The last post

Together again - at last

Well, dear readers, the time has come.  After almost 7 years of posting, some years more active than others it must be said (and if I don't say it I'm sure that my good friend, the lovely Steve, will mention it), the time has come to say au revoir to Singapore and bonjour to Henley on Thames.  

We decamped from tropical climes a couple of weeks ago and the lovely C, the even more lovely Lola and I are currently living the minimalist life in HOT.  I say "minimalist", not because that was a choice, but because our furniture is still on the high seas on its way to a reunion with us.  When it gets here, we will be breaking out the champagne, largely because we will then have some glasses to put it in!

I am planning a new blog, of course, since for some bizarre reason I seem to believe that someone out there is interested in the doings at Schloss Kiddy.  The current working title is HOT Stuff, so keep an eye out.........

But before embarking on the new, let's say a proper farewell to the old with some final reflections on the last seven years in Singapore. 


Things I will not miss
1)  The bloomin' awful TV.  I wish I had known about VPNs earlier and I would not have had to suffer through years of endless repeats of whatever old programmes someone who clearly hates expats chooses to put on the channel laughingly called BBC Entertainment.  Perhaps if you had lived alone in a cave for the last 25 years you might find what they show entertaining, otherwise, it's slim pickings for lovers of Nordic noir, the current season of Strictly or food programmes other than the first series of the Naked Chef.  Seriously.

2)  The price of wine.  

3)  Feeling like a giant when I try to buy shoes.  I take a size 7, for goodness sake, but Singapore shoe shops don't really cater for Ang Mo feet. 

4)  The taste of the strawberries sold in Singapore supermarkets.  Ah, the joys of the Thursday market in Henley, where locally grown asparagus and raspberries have just made an appearance!

5)  The lovely C complaining about the heat and humidity.  Mind you, he was complaining about the cold as soon as we got here.......

6)  The crowds.  Greta Garbo would have had a hard time on Orchard Road on a Sunday.

Things I will miss

1)  The weather.  Living in permanent summer has a lot of advantages, including never needing a winter wardrobe or having to wear tights.  

2)  Our live-in housekeeper. What can I say?  Never having to cook or clean unless you really want to has an awful lot going for it.  

3)  The food.  From hawker centres to fancy restaurants, Singapore has it all, especially for lovers of spicy food.  I miss you, black pepper crab!

4)  The travel opportunities on our doorstep.  I wish we had done more, but we have exceptionally fond memories of Laos, Rajasthan and Myanmar to name but a few.

5)  The movies, especially the Gold Class experience.

6)  The Botanic Gardens and the Gardens by the Bay and Marina Bay in general.  What an amazing development Marina Bay is.  If you have not spent time there, go now, right away,  no dilly dallying.

7)  Changi airport, surely the best, most efficient airport in the world.

8)  The trees.  

9)  The parking, which is cheap and plentiful.

10)  The taxis, which are cheap and plentiful, except when you really need one - on a Friday evening after work, or when it is raining, or on a Saturday evening, or on New Year's Eve, or when it is raining.  I know I said the bit about raining twice, but it rains a lot in Singapore........

11)  The Tanglin Club, especially the swimming pool.  How gorgeous was it to go there on a weekday morning, take some rays, swim a bit, take some more rays, order lunch by the pool and then fall asleep reading a book from their library.  Bliss!

12)  Our friends.  I have saved the best till last.  We have been lucky enough to make some really good friends during our time in Singapore and had some fun times together.  I hope that we can make new memories with them in the future.  On our last weekend in Singapore the lovely Ann Marie and the almost as lovely Nigel took us on a "magical mystery tour" .  It was certainly magical and it was mysterious in as much as we had no idea what they had planned when a driver and car turned up to collect us.  We headed off to pick up our hosts, then went on a tour of all our favourite and memorable haunts over the last seven years.  This being Singapore, there was, of course, food.  Firstly, an in-car picnic of Veuve Cliquot and smoked salmon canapés, then dinner on the terrace at the Lido on Sentosa, where we watched the sun go down over the tankers for the last time  - until the next visit :-).  So, Singapore, it is only au revoir, not goodbye.

