Today we fly to Australia!

This is a scheduled post, because this morning at 9:30am we fly to Australia to live in Perth for the next two years.

The temperatures have been up to 35*c for the last few weeks, so I'm not sure how we're going to manage the heat. I'm told it is dry heat which is easier to bear than the humidity that we've been used to in Singapore. But we shall see.

There are no Starbucks in Perth, but I'm sure we'll find new favourite coffee houses, as long as they also do soy hot chocolate! There are LOTS of scrap-booking shops there. Hee hee. Once DH is back at work and we've found our apartment, I'll be investigating these. Market research, you understand. Of course. And I believe the sushi bars will need some checking out too. And the parks, the beaches, the houses... it's exciting!

By now, if everything goes according to plan, the keys will have been handed back to the landlord - thank you Lim! - and we will have bid farewell to Happy Harry 2, Dutch Twinkle, Heffalump Child and the apartment where we have lived for two and a half years. We will have had our final barbecue with DH's work (thanks AC!) and we should have been to the Night Safari and said our goodbyes to the tarsier, the flying squirrels, the sugar gliders and the flying foxes. We will have had our final meal at Carnivore with Lorraine and Colin, and our last sushi at our favourite Yotei restaurant. And I will have said goodbye to everyone at the My Type restaurant who I have spent so much time with over the last few years.

I'd like to thank everyone we've met here for adding to our great Singapore experience during our five years here. I don't think there will be tears. We'll see again the good friends we've made, and although we've loved it here, we're ready to move on. If we had left a year ago, I think it would have been a bigger wrench. But I know I will leave a part of my heart here forever.

Back in sunny Singapore

I got back to Singapore late Friday night, after about 2 hours' sleep on the flight. This was mainly thanks to two Dutch women behind me who decided that it was acceptable to hoot loudly at each other from 4 seats apart, while everyone else was trying to sleep all "night" until what would have been 5am. My own ear-plugs just weren't man enough for the job.

It wasn't only their fault. I'd chosen a seat on the aisle with an empty place behind me, so that I wouldn't get kicked from behind. It worked fine on the Air France flight on the way to Europe, but somehow on the way back with KLM, everyone thought it was OK to use the back of my seat as an arm-rest on their way past - even the staff with their trolleys. Ah well, you live and learn. It's Sunday now and I think I've almost caught up on my sleep now, despite Heffalump Child doing her darnedest to prevent me. Even DH got cross and yelled at her earlier on, but that "sound rises" rule that we learned in Physics lessons doesn't seem to work here.

I had a fantastic time in the UK, and a big THANK YOU to everyone whose beds I slept in, whose food I enjoyed, and who politely tried some of my flax bread and valiantly munched through my other cooking. Also to those who kindly made time to meet me at closed coffee shops, in draughty London squares, and at our overgrown, cold, damp house.

We even had a dear little thunderstorm in England, just to make me feel "at home". Well OK, there was one lightning flash and a gentle rumble quite a long time afterwards, but it did its best, bless it. DH promised me some thunder when I got back, because he's been working with ear-muffs in a swamp for the last fortnight, but I think I've frightened the fun weather away because it's been hot, hot, hot since I got back. I'll keep waiting.

I managed a little crafting while I was away. As well as my crop with Kelly and Georgina, I found myself with one evening free to catch my breath on my west country leg. I spent it in my hotel room with the TV showing some good old British comedy, while I put on my sloppy joes and spread out my crafting stuff all over the bed and made 8 Christmas cards.

I also made some thank you cards while I was at my Mum's, for some of the dear people who were so kind to me. I've left them with my Mum to post, once Royal Mail have cleared the backlog from their random strikes over pay and working conditions. I used my Scrap Whispers prize which Georgina gave me at the crop: a Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses Collection kit - perfect for a project whilst travelling. Here are some of them.

Now it's back to normality, laundry and more laundry.

Heffalump Child update

I was just asked how things were upstairs, as I hadn't posted lately, so I thought I'd better fill you in.

She's still making her presence very much felt. DH and I were actually speculating only last night whether the new cracks in the plaster were from the earthquakes or from her.

