Friday 22nd
September 2017
00 degrees 40.421N
104 degrees
00.894E
Singapore
(Chinatown)
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| The Harby Thomas family - Liesbeth Donald Philip Pippa Elsbeth |
This morning I got an email from my cousin Liesbeth, in
Harby (Newark, Nottinghamshire) saying that…the weather is disgustingly vile. So maybe it is good that we are no longer in the
UK but in Singapore where the weather is always ALWAYS the same. Hot and steamy. Between 30-32 every day.
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| Party day - Carel Marguerite Philip Inge |
We were sad to leave the UK, where we had had so much
fun, so much love, so much chat, food, wine, adventure!
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| Marguerite and Liesbeth (I found Pippa's stylish sunglasses) |
But really we didn’t have suitable clothes for
disgustingly vile weather so…it was definitely time to leave!
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| Freddie Lizzie Finlay |
I haven’t been able to write any bloggery because…I lost
my computer charger. I was very annoyed
with myself; I had tried so hard to check every single power point whenever we
left one place for another (which seemed to be just about a daily occurrence…) Yesterday we went to one of the many (MANY)
huge Singapore shopping malls and I bought (sigh, $120,) a new one. And when I looked at the boxes…I thought,
hmmmm…two boxes…my computer charger is a single unit, with the charger cord
securely welded into the other bit. Isn’t
it?? Well no…I actually hadn’t lost it
alt all, it was still faithfully in its special pouch in my pack, but had
separated itself into two bits so that I no longer recognised it. I no have to make my way back to Vivo, but
travel is easy in Singapore, with the super efficient metro system so all is
well and I can get my $120 back! And…I
can write my blog!
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| So her is my little Macbook Air, being re-charged next to our gin bottle! |
A lot to catch up on…The 70th birthday party
was wonderful. Only 22 people, mostly
family. And everybody spoke to
everybody!
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| Pippa and Elsbeth |
Once again I found it all overwhelming, meeting so
many delightful beautiful and charming people closely related to me.
I can’t write too much about my Harby time because I
am still processing it all in my mind…
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| Pete and Donald |
But lots of new connections and great
friendships. Carel, for instance, took a
great liking to Pete. I just love this photo…Carel
is being exuberant in his affection; Pete is being tolerant and amused; Philip
is totally impassive.
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| Philip Pete Carel |
We had our last two UK days in Windsor with Pete’s
wonderful cousin Judith.
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| Judith and Pete |
I was able to get some photos of "her " horses on a
grassy knoll not far from her house.
Judith and some of her gang raised the funds and organised for these
horses to be cast for the queens 60th birthday celebration. The powers that be had already organised a Windsor
sculpture for her – a spiral of large stainless steel balls outside Sainsbury’s…
I am sure the queen admired them very much but….she does love her horses and
these are just beautiful.
I also fulfilled some other ambitions. I stalked a squirrel! And got a beautiful photo of its tail…
I also found an ugly pub.
I had until then been convinced that there was no such
thing in the UK. All pubs look like this, or even prettier:
I was beginning to
get a big inferiority complex; in Australia we tend to specialise in ugly pubs!
And we went for a
walk across the bridge into Eton. Eton
is a very pretty village, mostly occupied by The School.
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| Love this Eton boys promotional poster! |
And yes they do
wear tailcoats! And starched white
shirts with white bow ties!
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| Tails! |
Our 13 hour flight
to Singapore went well. As in…the plane
got from Point A to Point B. we both had
aisle seats, and we both had pleasant neighbours who didn’t want to chat. But oh dear 13 hours sitting all cramped up
is just too long! I am still feeling (and
looking…) like a hollow-eyed ghoul…
But Singapore is
great.
It is all very efficient
and very very clean. Lots to see, lots
to do.
I had a birthday
and spent it feeling (and looking) like a zombie.
Pete, on the other hand, looks great! All colour co-ordinated with his umbrella, shirt and dragonfruit smoothie!
But I got beautiful
jet earrings from Whitby (thank you Pete!) and lots of cheering messages on
Facebook. And I spent the day gently pootling
around…well not really. We WERE going to
pootle gently but after our trip to Vivo to get my (now redundant) computer
charger, we realised we could easily walk across to Sentosa. And then maybe go to see a movie. Except there wasn’t one we wanted to see –
mostly they were showing action movies in Mandarin.
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| Whitby jet! |
So – by then our
jetlagged brains were slowly melting in the midday sun – we bought tickets to a
4D Mystery Island Adventure thingy, starring a man with enormous muscles and a very
ancient but exuberant Michael Caine.
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| I look fine in soft focus!!! |
which didn’t start
until 2pm…so we walked and walked some more, along some lovely pathways through
what is left of the original Sentosa jungle.
Mostly Sentosa is
totally fake but they have left little pockets of lush greenery.
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| Fake mountain bisected by monorail |
On our way back –
my iPhone tells me we walked 15.5 kilometres yesterday – we stopped for an
ablutions break at a big fancy resort hotel.
Where they had amazing sculptures!
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| Adam and Eve |
And a beautiful
toilet facility – thank you Crockfords Tower Hotel!
Pete wanted to go
into town to a fancy restaurant and maybe another attempt at a movie but I said
I would much rather go to the lovely basic yum cha place right next door to our
Santa Grand Hotel, and be waited on by cheery Wee Yee. (Well…I am another whole year older than I was
the day before and maybe my energy levels are declining!)
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| Pete and Wee Yee |
We are staying in
the middle of Chinatown the Santa Grand, a converted old opera house. It is still very grand, red and black and dramatic,
but…we can afford it because they have carved up the rooms into narrow long high
boxes!
But…we have a
balcony!
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| View from balcony |
And a durian stall
right below our balcony…oh yucky stinky durian!
But I do love it
and would stay here again, even though the TV is a mile away from the pillow end
of the bed…
Today we have only
walked 9 kilometres. Will write about this
tomorrow if the spirit moves me…
