Random thoughts

I find that counting my blessings can be quite theraputic so here goes: I am happily married to a wonderful, kind, thoughtful and loving man. We are expecting a baby in July We live a comfortable life and want for nothing We have lots of fun holidays to tropical destinations that I only ever dreamed of visiting Our family and friends ar in good health and are successful and happy Now things to be thankful for: Skype, e-mail, friend's blogs and the internet My flute Avocados Godiva chocolate Marmite Freshly squeezed carrot and orange juice Tropical climates OK, so it turned more into a list of what makes me happy, but I'm sure you get the idea...a happy and prosperous 2007 to everyone!

Happy Christmas to all! We had a wonderful day with an adopted Australian family here in Singapore (that is to say we adopted them), three generations all under one roof, a traditional turkey roast and lots of good food and cheer. What a great day! I got a beautiful flute for Christmas, it's something I've wanted to learn since I was about 6, and now I can't wait to have a go. I'm going to teach myself to start with, then move on to lessons when I can't go further on my own. In fact, I'm off to have a go now... I'm thoroughly enjoying working part-time, apart from it's raining so much here at the moment I'm not doing as much swimming as I'd like. Oh well, monsoon season is over soon.

Wow, finally I can publish the news I've been wanting to tell everyone for the past couple of months. Paul and I are expecting our first child in early July next year. Yippeee.

I've just been onto Gaz's photo site and stolen a whole load of cool photos that he took while we were away at the weekend. From the top: La Pau Sat, our living room, me at Pulau Ubin, Paul and I in a restaurant.

Well, it seems that it's been a month since I last wrote anything. I guess I've been busy. This month I've gone to working part time after a bit of a battle with the school I work with. It works much better for me to have some of my own time, I'm not quite fully a lady of leisure - but almost. KL and the Cameron highlands We've just come back from a weekend in Kuala Lumpur and the Cameron Highlands with our friends Gary and Paul from the UK. A good weekend was had by all. The Cameron highlands is a cool mountainous area three and a half hours north of Kuala Lumpur. It still has lots of buildings from the colonial era, including the wonderfully named 'Ye olde smokehouse' restaurant, which is about as authentic a British pub/restaurant as you will find anywhere in the world! We busied ourselves touring tea plantations, supping local tea, eating local strawberries and eating roast beef. The weather was cool and everything was distinctly British. Very quaint. It...

Bangkok is dirty, noisy, smelly and hot. That said, it has some beautiful temples and interesting markets. The main purpose of our long weekend was to go to our friend Glen's marriage to Pat. The wedding was massive and was in a very smart hotel in central Bangkok. The speeches were touching and Pat looked gorgeous. The happy couples... The wedding photographer!! We stayed in a charming boutique hotel called the Wendy house, it's in central Bangkok and very reasonably priced. The breakfast was great and set us up for the day. The only downside was the four storey climb to our room. This, accompanied by the fact that to get anywhere by public transport in Bangkok means scaling about fifty steps, meant that we got a good workout this weekend. The reclining Buddha, Wat Po; The Grand Palace Our highlights were the temples (Grand Palace, Wat Po and Wat Arun), the canal tour and the enormous, sprawling Jatujak market (with 15,000 stalls selling just about everything you can imagine)....

After weeks of no rain it has now started to rain heavily every day at around 2pm. It was no surprise, therefore, when it did so today. Or at least it shouldn't have been a surprise, but somehow I found myself walking back from the bus stop in a torrential tropical rainstorm. I broke the only 'weather'-related rule in Singapore - Always carry an umbrella...Never mind, I'll know better next time, or at least I'd like to think so. As usual on my walk home I looked up to the top of the fence to see the weaver ant's nest. It's amazing, there is this colony of fairly large red ants who have woven together about six leaves to make a pod in which to live. Apparently they make the nest by making a string of ants between two leaves and then shortening the string one ant at a time. Then they squeeze a larvae to make the silky glue that holds the leaves together. They are there every day maintaining the structure, frantically so when it rains like today. I live in c...