Her latest is massive excitement just as she's about to go out. I think mum puts her shoes on her, and while little brother is having his put on, she celebrates by pretending to be a kangaroo all through the apartment. Then the door slams, rattling our windows, and I hear their progress 19 floors down to the ground floor and out of the complex.

When they get home the process is repeated, when mum is presumably so busy taking little brother's shoes off again, that Heffalump Child is allowed to create a few more ceiling cracks before she's caught.

Last week we had a bad smog which came over quite suddenly. DH rang me wondering whether she had self-combusted from excitement.

The meltdowns are slightly fewer these days, although just as vocal. I'm guessing she was feeling left out after the baby arrived. We may not be here much longer, so thank you Kelly for reminding me to keep my sense of humour with our small neighbour with the big feet.

Neighbourhood update

I haven't posted lately about my nearest, dearest neighbours here in the condo. How remiss of me. You must be wondering how much I've seen ;-) of Ugly Naked Guy, or what I've heard from Heffalump Child, or maybe how Happy Harry II's smile is getting on. Let me update you.

I think someone must have said something to Ugly Naked Guy. Or maybe it was just coincidence. But when I saw him a few days ago, he was loading his washing machine as usual, stretching past the dryer to pop each item in as he took it off. But this time, instead of socks hanging from the little circular dryer, there was a towel. It's not a very big dryer, and the towel wasn't very big either, but it was just big enough to make my view much less... er... compelling (in that train-wreck kind of way) than usual.

Happy Harry II has metamorphosised into his own father. DH went down to pay late one evening, and instead of the dark, dark face with the bright, white teeth glowing out of the gloom, he was greeted with a shock of white hair against the chocolate skin, and no teeth at all. He wasn't quite sure whether it was the same "company" (in the loosest term of the word because Harry II was a one-man-band), but the new/old guy seemed to know DH's car, although his English is even more limited than Harry's was. We haven't picked a name for Harry II's father yet. We're working on it.

Heffalump Child and Wooden Blocks are growing. In height, foot size and volume. HC's lungs have developed to an extraordinary capacity, where she can wake us up by screaming in the night from a different room in the apartment above. I'm presuming it's HC rather than WB, simply because I get her "wah wanna wah" wailing several times a day. She's doing it right now actually. WB squeals rather than wailing. Can't wait for the baby to arrive...

So now that she's bigger, I can hear the thump thump thump thump THUMP THUMP thump thump thump thump accompanied by the crashing of furniture that she's knocked down on her rampage. She's also decided that she's big enough to move chairs all by herself now, so we get SQUEEE... EEEEEEE... (insert fingers in ears, try not to grit teeth)... eeeeee... eeeeee... eeeeeeeak several times a day. Lovely.

At weekends when DH tries to get a lie-in (that's a "sleep-in" to all you folks across the pond!) he gets woken up by the extra-enthusiastic morning yomp at around 7:20am. That's a whole hour earlier than the daily 8:20am scaffold pole dropped from 5 storeys at the building site across the road.

And lastly to Dutch Twinkle and his wife downstairs. He's a dear. I get a text message at least once a week saying "Hi neighbourette, pool tomorrow 10am?" Then we spend an hour doing leisurely lengths, or widths in the deep end if the "wheels on the bus" are going "round and round" endlessly in the shallows. We chat and joke, and he blows raspberries at passing children, and tells me beer stories. He's taken a few fun lessons with DH's guitar tutor, found the guy to be just as unreliable as our warnings, and moved on to a better one. He humours me when I moan about HC by saying that yes, he heard that crash at 8:30 this morning too, and it wasn't me? Goodness that was loud then!

I'm going to miss all this when we leave, which may be in a couple of months. DH did ask me the other day whether I would stay here if we had the option, and I said yes. Better the devil you know, and all that. At least our little cloven-footed devil upstairs is only 4' high.

Flowers of the Far East

One of the ScrapJazz June Challenges this month was to produce a layout using "the power of four": 4 photos, 4 buttons, 4 different patterned papers and 4 flowers. Interesting.