The Singapore dress code

So there I was this morning leaving the apartment on my way to the post office, when I encountered a view that made me wish that I had worn blackout curtains rather than sunglasses.  Now, I have committed the odd fashion faux pas in my time, but never a pas as faux as to wear a pair of stilettos longer than the shorts I was wearing them with. Yes, really.

Unfortunately, I had left my iPhone at home and so was unable to make an emergency call to the fashion police to ask them to arrest the young woman (this is Singapore, so at least it was a woman) or at the very least to bring a blanket to throw over her, and so I had to put up with her walking in front of me until I could overtake.  Bizarrely, this was harder than I thought it would be, given that I was wearing Fitflops and she was in the aforementioned (black suede!!!) stilettos, but I was a woman on a mission - to get to the post office as quickly as possible and then return home to write this post.

I don't care how perky your butt cheeks are, this is not
what you wear to the supermarket!

Don't get me wrong, I like high heels and I like shorts.  I have even got used to the very short shorts that some Singaporeans wear in the street, (although I am making an exception for the woman in the picture on the left), but this particular moment was was too much for my sensibilities.  Had there been a chaise longue nearby, I would have had to lie down and call for the sal volatile to relieve my attack of the vapours.

On a related note, did you know that walking around naked in your own home in Singapore is an offence that could result in a 1,000 dollar fine?  I wonder how that particular law is enforced?  Perhaps there is a crack team (sorry, couldn't resist that one) of military personnel, disguised as air conditioning units,  who have set up surveillance posts on the rooftops of apartment buildings in order to combat this menace that threatens the very fabric of society?  

Haggentines

The lovely Sean

I do believe that the lovely C and I may have introduced a new celebration into the Spring calendar - the festival of Haggentines.  This combination of Burns Night and Valentine's took place at Kiddy Towers a couple of weeks ago, intended to be a sort of Valentine celebration with haggis and Scottish poetry - and what could be a better way to spend an evening, I hear you ask.

In case you're wondering, Sean Connery was not among the guests; I just added this picture because I think the man looks damn fine in a kilt.  As did the lovely Ann Marie, who was channelling the Bay City Rollers in a teeny red kilt and black lace up boots.  I can't remember which of our guests suggested the name "Haggentines", but it may well have been the lovely Meg, who has a way with words and who also brought an intriguing gift of Japanese sweetmeats, described as an "Assortment of various" and featuring a weird beardy bloke on the front of the packaging.

So what is the perfect Haggentine's menu, combining aphrodisiac delights with the best that Scotland has to offer?  Well, oysters, of course, to begin.  Ours came from Pasarbella, which describes itself as a Farmers Market, a bizarre concept for Singapore, where the only things that seem to grow  are skyscrapers.  The oysters (happily) were not home grown and neither was most of the stuff on sale, but hey, it was a market of sorts and someone somewhere must have farmed the stuff, so I guess we can stretch the point.  That said, if you are an expat used to lush, abundant arrays of produce in your local farmers' market, you will be disappointed.  

Next up, Macsween's haggis, of course, in the meat and vegetarian varieties.  Now I consider myself to be pretty Scottish, the sort of Scot that gets weepy at the sound of the bagpipes, but I'd be even more weepy if someone made me eat real haggis.  Most of our guests were up for the challenge, however, including those who had eaten it before (I know, I don't get it either), but the lovely AM and I were very happy to chow down on the nutty, lentilly goodness of the veggie version.  Neeps are not readily available in Singapore, so we made do with sweet potato, which was just the right colour and worked pretty well taste wise also.  I'm not sure about the amorous powers of slow roasted leg of lamb, but the carnivores just loved it.  We finished off with my favourite dessert ever - Hilary Brown's caramel parfait pots from the La Potiniere cookbook.  This is/was a small, perfectly formed, restaurant in Gullane, near Edinburgh, run by a husband a wife team in the 80s and 90s.  Sadly, they broke up and moved away, but the restaurant seems to have had a renaissance now and I will definitely be giving it a shot the next time I'm in the area.  The Hillary and David Brown cookbook is sadly out of print, but if you need the recipe, just let me know!

