Woe and Goats.

I can almost not bear to look at the blog and see when I last posted something.  Last month?  Last year?  I am busy (I know, we are all busy), but also generally sweating too much to touch a keyboard, I might get electrocuted or something.

Anyway, one of the many things I am busy with (apart from this – both the blog and the cowering under tables [truly, it is quite embarrassing, as evidenced by the time I took a mid-day nap and I was in a deep sleep when the fucking planes decided to somersault past my windows and before I knew it I had leapt out of bed, run through the apartment and hugged the nearest child AND the maid to me.  WEARING ONLY MY KNICKERS.]) is organising our house-move, which takes place in two weeks, and which will be a solo venture, as I have kicked the Man out of the apartment for travelling on business too much.  (He responded by getting on a plane and going to... somewhere – Korea, I think - for a week.)  

Back home – “home” being anywhere that is not Singapore – house-moves are stressful because you have all the crap you’ve accumulated, and you have to open cupboards which haven’t been opened since you stuck a load of boxes in them the day you moved in, and ARGH the carpets need cleaning because the children haven’t learnt that you can pause Netflix and then go to the toilet.  Here – different kettle of fish (horrible rusty kettle and mean, snapping piranhas.)  Basically you have to give the property back to the landlord in better condition than you took it. That deposit of two months’ rent he took off you a couple of years back?  He’s spent it.  (Truly.  No escrow accounts here.) So he’s a bit peeved to have to pay it back, and will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to avoid doing so.  It is all deeply stressful. (Also, beware cheap foldy-up kids’ chairs which cost $2.  They, and their sticking-out-of-the-bottom-sharp-nails are both a false economy, and the enemy of wooden floors everywhere.)

So with this on my mind – the "weathered" floorboards and the cat scratches and the walls which look like they’ve been riddled with machine-gun fire (when in fact it was just a few paintings which we couldn’t quite work out where to hang) – I promptly crashed into my neighbour’s car while parking my own this afternoon.  Have we spoken about cars here?  Cars – and houses – are the reason Singapore is the most expensive place to live in the world.  They are RIDICULOUSLY expensive.  (You lot look at property porn;  here, we get our tissues out and log on to English Auto Trader.)  You know the way in London you see someone crawling around at 10mph in a Lambourghini and you think What a Twat?  Here, you think – Fucking hell that car cost $2m, what a Twat. So anyway, my neighbour drives a beautiful, shiny, brand new RANGE ROVER, which hasn’t a scratch on it.  Hadn’t.    Sigh.  (There followed much texting with my Textpat wife about WHAT WILL I DO?  - because I was hoping she’d say – Oh it’s fine, there’s this magic wand you can get which will fix it straight away – but there isn’t, and she didn’t.)

AND THEN, to add to the general woe, I fell off my bicycle, and the Baby was strapped into the back, so she fell too, and there was a couple of seconds before we fell when I thought – I’m about to fall and there’s nothing I can do about it except try to take the weight of the bike and the baby on my ankle.  Which I did, so now I am LAME. (The Boy, incidentally, would agree with that in his most whole-hearted faux-American way.)

On the plus side, I made this for some school thing for the Boy: 

(Which is the face of a goat) And so successful was it (it’s not really, I know, but the Boy is urban and has no clue what a goat is meant to look like) that I have now been commissioned to make a snake.  A SNAKE!  The effing goat took about 6 hours, a snake – I don’t even know where to start.    I also made this:  

which is Paneer in a Butter-Tomato sauce, and is the sort of thing that Angels write songs about;  and clearly I took the picture from the book, but in fact my dish looked just like that (not as nicely presented, obv).  I don’t have the wherewithal to give you the recipe now, I’ll do it next time.

Oh, and there was also this, which is the Baby and friend looking at an aquarium. Except it’s not an aquarium, it’s THE SEA.  (I guess it hasn't all been busy-running-around-stressy-crashing after all.)

Right.  I must go and pack boxes and crash modes of transport and generally make my day deserving of a very large drink come 7pm. 

Oh, and if anyone has any clues about Getting Boys To Listen, or Encouraging Girls To Read, I’m all ears.  

Oh II.  THIS.  The funniest thing on the internet today.