I was in a Sushi restaurant waiting for my takeaway order when the idea came to me, and I sat there sketching different ideas in my little notebook, aware that people were walking past trying not to let me see their interest. I have to have a notepad and pen with me at all times. All kinds of things go into it: recipes, e-mail addresses, design ideas, "to do" lists, day-diaries of holidays, room measurements, word translations. My friends laugh when they say "you must read this book" and out comes the notebook and pen. "You're so organised!" they tease me, then 2 minutes later, "have you got a spare bit of paper?" Teehee.

I continued the planning on the MRT (train) on the way home. Mostly people don't like to be seen to be nosing into what other people are doing, but the old Singaporean man next to me had no such inhibitions. If he had been able to speak any English, I'm sure he would have given me some advice, but he had to content himself with smiling, pointing and nodding. Bless him. The Singaporean version of the "nutter on the bus" syndrome. It follows me around the world.

I hand-cut and inked the flower petals and bracts, and used the Silhouette to cut the stamens and the title. I can tell you that those tiny letters took blinking ages to cut and stick on - SO fiddly! And just when I was sitting there holding the "s" in tweezers with my nose 3 inches from the page and my tongue sticking out of the corner of my mouth, Heffalump Child decided that would be a great moment to knock over something large and breakable just above my head. I didn't bite my tongue. Just. And I managed to find the "s" on the carpet, unpick the fluff and re-glue it. No tongue this time - it was busy muttering unholy sentiments.

So with thanks to the encouragement of my friend on the MRT, here's the finished result. Am I the only one who is going to be humming "Flowers of the forest" all day now?

I've got no weather

When I started this blog, I found this fantastic little Google Gadget called MyWeather. You probably saw it at the top of the blog posts, and thought "so Singapore's got thunderstorms again" or "crikey, it's hot there". Or maybe not. Anyway, I like having a little weather icon to show me that someone somewhere in the world thinks it's raining here when it's not. Yet. And MyWeather was perfect for the job.

Then instead of a cute little sun with a cloud and a lightning bolt through it, it started showing "data not found" errors, and so I investigated. It turns out that someone's got cross with this chap calling his fun, harmless little piece of wizardry "MyWeather", because someone else started using that name first. How very school playground. So he's got to change the name, and until he's finished the programming, I have no weather. Not Kewl. That happens to be the software writer's web-site, but it's also how I feel about the whole thing. Grr.

Meanwhile, Heffalump Child continues to bring the ceiling down with her size 2s, and Wooden Blocks carries on with his attempts to miss the carpet. He's doing pretty well so far. I'm not sure which is worse: the previous constant clatter or just an occasional heart-jumping crash. Neither are good for the concentration. And last night we had opera coming up through the floor, so I guess Dutch Twinkle is back from his trip home.

Today I'm going to finish my brother's birthday card. His birthday is tomorrow (oops) but I've been planning, worrying and darn near dreaming about this dratted card for weeks, wanting to get it right. Inspiration came to me in the shower yesterday morning, as it often does, and I spent half the day working on it. So I'm going to call tomorrow to wish him a Happy Birthday and apologise for the card being late, but hopefully he'll find it worth the wait. Ish.

Heffalump Child confronted

I went shopping today. I went to the supermarket and for the umpteenth week running, they were out of rice pasta and wheat/vinegar-free whole-grain mustard. I asked a shelf-stacker about both items. She didn't know, it wasn't her responsibility, the head office did the ordering, they were never having it in. "Never?" I asked in surprise. "It never came in" she qualified. "Oh right, well thank you" and I continued with my list.

I walked out of the end of the aisle and caught the eye of a woman who stared at me with a half smile and the whisper of a head-shake. I smiled cheerfully back, thinking maybe she'd heard the exchange and was sympathising. She didn't return the smile and I suddenly wondered whether I'd been standing in her way while I was conducting my blood-from-stone questioning, or had unwittingly taken the last pack of chicken breasts or something.

Being me, I was slightly rattled, and carried on worrying about it all the way round the shop, but I couldn't come to any conclusion. As I walked home, the sharp corner of the plastic egg-box ripped a hole in the side of the plastic bag and sliced my leg, producing rather more blood than I would have expected. I had to let it run, having both hands and a shoulder full of bags.

