30 Jan

On breakfast, getting sorted, and missing the flock

The hotel here has a wonderful breakfast buffet. There’s the usual bacon and sausage goodness, an egg station, breads and pastries, cereals and continental stuff, plus sections for chinese, japanese, and other asian cuisines. There has been many a breakfast of bacon followed by steamed buns and croissants. I come down most days, after I’ve waved Dave and B off on their buses. Despite all this bounty I mostly now go for the bircher muesli and grapefruit juice with a latte, followed by a croissant. I love croissants any time, but they bake them fresh here and they are soooo good: flaky, soft, chewy, just divine.

It’s a big brekky but I’m using it the way we do on holidays, which is to bolster me through lunch and most of the afternoon. And if I’m feeling particularly decadent (like today) I’ll have a glass of prosecco and orange juice; I mean, it’s right there on the juice bar and they wouldn’t have it out if they didn’t want us to drink it, now would they?
I’m making the most of it now because we move out on Monday. We’ve been here four weeks already. I veer between is that all? and wow, already? By the way, someone said to me the other day that time moves quicker in Singapore because there are no seasons to mark it off. And so the saying “come for two years, stay for ten” is born.

I’m feeling relatively settled. the major pain points – somewhere to live, the school bus – got solved last week. We get the keys to our new place Sunday night and movers will be there Monday morning – or so they say. Not massively impressed with the people at this end, it has not gone as smoothly as we’d hoped. They were an hour and a half late delivering our air freight and left Dave’s bike behind, plus we seem to know more about the customs process then they do… but anyway, I’m sure it will be okay. The move feels a bit tight since we need to be cleared out of this apartment by 2pm that day, so there’s a bit of pressure on me to get my arse into gear and sort stuff out. Dave’s going to take the day off and will hire a car so that will help.

I am looking forward to having our stuff here, making this new place a home. And having a potato peeler again. And a knife that’s sharper than the edge of my hand.

One (two) things that won’t be here though are our parrots, Sheldon and Cabbie. We had to leave them behind. People say to me, “can’t you take them with you?” and I say, “yes we can, but we can’t bring them back into Australia.” At six years old Cabbie is a middle aged budgie but Sheldon’s a conure and could have another thirty years in him. We would much rather miss out on him for the next two years (apart from visits) than bring him with us and then potentially have to give him away forever.

The problem is, we don’t know what we’ll be doing. We don’t know for sure whether this is a two year thing or longer, if we’ll go back to Australia or move on to London or somewhere else. It all depends! It depends on whether Dave loves this job and we love Singapore, then where the next job takes us. It’s quite possible that in two years’ time he’ll decide he’s sick of this stuff and want to move back to Melbourne to a lighter role. It’s equally possible that he’ll be fabulous at this and love it and want to keep pushing on and in that case the next job might be in Sydney, or it could be anywhere else at all. We just don’t know. So until we have been here longer and know more, leaving them behind with our fantastic bird lady is the better option.

Knowing it’s the best decision doesn’t make it any easier though. For all it’s nice not to be pooed on, not to have to share my dinner, not to have someone disputing every step of the coffee-making process or biting you for trying to hold the remote control instead of him, I miss them so much. I’ve bawled my eyes out quite a few times already. Cabbie was my first baby, I miss my little green man. And yes, we’ll be able to see them when we go back to Melbourne for visits, but it’s not the same, and without them here it won’t really feel like home.

Sheldon and Cabbie "helping" me sew. Happy days.

Sheldon and Cabbie “helping” me sew. Happy days.

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