The Adventure Begins!

Tuesday 16th  August
After a rather fraught few hours we managed to complete our packing and storage of our house contents and the car, and make it on time to the train to London at 12.15. We realised we have far too much luggage when we had to drag it around stations and hump it up and down stairs. From Euston we made our way to a hotel near Heathrow. Here, what looked like the work of the malevolent pixie became evident when we tried on-line check in and discovered my first name was Noramrs and his was paulmr. In something of a panic, we took a trip to the airport, where they assured us it was not the malevolent pixie but the bug in the machine, and it would not matter.

Wednesday 17th August
What can I say about a day spent in a plane? The food, surprisingly, was quite nice, and the baby across the aisle screamed and shrieked for most of the 11 hour flight. When we arrived, it was the next day.

Thursday 18th August
In the early morning, Singapore was quite cool. It didn't last! We took the airport shuttle right to our hotel, which is very central, right by the river which is now the fashionable district. The drive in, in an air-conditioned minibus, was quite beautiful, the wide roads ablaze with bougainvillea at this time of year and everything very clean, neat and fresh. Goodness, how Singapore has changed, even I noticed it and I was here only 12 years ago. There are new developments wherever you look. The river has changed from an open sewer to a fashionable and rather expensive tourist area.

We took an electric bum-boat (a rescued real old-time boat) along the river to admire the old warehouses and 'shophouses' which have been carefully conserved and turned into expensive restaurants or fashionable apartments. They are overlooked by enormous skyscrapers - offices or frighteningly expensive apartments.

At the harbour entrance, one skyscraper complex consists of 3 enormous buildings supporting a 2 acre 'sky garden' spanning all 3 of the buildings.

After our river trip and a quick lunch, we paid a visit to the Asian Civilisation Museum, which was very fascinating and which we enjoyed. However, jet-lag caught up and I found Paul fast asleep on a seat with his head resting on one of the interactive displays. So we went back to the hotel for a shower and a sleep.

For supper, we wandered along the river admiring the displays of lights to Chinatown where we found an excellent collection of food stalls. The we went from the gor blimey to the sublime, so to speak, by visiting the Raffles hotel and wandering through the courtyard - very picturesque. We took in the air-conditioned Raffles City Shopping Mall on the way (it is very hot here, air-conditioning is very welcome) the Padang, which was being set up for a cricket match, and a couple of historic gleaming white churches.

Getting ready a second time

Good grief. I can hardly believe it was almost a year since I wrote that. Surely the malevolent pixie must have decided to throw a major spanner in the works, because shortly after I wrote that, we suffered a genuine DIY accident.

Husband-with-no-patience had decided that nobody else could paint, renovate and repair to his high standard, and he would have to do everything himself. So he decided to repaint the window sills, starting with the bedroom. For some reason I have never fully understood, he decided to hoover the bedroom in great haste, then throw the hoover down beside the bed and jump onto the bed to take the curtains and curtain pole down. Now the pole is quite long and heavy, and the curtains are also long. Moving at 90 miles an hour (the only speed he knows) he snatched the pole and curtains off the wall and attempted to run across the bed. Somehow, between curtains, pole and bedclothes, his feet became tangled, and he executed a curtain pole vault off the bed onto the cunningly placed hoover.

Sadly, this resulted in a ruptured Achilles tendon, several days in hospital, and a holiday postponement. Everything had to be cancelled, and later re-booked; this time, malevolent pixie permitting, we are leaving in mid-August.

As to what we have done in the meantime. Well, we have packed up one house and moved to Manchester to give some support before and after the birth of our first grandchild. We have rented a house near our son and his wife, and been unbelievably busy for months. And now we are packing up again ready to take a train to London tomorrow and a plane out of Heathrow the following day. As long as the dreaded pixie doesn't strike again!

Getting ready!

The flights are booked, and a variety of trips. Now all that remains before we can set off is to get the house ready to be let while we are away.  This means packing our lives for the last 10 years and putting it into storage. We have 4 weeks before we go in mid-October, and an amazing amount to do. The list seems endless - paint the woodwork, clean the walls, re-paint, have the carpets cleaned, have the wooden floor sanded, throw out the old sofa and replace it with a new one, have the curtains cleaned. And every now and then we realise there's something else we will need to do. And of course, it's hard to know what to pack away. You can't leave the packing until the last week, so I'm doing some of it now. But inevitably, we will suddenly need something which has been put at the bottom of a box and stacked somewhere.

The house is full of sharp-edged boxes which lurk quietly awaiting the unwary toe. And suddenly the house contains a malevolent pixie which hides things the minute you put them down. Somewhere in this house is a collection of screwdrivers, rubber bands, sock and keys - or perhaps some of them have slipped into some parallel universe.
Ah well, we could have more serious things to complain about!