I checked the post drop to find that the postman had tried to deliver just a few minutes earlier, and now I was going to have to battle with the wretched post office telephone system to get the parcel redelivered, knowing that I was going to fail and have to spend 40 minutes queuing in the Post Office the following day. All in all, my view of the brightness of the day had somehow dimmed.

As I walked in through the door, laden with groceries, dropping mail and still dribbling blood, Heffalump Child suddenly tipped a box of house bricks onto the floor directly above my head. I jumped, and how I didn't drop the wretched eggs I have no idea. Well actually I do, it was because I had them on the bag half-way up my arm and I would have had to drop everything else first. But that was it. Once the groceries had been disposed of into various chilling compartments, and my leg made to look less frightening to small children, I grabbed the keys and went upstairs before I had the chance to calm down.

Heffalump Child's mother is young, Australian, very sweet and very pregnant. Heffalump Child is a little girl of about 4. She'll be the one running around. Her smaller brother (henceforth to be known as Wooden Blocks, because those were what he was swiping with great energy off his little table and onto the marble floor) must be around 2. Number 3 will be making an appearance fairly shortly if looks are anything to go by. I have a number of nicknames dreamed up for it, but let's just say that I hope it doesn't fit any of them.

I explained very apologetically why I had come up, and HC's and WB's mother was equally apologetic, saying that she hadn't thought about how it must sound below. I asked whether WB could play on a carpet maybe, and she said yes, and indicated a big thick carpet about 3 feet from where he was sitting. HC then demanded mamma's attention and with mutually understanding, and of course, apologetic smiles, we parted.

Since then all has been quiet. I called the post office and miraculously managed to speak to a real person, after being told first that nobody was available to take my call, then that the number I had typed in was invalid, and then that I had exceeded the maximum number of attempts. I was about to hang up in resignation when a bright voice came on the line and asked how she could help me. I explained, apologetically, and arranged the redelivery. I also explained, apologetically, the disagreements that her phone system and I had been having. She said I'd been redirected to the central number. I suggested that maybe the central number should be printed on the delivery slip instead of the branch number which was never answered. She didn't realise that it wasn't. She hadn't known that branch system didn't work. She would get onto it. She was like a breath of fresh air.

So. Why is it these days, that in order to succeed in one's intentions, one first has to be frustrated so many times? I can see that this just happens sometimes in life. But what I can't understand is why anyone would deliberately programme an automated system to work the same way.

Gossip

On Friday morning I had a "pool date" with Dutch Twinkle. We spent an hour swimming leisurely lengths and chatting as the pool gradually filled up with people. It was a somewhat interrupted swim, as the fogger (the twice-weekly insecticide for mosquitoes) came round at one point and we had to get out and find a smoke-free bit of air to breathe. A pile of maids and mothers brought their small children into the shallow end, and we were serenaded with "The Wheels on the Bus" ad nauseam. I think I preferred 99 Red Balloons!

Then a proper swimmer got in. You know the sort: swimming goggles on, powers up and down the pool in a focussed and professional way that gives the illusion that mowing down slower swimmers and children is actually acceptable. After he'd missed me by inches for the second time, DT told him off. He apologised but the shaking head and goggle-magnified rolling eyes negated any sentiment. And off he went again in the same manner. We swam a few widths to get in his way purposely, then got bored with being childish and got out.

DT told me some interesting things though. One night in March last year when DH was away, I was disturbed by this terrific banging, vibrating noise that shook the bathroom walls and drowned out the TV. It was completely impossible to sleep through even with ear-plugs, because I was feeling rather than hearing it. I got dressed again and went to investigate. It seemed to be coming from the apartment below on floor 18. I met another lady from floor 17 with a very heavy Korean accent. She was panicking that something was going to catch fire, come down through her ceiling, explode and flood her apartment - barking mad. She said that she'd called the police!

