Tropical climates

Don't get me wrong, living in a tropical climate has distinct advantages. However there are some notable disadvantages:

The weather is always warm, so you plan a barbeque - inevitably it will choose that day to rain
Ants think that they can live in or on anything you own. Currently there is an ant colony residing under the keys of the laptop.
Stuff goes off really quickly. Bananas are rotten by the time you've got them home from the market (almost).

Some of the best things about living here are:

You can leave the house in the morning knowing that whatever you are wearing will still keep you at a reasonable temperature at midnight. The temperature never changes.
You can keep potted orchids with very little care, the humidity does all the work for you.
You can go for a swim at any time of the day or night.
You never get cold toes (apart from when you wear sandals to the office and they get frozen by the sub-zero air-conditioning).

All in all, life is good. We had a group of friends round yesterday for a barbeque (it didn't rain - despite black clouds and rumbles of thunder). They all had kids who were happy to play in our pool for 4 hours solid! So we had a very civilized evening by the pool supping wine and champagne. Very nice.

Paul is working pretty long hours, but it seems that as long as he can bake something or do some gardening at the weekend, he can stay relatively stress free.

PGCE

It's almost time for me to start applying to do a PGCE, it looks like I'll be applying to Cambridge with a view to having Paul commute into London. It's only for a year, so I guess it won't be too bad, and I guess he can always stay with friends if there's going to be a train strike or something.

I'm still really enjoying teaching English; sadly though, all of the kids that I've been teaching for the past two months left the school on Friday to go back to Korea. Oh well, I'm sure the next lot of students will be just as much fun.

Alpha

Alpha is going well. It's great to be leading a group again. We have a really interesting mix of people and there doesn't seem to be too much of a cultural problem for us. I guess we have been in Singapore for almost a year now!!

One of our guests is a confirmed 'Darwinist', much as I was three and a half years ago. So, I'm reading Lee Strobel's 'Case for a creator', it's a fascinating book. Very scientific in content, but it's written in a very engaging tone.

Bookclub

I'm starting a bookclub with Alex, Marienne, Chris and Elizabeth. Our first read will be 'We need to talk about Kevin'. It will be good to get back into a bookclub again, it's a great chance for the girls to get together and chat too.

Comments

Buses, bats, bites and other bits

I know I've been writing a lot about Singapore recently, but I guess that's what happens when you've lived in a new culture for a while. I've become very aware of what's around me. I get the bus to and from work every day. It costs around 15p and is fully air-conditione d. Most of the time I get a seat, it's brilliant. Today was a special day - I boarded a bus that was driven by the world's most friendly bus driver. He greeted each passenger and said good bye to everyone who got off. Sadly I was the only person to notice of the 40-50 passengers that recieved this star treatment during my journey. So I gave him a big grin and a wave as I got off the bus. I love how something like that can add an extra smile to your day. I'm currently learning Mandarin (week 2 of a 10 week course). Last week I was convinced that the whole language is a conspiracy to confuse westerners. Today, however, I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge of learning such a dramatically d

Friends

I know, I know, it's been a while since I wrote, but life has got very busy recently. We currently have our friend Al French staying with us, he's moving to Hong Kong for a year and he's on a work trip here right now. It's great to see him again, and as always with good friends, it's as if we just saw him last week (in reality the last time we saw him was at our wedding last year). Anyway, as I said, we have been busy. What with Mandarin, Alpha, work and a trip to Malacca I don't seem to have had a free moment in the last three weeks. Malacca was great, it was good to leave Singapore for the weekend. The only downer was returning home to find that our debit card had been skimmed and we'd had money stolen...oh well, it looks like we'll get it back. Malacca had awesome food and it was a fun city to spend a couple of days in. This week I had an interesting experience, I was invited by my friend ZeNee to go to the final results show of Singapore Idol (the

Pregnancy and stuff

How is it that my stomach, once almost a taboo subject, has become public property overnight? Often people's first reaction when they find out I'm pregnant is to stroke or pat my (already expanding) tummy! I guess I'll get used to that over the next few months. Here are the scans we have so far. Photos- Top: Scan at 6 weeks Middle: Scan at 8 weeks Bottom: Scan at 12 weeks Weather It's started to warm up and dry up here again after the monsoon. It's lovely to be able to eat breakfast on the balcony in the sun again. The hoards of ants are back, any morsel left untended is soon found and turns black with the tiny creatures. Wedding We went to a wonderful wedding at the Conrad Centennial hotel on Thursday evening. Two of our freinds from church got hitched after 13 years of on-off dating. It was a touching ceremony (during which, to our surprise, the champagne flowed freely). The meal was great - traditional Chinese wedding fayre - jellyfish, prawns, shark's fin so

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