Wales

Mum, Dad, Holly, Nel, Sandy and I stayed in a cottage on the outskirts of a village a couple of miles outide of Hay-on-Wye in the Brecon Beacons.



As well as trying some local restaurants, we also ate at the cottage and barbecued some sheep ...



Sitting under a statue of Henry VII on the gable end of the Cheese Market in Hay-on-Wye enjoying ice creams from Shepherds. Based in an Edwardian shop facing the castle, Shepherds makes ice creams using sheep milk; the gooseberry and elderflower ice cream was delicious!



Visiting the Thursday morning farmers market in Hay ...



and visiting the many bookshops in Hay ...



On the afternoon we arrived, Dad, Nel, Sandy and I walked for an hour to the Blue Boar pub in Hay-on-Wye. Due to some rather suspect map reading we found ourselves scrambling up an extremely steep, muddy hillside at one point.



Walking through a graveyard we came across this grave belonging to an RAF serviceman killed during WWI in Wales.



We finally reached the pub where Holly and Mum were already discovering the joys of Black Fox.



The following day saw us don hiking boots once again for a five-hour walk from the cottage to the beginning of the Black mountains (and back again) ...



On the next day we traded boots for canoes and spent a leisurely few hours paddling ten miles down the Wye ...













Halfway down the river, at Whitney on Wye, we met Mum & Dad (who chickened out of negotiating the whitewater rapids) for a beery pub lunch at the Boat Inn. Terrible food and service. Beautiful weather though.



We packed a few beers for the afternoon paddle ...



On the third day we drove up to the foot of Hay Bluff and walked 420 metres to the 677-metre-high peak ...



With breath ...



and without ...



Sandy posing in front of Lord Hereford's Knob ...



Black Fox makes you grow ...



Picnic lunch among the heather ... and sheep droppings ...



At the trig point ...



We spotted four Welsh Mountain Ponies, a wild breed dating back 3,000 years to before Roman times ...



Sandy taking a breather ...



Sunbathing ...







family photo ...

Henry's housewarming

Henry threw a bbq as a housewarming to celebrate moving into his new place in Sophia Court. A ground floor unit in a quiet development. We had full run of the swimming pool on a Sunday afternoon, which is amazing. Lunch came from the Brazilian butcher Esperito Santo and was fantastic. The beef steaks were the best I've had in ages. Also kebabs and sausages, field mushrooms baked with mozarella and tomato, enoki mushrooms wrapped in thinly sliced beef, asparagus with parmesan, and lettuce wrapped in prosciutto, ice cream, cheese. The perfect Sunday: bbq, beer, swimming, friends...

Clockwise from left: Yeo, Jonathan (hidden), Collin, Ling, Henry, Sandy


Clockwise from left: Shannon, Collin, Ling, Henry, Yeo


Sandy

Black Bean Friday

Collin (on the guitar, in the background) and Fazzi (vocals) performed well at the recent Stripped: Acoustic Live competition at Wala Wala in Holland Village and got through to the finals. Go listen to Black Bean Friday play in the finals on 19 August (8pm) at Balaclava!



UPDATE: Black Bean Friday came third! Congratulations! They'll be playing again in Wala Wala in Sept.

Thalia is 1 year old!

Sandy tries to steal Thaila's birthday cake ...



but Thalia's too fast and quickly blows out the candle.



how come our house never looks this nice?

wedding dinner

Ling's brother's wedding dinner at the Hyatt in Singapore ... the Nuts Ideas / Black Studio table (clockwise from top left): Joey; Jolin; Jolin; Eric, Ling, Jolin and Joey; Collin; cake; Yeo and Shannon, Collin and Sharina; Eric & Joey; Jolin; Phil; Sandy; Henry.

“My Cubicle”

Click here to watch this fantastic video from our neighbour Indi, which was shot, directed and edited by Judhi Prasetyo. Absolutely fantsatic, love it! Well done.

Radjah shelducks

We found this pair of odd-looking ducks patrolling the traffic on a lamppost on busy three-lane Bukit Timah Road. Ducks are not a common sight in urban Singapore and these two looked really out of place. We couldn't ID them using any local birdbooks but one of Singapore's top birders identified them as Radjah Shelducks from Papua New Guinea, the Moluccas and Northern Australia. Apparently these two are escapees that have been living in the Singapore Botanical Gardens for several years and regularly roost on lampposts in the Bukit Timah area!