This seemed rather extreme, but I joined her as we went and joined her husband who was talking to security. It was nothing to do with me, but what else was I going to do? Sit and listen to that racket all night? Nobody could raise the residents of the apartment although we could see lights on. The police weren't allowed to break in, however hysterical #17 got. We were all sent back to bed - haha. At around 4am the noise stopped and I guessed someone had made contact with the residents and dealt with it. The following day I heard the unmistakeable sounds of workmen and plumbers, and that night I slept. Good, sorted.

A few months later DH was again away, and I was woken up at 1am by shouting, screaming, the crashing of furniture. I listened for a while thinking someone was having a moving-in/out fight. They happen here: moving is stressful. But this went on and on. I got dressed and went to call security. I could see all the lights on in Hysterical #17's apartment. I should point out here that I'm 2 floors away on the 19th! It took 20 minutes for the security guard to wake up his colleague to come and relieve him at the front gate, but finally we were on our way back. We listened outside the apartment. The lights were still on but the noise had died down. My friend the security guard was very nice and told me to ring the gate if I was disturbed again. I didn't hear anything more.

So back to DT's gossip. Firstly, he has heard Heffalump Child and its marbles. From 2 floors down. He only realised that it wasn't me after I whinged to him about it. Good, if I ever meet these people I can now say something. Maybe I'll go and call on them when we move out. :)

Secondly, he calls Hysterical #17 the "maid-beater". He says it's a monthly thing, although I don't know whether that coincides with salary payment or a clash of hormones. We already know that the police can't do anything in a situation that's classed as "domestic", so nothing can be done to help. I wonder why the maid stays with them. Now that's drahmah duckie.

A little dream come true

OK this is funny!

Heffalump Child has a piano. Well I wasn't quite sure whether it was Heffalump Child upstairs or German Twinkle from the floor below. I've heard Chopsticks being played very enthusiastically from somewhere, but it can be pretty hard to tell where sound is coming from. Chopsticks on repeat mode can be fairly irritating, and that's why I've never learned, or even tried to play it.

The other day I was again sharing a lift with German Twinkle. He's sweet. We chatted and joked, and I asked whether my piano playing was bothering him. He Twinkled again and asked "Chopsticks?" I said "do you hear Chopsticks being played?" and he made that slightly confused "well... er... yes..." look. Interesting. "Do you have a piano?" I asked. He shook his head.

BINGO! He's hearing Heffalump Child's piano 2 FLOORS AWAY. They're THAT loud.

I'm now just living for the day when he asks me how old my child is...

The Entertainer?

I just realised that I forgot to update about my piano lessons. I've signed up for a course of 10 half-hour sessions at the local Yamaha shop. It's not designed to give a grading or a certificate, but they do aim to teach you how to play a piece before the end of it - depending on how much practise you put in of course.

I love Scott Joplin's music. I really wanted to learn his Sunflower Slow Drag, but we couldn't find the score. Or the Maple Leaf Rag - but that has a scary amount of black notes. So we've settled for The Entertainer, which is in C major.

My teacher is a lovely Japanese girl. We spend rather more time clarifying language problems than we should, but that's OK if she doesn't have any lessons after mine! She's set me scales and exercises to practise too, and I'm noticing an improvement already.

There's one thing I can't get my head around though. She's given me the first 9 bars to learn! Now anyone who knows anything about music will know that it's mathematically rhythmic. You can't just stop after 9 bars. That's like singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and stopping just before the second "little". Ouch. You can learn 8 bars, or 12 bars, or all 20 of the first phrase, but NOT just 9. So I'm being a teacher's pet and learning more because the soul in my body won't let me cut it short.

So far it's just about recognisable, but as fast as Grandpa Simpson on dope. My next lesson was supposed to be this afternoon, but I just had a call to say that the teacher is "on MC" (?) and can they "cancel" it until next Wednesday, same time. See what I mean about the communication trouble? Well, I have another week now to see if I can get the speed up to sound more like the effort of a severely arthritic tortoise.
Listen up Heffalump Child. Revenge is sweet.

Revenge on Heffalump Child

DH was sitting in our lounge on Saturday surfing on his new MacBook, when Heffalump Child started clomping around upstairs and dropping small metallic objects that bounced across the marble floors. We exchanged a few pointed comments about why the parents can't buy the kid a foam play mat. We wondered whether it would be diplomatic to buy one and leave it outside their front door with a message on "with love from your downstairs neighbours". Teehee.