Thailand really is a beautiful place. This was my second visit and you really can't beat it for clear water, white-sand beaches, friendly faces and good food. We had an awesome and relaxing four day trip (all for about £150 each!!). It's great to be able to take weekend breaks to places like this, I think we'll be checking out some more Thai islands before long. Sometimes when I'm lying on a beach reading my book, I just can't get over how lucky I feel right now - no I'm not gloating, just recognising my good fortune. Come and visit us and we can take you to a tropical island for the weekend too. I think that pictures can do this place more justice than words, so here we go. Left: one of the many lovely long-tailed boats, resting in the crystal clear waters. Right:Us at sunset. Below: Maya bay, where the film 'The Beach' was shot Wow, what a great four days. Just a shame that we had to come back to work really...

Wow, these things are great. What a magnificent idea! We were at a braai/BBQ yesterday with some new friends and they produced a boxed of mixed flavour mini cornettos. I think I might just have to install some of them in my freezer. They are big enough to satisfy a dessert/ice cream urge, but not big enough to make you feel guilty... perfect. A friend that we met at the wedding in Malaysia introduced us to a really great group yesterday, all couples from SA, Oz and the UK, and all about our age. I think this group could be a lot of fun. They've invited me to a gathering on Tuesday afternoon (it's a public holiday here). I'm looking forward to it.

My friend Julia posted this on her blog and I think it's a great idea. It shows where you've been in the world. I will try and update this as we travel more around Asia. Still, it only equates to 11% of the world (26 countries), and I'm not really sure if Hong Kong counts as China. create your own visited countries map And here's my map of the USA, only 17% (9 states so far) create your own visited states map

Is anyone out there? If you are reading this and fancy leaving a comment, please do. I'm not sure if the system works, as I haven't received any yet. Give it a go, I'd love to hear from you.

At the end of September we went to the mid-Autumn festival lantern extravaganza at Chinese Gardens (near where we used to live) - we went to this last year and it was quite something, hundreds of satin sculptures brightly lit. This year was a little disappointing (apparently they'd outsourced it). There were very few satin thingys and there was some dire karaoke going on in an oversized marquee with no-one in it. That said, it was still quite amusing. I've put some photos on here. For photos of last year's see our website http://www.paulandcaillie.com/ (select 2005, Singapore). Mooncakes The mid Autumn festival is also the time to give and receive mooncakes. These look like pork pies but have a variety of sweet or savoury fillings. These mooncakes often have a whole cooked egg yolk inside to symbolise the moon. The festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, is also known as the Mooncake or Lantern Festival. Several interesting legends are connected with this...

Batu Pahat We were at a Chinese wedding on Sunday in a town called Batu Pahat in the Johor Province in western Malaysia. The town is little known by tourists, hence a group of four caucasians strolling down the road in our wedding smartest elicited several honks of car horns. Cake cutting As the bride and groom entered (Elaine looked gorgeous in traditional Chinese wedding attire) they first stood for photos whilst pretending to cut a fake cake - apparently the Chinese aren't too keen on cake, but it's still a tradition. The couple then poured a blue beverage into a tower of champagne glasses, very impressive. The feast For the wedding meal itself we were surprised to find ourselves guests of honour, placed on the top table either side of the bride and groom. We were in for a real treat. It was truly a wedding feast, there were about seven courses, all of which were Chinese except for the chocolate ice cream for dessert. Some of the food I recognised, the rest I did not. I did,...

Four hours on a coach at night is a great place to think; to really contemplate stuff. And that's just what I did - instead of succumbing to the usual attractons of my book, my MP3 player or sleep, I just sat and thought. Thoughts flitting around my head like fireflies; round and round, up and down; eyes closed; lovely. Very enjoyable it was too. I came up with three new business ideas (and rejected them all). I formulated a plan for a new badminton club, which I'll start this week. I contemplated the differences between Chinese and British culture. I mulled over the importance of having good friends nearby. Then we arrived home in Singapore.

We seem to be able to see and breathe again, thank goodness. It was all quite odd. I'm glad it's pretty much gone though. We were assured by our Singaporean friends that the situation was much, much worse in 1997 - everyone had to wear face masks. This week has flown, all of my students passed their 3-weekly test, which is a relief. Even though the test results do not reflect on the teachers, I'm always glad when they all pass. I've learnt a few more Chinese characters, I find the process of learning them quite relaxing - however I don't seem to be able to remember them very well afterwards! We're off to Batu Pahat in Malaysia this Sunday for a friend's wedding. It's about three hours away and we're going up and back in a day. It should be fun, I'll post pictures when we return. We are really growing to like Singapore more and more, maybe we'll stay a little longer...as always we don't know exactly what we're doing yet or where we...