On top of the world

Singapore is not short of tall buildings.  There are three office buildings in the business district that share the honour of being joint tallest, at 280 metres (or 920 feet) tall.  By comparison, the wonderful Marina Bay Sands hotel - the one with the swimming pool shaped like a ship on top) - is a mere two hundred metres, but that's two hundred metres of gorgeousness.

Model of the Pinnacle @ Duxton, courtesy of the HDB

When my sister, the lovely Alison,  came to stay at the end of last year, she and I decided to pay a visit to one of Singapore's most recent entrants to the list of very tall buildings and headed down to the Pinnacle @ Duxton.  I have to confess that I have very mixed feelings about this building.  When it was first being constructed, I thought it was a gigantic blot on the landscape, and to some extent, I still think that whenever I come upon it at ground level.  It is 163 metres tall, composed of seven connected towers, and dominates the skyline if you are in Chinatown or the business district.  It is, frankly, huge, and the biggest public housing project in Singapore by a very long way.  I really do not like the way that the windows form the wiggly lines that you can see in the photo on the left, but I absolutely love the views from the 50th storey skybridge that links all the towers together. In fact, I love everything about the skybridge.  The views are fabulous,completely out of this world, all for the bargain price of five Singapore dollars to non-residents.  The afternoon we went , there were fewer than a dozen visitors  - the two of us, a young expat couple and four Singaporeans doing a fashion photo shoot.  They said that they often come to the Pinnacle and I can see why.

Isabel living the high life

The skybridge flows continuously but has lots of different sections enabling visitors to sit down (or lie down in some cases) to enjoy the view or just meditate.  There is even a patch of concrete painted in a cool blue, presumably to suggest to the eye and the mind the presence of a swimming pool.  No matter how luxurious the HDB, however, a swimming pool is never part of the deal.

So, if you live in Singapore and are reading this, get yourself off to the Pinnacle on the next clear day.  It will be the best 5 dollars you have ever spent, which is saying something in the city where you can get a big bowl of pig organ soup for the same price.........

Heavenly!

It's fair to say that I have not blogged much recently, so this is by way of a little taster before the serious stuff begins again. Think of this post as the mezzanine floor in a 3 storey house, as the sorbet course in a banquet, or as a quickie up against the wall because you can't be bothered with foreplay or taking your clothes off.    

The reason for posting is our recent discovery of the fabulous Ciel patisserie - in the most unlikely location.  Singapore is not short of cake emporia, as those who live here will know.  Most of the large hotels (the posh ones, not those that charge by the hour; I don't suppose their clients have much time for cake) have a patisserie counter or cake shop and the area around Orchard road is awash with macarons, cheesecake and tartlets of one sort or another (even the ones that rent hotel rooms by the hour, if you know where to look...), but the wonderfully named Ciel patisserie is in Hougang, slap bang in the Singapore heartlands.  Most of Hougang is public housing and Ciel is located in a row of shops on the ground floor of an HDB block, not at all where you would expect to find the sort of place that would be at home in the centre of Paris.

It's fairly easy to get to by car, and there is parking right outside, but you can also order online and they will deliver.  So far, we have sampled the lemon meringue offering and both the caramel and the honey madeleines.  Tonight we are finishing a fancy dinner with their chocolate and salt caramel tart.  That's the one on the right - I can't wait!

If you are thinking about going to heaven any time soon, click on the link and find out more.  

http://www.ciel.com.sg/ciel/about.html