Normanton Park

Currently we're living in a condo block called Normanton Park. It's very spread out, lots of blocks, mostly around 22 storeys high, plus gardens, car parks, a tennis court, large swimming pool and playground.

For anyone who has been to or knows Singapore, it's located just off the AYE on the northside of Kent Ridge Park. We are in the block furthest from the road, by the back gate right into the park, overlooking the trees and a small lake. All very peaceful and picturesque - except that we're beside some office buildings whose roof top aircon units are amazingly noisy during the week. - I thought we'd found ourselves next to the M25 when we first arrived, but either they've got quieter or we've got used to them.

We are rather out on a limb here though, very little in walking distance, but we have a small on-site supermarket and a cafe. Well, the cafe is great - we've had fantastic food and the people are so nice, helpful and friendly, giving us local tips. When we leave here, I'll be sad to leave the food behind - it's all "house cooked" apparently. No need for us to cook.

So why are we out here away from the amenities? Well, this place is a quarter the price of a more central serviced apartment - they cost HEAPS. The downside is that we only get a twice weekly cleaner, no concierge and no welcome pack of coffee, tea, sugar and a pot noodle or two. Don't know how I'll cope.

See these links for pics of the block and actual apartment

http://picasaweb.google.com/lmbhousing/Condo_NormantonPark

and

http://picasaweb.google.com/lmbhousing/NP_1_14157_3


Our actual apartment is quite spacious, albeit with a slightly odd layout in places and a few "quirks". Today, I found the mop - it's sticking out of a socket on the wall outside the kitchen window where the laundry poles go. Laundry poles are what the residents of all the high rise blocks use to hang out their washing. There are 5 or 6 sockets in the wall outside the kitchen window into which one sticks these poles. All the kitchens are in the same position in each apartment so every building has columns of multi-coloured (and multi-shaped) flags flying. No doubt the mop had been put out to dry, therefore dripping on other peoples' laundry below - we're on the 14th floor.

The kitchen is an interesting layout with patio doors half way across it. These turned out to be useful when we discovered what a racket the washing machine makes which, by the way, takes 3 hours (I kid you not) to complete a normal cycle.

Finally, the only taps that have hot water are those in the showers, which means boiling a kettle to wash up - no dishwasher as they're just not the norm here at all - well not the mechanical variety, anyway.

We went for a walk yesterday (Sunday) in the park. It's not quite the same as at home, with signs telling us not to feed the monkeys etc. We saw some glorious coloured birds and followed a raised canopy walk through the tree tops.




















However, in the pond, just in front of us, there are not ducks but turtles - the red eared variety, according to the sign.

We also saw several monitor lizzards - they're suprisingly big - at least a meter long!





















Details of our school visit and apartment hunting later.


Also, whilst we're on line our local IT people have had some difficulties setting up the computer and we don't have our contacts list, but will email when my address book re-appears!

Last comment to round off today - David has just found an ad in the paper - "Mobile pet crematorium service". What do they do? bring a BBQ round?

We have finally arrived

At last - we're here!


The Easter weekend was a whirl of seeing family, sorting and packing.


My family visited bringing our lunch with them and David, with the help of my brother, Paul, took one of our last house plants to its new home. This was an enormous (8' tall), extremely prickly and very heavy - top heavy in fact - succulent that was moving across the road to one of our neighbours. The process looked like something out of a sitcom with the plant surrounded by a large box to prevent either David or Paul impaling themselves on it. Harder still was fitting it through the doors. I hope it doesn't grow too much whilst we're away.






On Tuesday, our airfreight departed and the rest of our furniture etc went into storage. Help with children and cups of tea for the removal men was given by our very kind neighbours and by this stage we could fully appreciate just how much luggage we had to take with us - way over the allowance. Lots more unpacking and repacking and somehow, by squashing masses into the hand-luggage (totalling over 40kg), we got down to just about 8kg over and departed for a hotel by the airport. We'd picked a lovely small place, more like a B&B and incredibly friendly - if anyone needs a recommendation.......



We got our luggage on without additional charges and finally boarded the A380. It's enormous. On the ground, the wings are so long they have an obvious sag, whilst in the air they just seem to go on forever. We were downstairs and as that deck is across the middle of the plane, the extra width makes it feel very spacious, plus the seats are slightly wider and TV screens bigger and even the area at the back by the galley and loos is larger too. We took a little trip upstairs and the cabin crew gave the kids extra snacks. All in all, an excellent flight - any complaints? Well, some of the air was a bit bumpy in places.


We took a taxi to our temporary apartment. I say a taxi, because we thought we'd need at least two for all the luggage, but the driver thought otherwise. We drove here with the boot half open and the kids and I sharing the back seat with several cases stacked up to the roof and about 3 of the smaller bags on our laps. Healtth and safety? Let's not go there. At least with the boot half open he had to drive slowly!