After a year here I thought I had mastered the art of understanding Singlish; until, that was, we had a talk from the second in command of Singapore prisons at church. I thought I was listening to another language. I guess what it is, is that most of our Sing friends tone down their Singlish when they talk to us and all we get is the occasional 'lah' in the middle or at the end of a sentence. This guy was in full flight Singlish mode, I was amazed. It can be quite fun to listen to, but I have to resort to lip-reading quite often because of the accent. The picture above shows a sign from Pulau Ubin, one of Singapore's islands. Singlish is basically the skeletal structure of English, with some key grammar missing and some Malay and Chinese words thrown in. It is spoken in a more abrupt manner than English is spoken. It also uses some quaint English idioms Some examples: lah - kind of like a tag question eg 'isn't it?' or 'aren't they' or even just ...

Well, I kno w I only posted this morning, but I've just found out more about the smoke. It's from southern Sumatra in Indonesia and it affects not only Singapore, but also Malaysia. The air pollution level is measured every three hours. Any measurement up to 100 is considered safe. Today's measurements have fluctuated between 100 and 150 - not good. Worst of all, it appears that a lot of the particles are small enough to get through the air con, yikes. Oh well, sounds like it's not too dangerous - I'll just have to get used to having itchy eyes. We bought a photo printer today, finally we'll get around to printing some of our wedding photos. Not bad, only a year and a half late! We witnessed what is quite a common event here in Singapore this afternoon. However, I realise that it's not really that usual anywhere else. We were at Funan - The IT Mall and there was a shop-opening event. This consisted, as all do in Singapore, of a drinks party, several talls st...

This week has been odd; I first noticed the haze last weekend when the morning sun was a lovely red colour. Since then the haze has ceased to be 'lovely' and more of an annoyance. It's like standing next to a really smoky bonfire for a week - and apparently it's set to continue for another few weeks. Evidently there's some slash-and-burn clearing going on in Indonesia and Singapore gets the smoke from there every year or so. This is the first time we've experienced it - and it's not nice. We've even resorted to turning our air-conditioning on...something we've never done in Singapore. It's quite surreal, it's like a smelly mist that won't lift. We've had friends here this week, it's been nice to come home and chill out with friends from the UK. It feels really good to be able to just pick up where we left off with them, and it's really good to have the space to put people up now. After Alpha last night we were walking back a...

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 ...

It's funny how sometimes it can just be a totally normal weekend (or weekday for that ma tter), and you turn around and say - I just love being where I am right now. We were floatin g about in our pool at 10pm yesterday with a bottle of good red wine, and that precise thought came to me. Paul had cooked me a fantastic dinner (and lunch for that matter) and I'd spent the day playing badminton, reading my book in time to finish it for bookclub, and swimming. That was when I thought just how much I love exactly where I am right now! (The picture on the right is the front of our condo). I had a chat with a friend who is starting her first teaching job tomorrow, and she's (understandably) as nervous as I was three months ago. And I reflected, it's amazing how quickly you get used to doing something so dramatically different. My friend SMS'd me today with a very good question (answers on a postcard please!) - why do people often put and 's' onto heaven (thus makin...

I'm really enjoying Mandarin classes now. It's great to be learning a new language again. I finally feel that I'm 'getting it'. I just learned how to say 'I'm English' and 'Where are you from?' - a long way from fluent but a good start. The lessons are entirely in Mandarin and are really useful for helping me improve the way I teach English. Fantastic news this week, my friends Sue and Justin are having a baby. I'm so excited for them. It makes me want to be back in the UK. I miss our friends there. Life in Singapore is getting more exciting. I have badminton this Saturday, Mandarin every Wednesday, bookclub next Tuesday and we're off to Malaka next weekend. If we don't watch ourselves we'll be as busy as we were in London. I guess that wouldn't be such a bad thing. I've finally told a few people that this blog exists, so maybe it's getting read now. I'm conscious that I don't want to change the way I've be...

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...

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 frien...