Stewart and Gill's further adventures

You can only take so much cleanliness and organisation in life, and it's good to be back in good old Bangalore. This isn't a traffic accident, it's a roadside meat stall.

Bet all our would-be visitors are hastily turning vegetarian as we speak....

But at least the property market's thriving.

This is the last bit now, honest.

Chinatown in Singapore is like the way you fondly remember your local fair to have been before it turned into urine-smelling alleyways full of drunken teenagers. All bright lights, stalls full of things you don't really want or need but are so appealing and cheap, and wonderful food smells. We ate at the now obligatory street stalls, Stewart no longer able to shock me with his fondness for all things disgusting, settling for an almost conservative Pigs tail with noodles.

We returned the next day to do some proper sightseeing, and spent some time in a Buddhist temple. They have strict dress codes and women aren't allowed in wearing shorts or strappy tops, but they very kindly provide wrapover skirts and silk pashminas to cover your more embarrassing bits so you can still go in. I anticipated being able to beat up the jobsworth monk at the exit who was collecting the shawls back in, we all know Buddhist monks fight like girls. Apart from the ones who do martial arts, that is. So I gave it back, wasn't my colour anyway.

Peace and tranquility....

For me, no trip would be complete without scaring Stewart to death at least once, and on this trip I chose the Singapore Flier as my method. It's the highest observation wheel thing in the world, and in true Singapore style you approach it guided by about 20 annoyingly helpful and happy tourist guides, one at each turn of the corridor, and watch the ever-present cleaning staff vaccuming each carriage as it approaches for the next batch of victims.

Did I mention it's the highest in the world?

We enjoyed panoramic views of the tidiest, cleanest, friendliest place we've ever been to (apart from Hull, obviously), and weren't sick once.

And yes, before you point it out, those are grey clouds. It rained a tad.

Ever since Stewart was a little Flight Systems Engineer in short trousers, he has always had a dream of visiting Raffles hotel and sipping on a Singapore Sling. Having explained to me this involved posh surroundings and alcohol, I agreed to this plan and on his birthday, we found ourselves standing outside the absolutely fantastic Raffles building.

We got past the security staff by cunningly disguising ourselves as a couple of wilting overheated tourists, and blagged our way into the Billiard Room for a hideously expensive but worth every penny lunch. I suspect the wonderful table service we received was mainly due to the fact the staff didn't want us getting up and walking around, annoying all the other guests who had actually observed the dress code.

At one point they nearly got rid of us by allowing us to go out onto the Martini Bar terrace, but we snuck back in after our pictures had been taken.

And this is the courtyard, considered to be the most 'everyday' part of the building.

I meant to get this out of the way with first, but got carried away thinking about the food. So let's just get this over with, ok?

Look away now if you're squeamish.

A major part of our trip to Singapore was the culinary experience, which for me consisted of pressing my nose against cake shop windows and gazing longingly at the various chocolatey confections, and for Stewart consisted of finding the most disgusting looking things he could, and eating them all.

We ate most of our evening meals at the local Hawker Centres, which are a bit like food courts but with real food and fewer drunks.

The following 2 pics were Stewart's favourite meal of the week - 'Gong Gong'

These are my baby squid...... altogether now, awwwwwwww

And these are some chicken heads. I don't know what all that's about.

Stewart is now getting seriously into the wildlife thing, not only is he surrounded by snakes and chipmunks at work, he has now taking up monkey baiting.

The local monkeys had their usual 8am stroll across our roof on Sunday, so Stewart grabbed the video camera and very bravely ventured out onto the sundeck. I should actually have been filming him while he did this - his technique consisted of a lot of panicky glances over his shoulder and some very neat sidestepping manoeuvres, always presenting a moving target. Commentary consisted of "Monkey in the tree!"  and "Gill, don't shut that door!!!! " and "Aaaaarrrrrgh!!!!!!".

He was finally seen off by the one in the picture.

What is the scariest notice you are likely to see here....? maybe the one at HAL yesterday, stating 'Warning, large snake seen in Hawk stores'.    Seen, not caught.... and when they say large.....

And Stewart's office is under attack from chipmunks. In a scene reminiscent of Goldilocks he walked into his office this morning and found an eaten apple core and some chipmunk poo on his chair. He swears it wasn't him.

But no sign of the chipmunk.          Is that good, or even more worrying?

Last week I once again found myself at the mercy of the Aircon man. We have this ongoing thing whereby he comes round and fixes a 5 minute fault then spends the rest of the afternoon 'testing' the aircon to make sure it's nice and cool, by lounging around under it until we physically throw him out.

The unit in the living room has a nasty habit of shorting out all the power in the house whenever it feels like it, and a couple of weeks ago the aircon man (henceforth known as Raoul, not because that's his name but because I think it suits him) and his boss came round, decided there was nothing they could do except drink the contents of my fridge, as there is no mains switch for the unit. They then left. Raoul came back again last week to have another look, and we called the electrician, which gave Raoul chance to lounge around under the working aircon units to test them a bit more - he sat there for 20 minutes at the dining table, sitting backwards on a chair and resting his nose on the back of it with just his eyes moving. A tad unnerving, it has to be said. Then he thought he'd do some testing of his own, so he could tell the electrician what was wrong.