The Mongol Rally

Cousin Harry (above) and his mate Geoff (below) will be racing from Hyde Park, London, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in a 36-year-old Morris Minor, called "The Baboon". (It has a red bottom.) The journey will take them through Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia (unless they're going the other way around). The race is supposed to be for charity but I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Ulaanbaatar actually has one of the highest concentrations of bars per population in the world. Current estimates stand at 680 bars for 600,000 residents. Take away the young, the old and the dry and you're looking at 1 bar for every 200 people. It's a long way to go for a beer but when you're paying in togrog you can drink until your yurt explodes.



To everybody reading this, please support this daring duo by visiting their official website Smithers and the Goon and donating generously to either of the two registered charities: "send a cow" and "Christina Noble Children's Foundation".

Good luck guys!

Twisted Logic tour

On Monday night Sandy and I joined Collin, Sharina, Fadzi and another couple to see Coldplay in concert at the Indoor Stadium. Despite having seats in the back row, we had a great view and loads of space to move around. It was worth it just to see Sandy dancing the 'fish dance'! Great music and some cool AV backdrops.

Nick and Sophia's party

Neighbours Nick and Sophia threw another great party in the garden.



In between knocking back pints of IPA (India Pale Ale), courtesy of a Brewerkz keg, we pigged out on naan, prawn masala, saag paneer and dhal, roasted pumpkin, Chinese pancakes with crispy duck and hoisin, and salad, sausages and potatoes.



Phil relaxing after a few glasses of IPA.



Unable to find any leftover sausages, Whisky collects ants instead and shares them with Dave and Joyce.

stompcast

Click here, check the righthand side and scroll down for four video clips of Phil and Gerrie and four very good reasons why not to consume lots of alcohol before a TV interview!

Heritage Tree

This 18-metre-tall raintree (Samanea saman) on Jalan Hang Jebat — the street on which we live — is one of Singapore's 161 heritage trees. It has a girth of 5.5 metres and will make a really impressive dent in Blk 109 should it decide to fall down.

UPDATE 7 July 06: Just heard from Nick that he found the local contractors trying to "trim" the heritage tree (read: chop down all the branches) because residents had complained it was hanging precariously over their block. Luckily Nick called the National Parks Board and they sent some guys down to stop the trimming. These trees do actually fall quite frequently. Since living here, we've seen two trees fall onto different blocks. One crashed through the roof exposing the kitchen in an empty unit (which is now Nick and Sophia's flat), the other kissed the back of our block taking out the windows, a chunk of roof and one of our red palms. But that's the fun of living here! Don't like it? Move to a high-rise flat in the concrete jungle!

UPDATE 1 December 06: The idiots finally called in a private contractor to trim the branches of the tree! By the time the other neighbours saw what was happening and called the police and National Parks Board, half the branches had been lopped off. There is a now a police investigation underway and the incident made the news on TV (shows what a boring place Singapore must be!). This being strict Singapore I reckon our neighbours will hang. From one of the stunted branches they created.

Steam inhalation

Fever, sweating, muscle aches and pains, dry chesty cough that feels like coughing up razor blades from your lungs, sneezing, running nose and a blocked nose ... yes, it's flu time again. I don't think I've caught flu (as opposed to just a cold) for years and it's really knocked me for six. I've been in bed for three days but at least it's given me time to read a bunch of new manuscripts, two of which are great and are definitely worth publishing.

As well as swigging back various over-the-counter medicines, I'm also trying to relieve congestion by sticking my head in boiling water.



If this doesn't work I'll have to break into our secret stash of Tamiflu.

Civility test

According to an article in The Times, Reader’s Digest magazine recently sent its reporters into the principal city of each of the 35 countries in which it publishes to conduct a survey of local politeness. "Three tests were employed: dropping papers in a busy street to see if anyone would help; checking how often shop assistants said “thank you”; and counting how often someone held a door open."

Try dropping papers on the street in Singapore and you'll only be cursed by passers-by or fined for littering. Eliciting a thank you from a shop assistant is easier with purchases over S$1,000, and opening a door for somebody will only mean you being stuck there for 10 minutes as everybody files through.

Sure enough, the results of the Reader’s Digest survey ranked good old Singapore equal 30th (with Moscow) out of 35 countries; in fact, no Asian country was ranked higher than the bottom ten.

Top Three
New York
Zurich
Toronto

Bottom Ten
Bangkok
Hong Kong
Ljubljana (er, captial of Slovenia?)
Jakarta
Taipei
Moscow
Singapore
Seoul
Kuala Lumpur
Bucharest
Bombay

London also did extremely badly, ranking equal 15th (with Paris!!!) — no great surprise there either.