eat in exchange for some melted moam stripes.

My short term misery reminds me of a conversation I had with the admissions lady at the children's school two weeks ago.  We discussed the fact that we would not have a car in Singapore and she said, "It is hard without a car because you do feel like your wings have been clipped".  When I think back to that comment I think she was trying to make me cry as it reminds me of the freedom I had back home being able to drive.  That said, we will not be getting a car so I will just have to suck it up and public transport around here is excellent and cheap.  I think I am still in my Brit mindset that it is far too la-di-bloody-dah to be taking taxi's everywhere.   

Anyway, I am sorry to use this blog as therapy but I am having a bit of a dip.  I am really confident that I will be back to my old positive self once our shipment arrives and the kids start school so I have a routine and a purpose again.  I think in fairness, by the end of three weeks, even in the UK most parents are ready to see the back of their little darlings. 

Trying to find more positives, I have just eaten some amazing black pepper beef hor fun noodles and that seems to have temporarily fixed my mood.  Of course, all this public moaning could be due to the fact it is Monday.

We are having a nothing day today and I will take the kids off somewhere again tomorrow.  I don't think kids should have to be entertained all the time but it is hard for them to entertain themselves without very many of their things with which to play.

My little boy has spent this morning asking me to smell his feet every few minutes and my daughter I know is sneakily using my precious double sided sticky tape in her room.  I am so lacking in energy I don't even have the will to tell her off for stealing my tape and as for my little boy I am just smelling his feet because it is quicker and easier than not smelling them.

I am hoping that I do not progress past the first stage of dying from Fugu eating.  After all, Homer survived. 

Going Local Down in Acapulco. Didn't Take Too Lo-oh-oh-ong!

I have a bad feeling that this post is going to end up being just a bit racist.  But to cite an excellent Oprah Winfrey episode from the late 1980's, "We are all inherently racist even though we don't think we are", conducted by an emminent professor of psychology from a leading American university, I am covered legally.

Leaving that aside for a minute.  Do you like my new header?  It only took me five hours to do and I am fully aware that the right side has been cut off.  (reb - that stands for Rolling Eye Balls. Lol).  I will fix it when I next have five hours to spare and can find my spectacles.

Well, since my last blogpost I have now been in balmy Singapore for two weeks and without jet lag to blame for my attitude, behaviour and mood, all my personality flaws are becoming quite apparent.  Either that or as my racist husband has commented, I am going all "Indian".  Given we have been together for 15 years and he clearly has not spotted that I am actually of the Sri Lankan disposition he is not only a racist but an idiot and has demonstrated again how he really does not pay me much attention.  But enough of our marital problems.

Back to us going a bit local.  There could be some truth in this given a few altercations I have had this week and the manner in which the children and I ate our lunch today.  I will once again split this post into sections for easy digestion.

Lunch
We had a rip roaring cracker of a thunderstorm last night which woke everybody up at 4am and resulted in the children spooning with us until 7am.  I say spooning but what I mean is kicking us in the guts, clothes lining us multiple times and generally fidgeting.  

The rest of the morning was busy beeing and the afternoon was a total thundery showery wash out.  The children are now too scared to go on the balcony because of the thunder and the balcony houses the only table we have in the apartment.  

Due to their foolish paranoia, lack of understanding of thunder, lightning, physics and advanced weather patterns we had to sit on the floor to eat our roti prata with mutton curry and butter beans.  

As we sat there, cross legged, hunched over and eating with our fingers, I realised it only took two weeks in Asia for the kids to not only go feral but for their inner brown to rapidly materialise (bit racist?).

Smiling
This is not a society big on smiling.  Just a general point of note.  Of course meeting individuals in stores or restaurants has on the majority of occasions been wonderful and I have found the loveliest lady in the form of a newsagent in the village, who is delightful.  We have had a few long discussions on parenting and agree that when we were both growing up in the 1940's children were generally nicer, appreciated the value of money, were not greedy fat spoilt brats and had jobs from which all the money earned went to the parents.  Altogether a better situation indeed.  These discussions often take place as my children stand outside the lego shop next door to her newsagents screaming "I want that!".