The wiring from the aircon seems to lead to the downstairs bedroom, so Raoul proceeded to play with all the switches in there. The process / conversation went something like:

flickflickflickflickflickflick        pop   "this unit's faulty madam"

(I go to the garage and reset the trip switch)

(same switch) flickflickflickflickflickflick        pop   "this unit's still faulty madam"

"OK, I think we've established that, maybe you should come and sit quietly for a bit.....?"

(same switch) flickflickflickflickflick flick      pop   "I think we should definitely tell the electrician about this"

"yes, well I've reset it AGAIN so at least we know what's wrong now, so leave it alone....."

flickflickflick "STOP FLICKING THE F*@#*....."                    pop.

The electrician's arrival was a bit of a relief. I will admit though, I do have to admire the bravery of anyone who will mess with the electrics in this house... I shall take some pics when I get round to it.

It's not always easy being a lady of leisure, you can struggle to find things to keep yourself busy, you can get a bit lonely stuck at home all the time, and your husband makes unreasonable demands on you regarding your kitchen duties. So what better way to solve all of these problems, than join a cookery club....!

I must admit I've been lazy here and have only just been to my first class, but I'm so glad I went...  15 of us crammed ourselves into Connie's kitchen to watch her cook arabic food and generally get in her way, then just when her poor husband and dog thought they'd found a safe hiding place we all trouped upstairs behind them to eat lunch on the balcony.

we had a wonderful lunch, though consisting as it did of so many chickpeas and garlic cloves it's probably as well we ate outside.

(Photo courtesy of Connie's blog, check the link somewhere on the right of the screen for more good stuff)

Last week I bought an electric grill from the local supermarket, Food Zone, but when we got it home it we couldn't get it to work. So I sat and thought about it for a while then decided that I really did need to take it back to Food Zone - this isn't always easy, arguing your corner in a foreign country, but I'd put it off for long enough. So I girded my loins and went yesterday.

We pulled up outside the shop, and my driver insisted on carrying the grill in for me, though it wasn't heavy. Following him to the counter, I was met by 3 assistants who practically got into fisticuffs as to who should help me out. The manager elbowed his way into the crowd in true Basil Fawlty manner, and said that as manager it was his job to manage problems, and dismissed everyone else with a clip around the ear each. He promptly went off and found me a new grill and unpacked it to test it, which involved going into another part of the shop and pulling out a big chest freezer and unplugging it (please don't ask about the electrical arrangements here) blocking the whole aisle to all other customers in the process. Nothing happened. He then found a hidden safety switch on the grill and once he'd over-ridden it (again, don't ask about electrical stuff here) the grill worked so well it melted the perspex lid of the freezer he'd left it on. So we went back to the electrical department where he repacked the new grill and insisted on giving me that one instead of the other one (which would also have been ok, had I known how to work it), found me someone to carry it downstairs to the car for me, and sent me off with a lovely friendly smile and not a mention of the fact that I had been dumb enough to take it back when there was nothing wrong with it.

I didn't even have a receipt.

Another example of service here - we have our own IT help desk on the estate, and if you ring with a connection problem  they fix it for you remotely, then RING YOU BACK TO FIND OUT IF IT'S OK!!!!!! and apologise for bothering you.

Part of me isn't looking forward to returning to the UK...

... horses sweat, gentlemen perspire and ladies glow.     Well I'm glowing like a pig.

But we are getting the occasional drop of rain now, sluicing the monkey droppings and dead lizards off the roof onto the sundeck, which is nice. I've been more adventurous with my shopping of late and have recently been to Commercial street a couple of times, which isn't half as scary as I thought it would be, mainly due to the fact that I can run faster than most of the beggars down there (apart from the ones on trolleys, they're a bit nippy and tend to form roadblocks). I went into a brilliant haberdashers last week which was about the size of a cupboard, with shelves stacked high with lots of things in plastic bags, which you don't have a chance of identifying but the staff knew what and where everything was and happily climbed up the shelves chucking stuff around until they found you almost exactly but not quite the right colour or texture or weight that you wanted.

Getting around is a bit easier since they moved the airport, which used to be based on our main road into town. Apparently the new one has a roof and everything now, and I believe they've actually built a road to it (which hadn't happened up to a month ago), and now that a lot of the traffic has been diverted there instead, it only takes us 27 minutes to travel 5 miles, instead of 30. Huge improvement. Though Stewart wouldn't agree with me as he's just contacted me to say he's in a traffic jam and has moved 10ft in 35 minutes. Lovely way to spend your day off.....  like being back in the UK, heading for the coast on a Bank Holiday Monday. But warm.

'Nuff said....

Some of the Indians Stewart works with have been to the UK for training courses etc, for the current contract. They have all been very impressed, not least with the number of pavements we have in the UK, even in villages, as it's something that's in very short supply in India. One group have been to London, and one guy was talking to Stewart yesterday about how interesting it is, and the sightseeing he'd done while there.

He was very impressed by Waterloo. He'd been very keen on visiting the site of such a famous battle. Ah, Stewart corrected him, the battle didn't take place there. Yes it did, replied this guy, it was when Napoleon invaded London. Erm no, corrected Stewart, the battle didn't take place in England at all, let alone London, but the area was named after the battle as it had been such a great victory.

"So the battle did not take place in Waterloo itself, in London?"

"no, that's right"

{thoughtful pause}

"and Trafalgar.....?"