Couldn't resist a quick picture of us on arrival with our 11 bags. Now, we're shattered. It's hot here - no surprises there then and the afternoons have been thundery but fortunately, no real rain - yet. I'll post another entry very soon about the apartment, school visit today etc but it's getting late and we need to get out tomorrow by 11am (2am GMT) and as we're not over the jetlag yet, that feels quite challenging right now!



Good night.

Have added a friend

Under friends I've just added a link to Lucy Houlton (sorry, Searle - professional name!). For anyone that knows her, these days she's working as the editor to Channel 4's Homes website and has a regular blog on the site. Apart from anyone who knows her, it maybe of particular interest to anyone who has a passion for homes and interior design etc.

Last week of school

Final week of school done, last tennis lessons and golf lesson attended, been to Adam's school play, which was great and Hannah's Easter assembly. Nearly a disaster that one, as we had to make an Easter hat, so imagine my horror when I looked in the cupboard the day before and found all our arty bits and glue etc had been dispatched. Fortunately, the school came to the rescue with coloured card and we cobbled together an Easter themed crown with sellotape and staples.

Wednesday bought an unexpected shock when due to a burst water mains, St Albans was without water so Hannah's school closed for the day. My morning plan had been, estate agents, bank, a couple of shops, physio, solicitors and delivery of 5 house plants. Huge thanks to Anna who came to the rescue and took Hannah for the morning with her daughter Grace so I could dash about. Grace came to us for the afternoon and they played beautifully, despite us having almost no toys but I was able to organise presents for teachers etc.

Well, we now sit in a half empty house. The removals guys were very understanding of my instructions along the lines of "OK, this room can be packed up, but this one, just do those shelves. Now here, I've marked the cupboards you can do, but please leave the glasses on the bottom shelf over here....." Great guys and back for more punishment on Tuesday.

Now we're trying to pack our suitcases, airfreight and a case of winter clothes to stay with David's father for our Christmas visit, whilst not going over our various allowances and still have enough clothes to wear til Wednesday. Somehow we'll get there.... not long to go and I'm sure suddenly, things here will seem a whole lot less important as we embark on the next stage of setting up over there.

More when we arrive next week - next week? Wow, I can't believe we're almost there!

Departure Day Gets Closer....

Well, after weeks of filling in forms, appointments with and quotes from estate agent, removals firms, gardeners, doctors, dentists, solicitors, banks etc, getting the house organised for letting - plumbers, electricians and us doing all the jobs that we should have done 5 years ago, the house is ready and we have a very nice family lined up, ready to move in. As I write, the new gardener is working his way through the wilderness outside that we've been largely ignoring since the autumn and tonight we take our cat, Clysmic, to move in with my parents. We're still filling in forms (different forms, more forms, forms for here, forms for Singapore - we never knew there were so many) and after weeks planning and organising, we're still not quite ready.

We shipped 25 boxes of personal items 2 weeks ago, mostly toys, kitchen gadgets, bedding, linen, books, CDs, more toys... unfortunately since then, due to the recent cold spell, we've realised our first mistake. Having washed all our summer duvets before packing them, David and I were finding the nights a little cold. It has transpired that a bed-making error had occurred and whilst we are now sleeping under our summer duvet here, our 9.5 tog goosedown winter one is making its way to the tropics - just what we need for those balmy nights on the equator!

We did fit in a 10 day trip to Singapore at the end of January, and I'm delighted to report that we all liked it there. First impressions, with the clean, efficient airport and a then a tree and flower lined drive into the centre are a great start. We saw 3 schools and chose one (more forms) and the children begin on 21st April. It was Adam's first choice too, although I'm not sure if it was Hannah's but then her decision was based on which school uniform she thought was prettiest. We saw some apartments, but haven't got one yet and did some sightseeing too. We met another British family who are moving there next week and have kept in touch by email so we can meet up and compare settling in notes/experiences and useful information.

Whilst there, we were taken out for a Chinese New Year Dinner by the office staff for a New Year "toss up". This means that after a lot of wishing of good prosperity to each other over the service of certain foods, it's then tossed with chopsticks. We were a little over enthusiastic as we thought it should be flung up to the ceiling, so made a big mess - oh well, I'm sure it's only the first of many cultural mistakes and, on this occasion, not a serious one.

Well we have flights booked and leave on Wednesday 26th March. Much to Adam's delight, we're flying on the new Airbus A380 (the big double decker one) just 8 days after it begins flights between London and Singapore. We have an apartment lined up for our first month. It looks nice on the internet......more to follow after arrival.

Thanks to anyone reading this who has helped us in any way, taken in house plants, had the children over to play, passed on helpful info ....it's all very much appreciated.