Generally however, people here do not smile too much.  I was criticised for this comment having lived in London for the majority of my life and London being cited as hugely unfriendly.  I disagree with this completely.  I actually think London can be friendly but only if you make eye contact with somebody.  If you catch someones eye in a lift or in a queue they will most likely acknowledge you with a smile which I think is as about as close as you can get to an all singing and dancing scene from Oliver! and really does make my day.  Of course, catching someones eye in a pub should be avoided as that can result in a stabbing or a date with a drunk, unwashed septuagenarian.

Few people smile here and I have realised it is because it is too hot to smile.  Every bit of energy needs to be conserved when one leaves ones home because at some point you have to get back there and you cannot be wasting energy smiling when you should be saving it for duck walking.  So, I no longer smile, not because I am trying to fit in, but just because physically I am now unable.

Bus Drivers
Sweet mother.  I think they are officially the most impatient people I have ever had the misfortune to meet.  On Monday I spent a good part of the day with the children riding on the bus up and down one street because the bus driver gives the passengers disembarking exactly five seconds to do so before they pull off, even before closing the double doors.  We were then sent over a mile further down the road to have to then cross the overpass to the other side to then get another bus back to where we originally wanted to get off to once again not be allowed to get off because the joker was in such a rush to get to the next stop.  

This may sound trivial but when it is 34 degrees, humid and you are carrying shopping and two whinging children, it is enough to make you want to rip out your chest hair.

I don't really like my children much at the moment having been with them every day for the last three weeks due to no school and no sign of school for another 6 weeks but as they are mine I am the only one who is allowed to be horrible to them and not consider their feelings or safety.  Anybody else behaves that way to them and they will get The Hulk version of me to deal with.  I had a fight with one bus driver in front of all the other passengers on a packed bus when he did not wait for us to come down the stairs and the kids got jolted as he pulled off before we had a chance to get off the bus.  I did a lot of shouting like "use your camera ON THE STAIRS as that is what it is there for" and "I have two small children yadda yadda yadda" and "couldn't you see we were getting off etc etc".  I should also mention that I did lots of hand gesticulations while slipping into my version of Singlish.  Apparently, another sign that I am going local.

Needless to say, it was all in vain as we still got dropped miles away from our destination and he probably just thought it was my time of the month.

Rudeness
I have become rude (see above).  I also shouted at a child at the cinema on Monday because he pushed in front of me and split me from my children (it is completely pitch black in the theatres) and hit me in the head with his plastic booster seat. 

I was also the victim of heinous rudeness on Saturday when I sauntered down to the local wet market on my own.  There are very few expats at this particular wet market so I felt super clever going there on my own.  Of course I quickly forgot that I look like domestic help if only for the fact the live in maids do dress a lot better than me, so I really had nothing to be smug about.

I really did like going to the wet market.  It was only about twenty minutes out of my day and thoroughly enjoyable.  Not something one does much living in London or a big town.  Generally it is a once a week thing when you hit the market for your bunch of fresh flowers, olive bread and good organic meat to put in your special once a week organic jute bag.  Here it is more an every two day thing as fruit and vegetables do not keep so well due to the heat so you tend to buy for a couple of days and then go to market again.  Wery wery nice.

I skipped on in like Little Brown Riding Hood with my organic jute bag and bought lots of lovely fruit, some fresh eggs decorated with chicken poop and some fish.  I bought a massive seabass for around £3.  Given I just spent about £15 on 750g of mince beef at the supermarket to give the kids some bolognese as a break from local cuisine, I thought the fish market wasn't too shabby on price.

I was so excited about buying my fruit and fish and chatting away to the locals who were shopping alongside me that I strolled off to the egg aisle without getting my change.  Back home, during my Saturday job days as a teenager in WHSmiths, if a customer forgot their change I would call them a fool and pocket the money, but here, not likely.  People here are so honest and so law abiding that not only did the proprietor lady of the fish counter that I bought my seabass from close up her stall to come and find me to tell me I did not collect my change, she also shouted at me for about five minutes in front of everybody in the entire market.  If I wasn't so scared I would have told her she could just keep the money, but I sheepishly walked back apologising profusely and took my change.  She refused to accept my apology, told me over and over again that she had been calling me and calling me but I did not listen and did not come back and of course when the telling off was concluded, she did not smile at me either.