Random thoughts

Feeling quite cultural today as we went to see an outdoor performance of Midsummer nights dream on Saturday night at Fort Canning park. It was fantastic, we took a picnic and set up our mats (and cushions) on the grass. The whole play was done on boardwalks in and around the audience and it was very 'Shakespeare' with it's bawdiness, lewdness and audience involvement. It was awesome sitting under the warm Singapore night watching the stars, moon and bats in the sky. The play incorporated lots of modern stuff; hairdrier, popcorn, a rendition of 'I will survive' and football shirts - but I think they did it pretty well. Only Bottom and Titania's rendition of 'I will survive' complete with flashing disco lights would have had Shakespeare turning in his grave, the rest was pretty fun. The pregnancy is progressing well, only 5 weeks to go! We are all set and I'm just glad that we don't have to move house...

Click here to view map Jervois Grove

The property market has gone mad. In four days, I will have only seen four properties (compare that to 26 properties in 5 days a year ago!). Looks like we might have to stay put and pay the rent increase. They have an odd agent system over here. Both the tenant and the landlord have an agent, these are often two different people, both of whom expect their cut of the fees. This means that when taking out a year's rental agreement (the standard is two years), the tenant must pay half a month's rent in fees, this is as well as the landlord paying at least that if not more to their tenant. Being a property agent in this country is lucrative, and it seems they don't have to be all that good, and they certainly don't have to speak clear English...

I've recently discovered the Facebook phenomenon. It's kind of addictive and a great place to keep in contact with friends old and new. It's also an easy place to upload photos, so for those of you who are looking for somewhere to put photos this might be your answer. Only people who you decide are 'friends' can see your profile and communicate with you, so none of this dodgy web stuff. Here's the link www.facebook.com , I hope to see some of you on there soon. Look me up and send me a message. Below is my facebook piccie.

Lots of people have been asking us about names for the baby, and we aren't telling anyone until baby arrives. To satisfy that name curiosity that we all have, Paul found this cool website showing the popularity of names since the 1880's, I think it's just for America, but it's pretty darned cool anyway. Just type your name in the top left above the pink and blue box and it gives you a graph showing the popularity of your name. http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html