I confessed to a small black mark on the ceiling where I'd lost my temper with a broom handle. It worked though. The noise had stopped instantly. DH looked at me with interest, then got up from his chair and put a CD into the player. Possibly a little louder than was strictly necessary. The clomping paused, then continued. DH turned the volume up just slightly.

Now whether we drowned out Heffalump Child with it (and remember that construction work and a thunderstorm combined couldn't manage that) or whether it was surprised into silence, we couldn't quite tell. But something worked.

We discussed the piano again (I haven't played it since the German twinkle episode) and DH said yes OK they could probably hear it but there's no way they would be bothered by it at the volume level I have. Phew. That made me feel lots better.

Then we got ready to go out. To my surprise, DH didn't turn off the CD player. We grinned at each other and left...

Piano pianissimo

I got into the lift after my run today with our German neighbour from downstairs. I asked him how his guitar lessons were going and he said he was having trouble finding a teacher. I mentioned that DH had lessons and he lifted his eyebrows in a little questioning German twinkle (I only just caught it) and his fingers played an imaginary piano. I rattled on about no that was me, DH played the guitar, and where, and the conversation (if you can call something that lasts 18 storeys that) went back to guitars, then he got out.

Since then, my mind keeps returning to that little German twinkle, and I can only conclude one thing. They can hear our digital piano. And I've been banging on and on about the noise that Heffalump Child upstairs makes. Oh the shame of it - I'm blushing as I type. My only consolation is that I haven't really played it that much, and not late, but um... possibly a little louder than normal. Well you have to try it out don't you?

My piano lessons start this week. So the next gadget on it that I'll be trying out is that headphone socket.

On a more uplifting note, I've finished the ScrapJazz March Layout Challenge: to create our own background using stamping, painting etc. instead of using patterned paper, and to use bling in the title. As water-colour painting is another hobby of mine, I've been meaning to do something like this for a long time. I love how it's turned out!

Crafty Sunday

Today DH has been trying to catch up on his rest after a hard week of early starts, late finishes and late nights. He hasn't been noticeably successful, bless him, because Heffalump Child has brought some similarly hooved little friends home with it and thunder clouds have started rotating above the apartment.

Meanwhile I've been having fun in the craft room. This is for a challenge on ScrapJazz, a chance to use the new DCWV Citrus paper stack I got last week on offer, and to make a card for a friend's birthday. I had so much fun that I couldn't stop at one card, and there are several more similar cards in various stages of completion.

What was that? I can't hear you

This has been a noisy week, but today is the worst of all.

Have I mentioned about Heffalump Child? It recently moved into the apartment above us, along with High Heels Mother. It runs races with itself from one end of the apartment above us to the other, several times a day for about half an hour. So I hear bang bang bang bang bang bang BANG BANG BANG bang bang bang bang bang bang, over and over again. It also has a fondness for wooden blocks, and child and maid seem to spend more time throwing them around the marble floors than seems strictly necessary.

The Wednesday mosquito "fogging" has now been changed to Tuesdays and Fridays, so for an hour on those mornings we get what sounds rather like an industrial leaf-blower. This signals that it's time to close all the doors and windows, stay inside, and whatever else I do, DO NOT put anything down the rubbish chute if I don't want to get a cloud of stinking insect repellent blasting up into my face.

You can't call the daily thunderstorms exactly quiet, either.

But all this (except Heffalump Child - NOTHING drowns that out) has been eclipsed by the renovation work to the lift lobbies on floors 4, 14 and 16. They're hacking up the quarry floor tiles and replacing them. They're using jack-hammers. We're on floor 19, and it sounds and feels as if they're working right outside my front door. The warning notices said this would be 9-4:30 (except Saturday afternoons and Sundays) from the 4th to the 11th, but it didn't start until the 11th so I suppose we've got this until next Wednesday.

And on that collection of discordant notes, I'm going out! Actually on second thoughts, I think I'll wait until after the fogging's finished, and hope the rain holds off.