The birthday couple! November
On Monday 15 December I had my check up with the Prof. I had flown in the day before and had spent the day with Tommy, first at the Bench, with a late birthday tribute to Louise (always in our thoughts), and then in the pub with some of Louise’s friends watching the football. Consequently felt not only anxious about Monday’s appointment but also rather hung-over! Continue reading
This is a proper drink – a margarita on my birthday
It’s been non-stop visitors since we got back, in case you were wondering what had become of me! First Cindy and Guy from Mumbai, then Louise’s best friend Lulu dropped in after doing some extraordinary free diving to create an underwater apsara installation to celebrate reef protection in Bali, and now Christine and Diego are here for a week before we set off for Burma next weekend. Continue reading
Gorgeous orchids at the Gardens by the Bay
It’s here at last! after months of grafting, cooking, testing, tasting and photographing. Thanks to husband Ross for being so patient in all of these tasks and for being a great webmaster.
http://healthylivingwithcancer.co/
Please follow and, more importantly, spread the word amongst any friends and family you think it might help – it’s all about the power of positive thinking to help you recover from cancer. For foodies there are loads of new recipes, all extremely healthy. There’s even some proper scientific back-up for this holistic approach, with periodic blogs by ‘the doc’.
All comments and suggestions welcome – on the site of course! Continue reading
In the National Orchid Garden with Tommy
It’s always the waiting and hoping that’s the worst part of anything medical. Luckily for us my waiting is punctuated with a visit from Tommy and his girlfriend, Olivia, en route to Sabah for a holiday. They stop here for the weekend and we tick off some of the tourist boxes – black pepper crab, the Botanic Gardens, a dim sum lunch, lunch in hawker centre, mum’s home cooking. It seems like they had hardly arrived before they left again – but they will be back. Continue reading
My little friend
I have a sleepless night. I am waiting for confirmation that the cab I have tried to book will come – it is impossible to get a taxi in rush hour, especially if its raining and, it transpires, so is pre-booking one. So at 6 a.m. I am calling them again – nada. The system here is that the cabs responds to a call out if they feel like it and are nearby. Thinking it will take at least 30 mins to track one down using the latest app – Grabtaxi – I press all the buttons and, bingo, one arrives in 3 minutes. Feel I HAVE to take it as I might not be so lucky later…. So there I am, one and half hours early for my appointment with the gynaecologist, sipping green tea with toasted rice in a large shopping centre, finishing Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour. I always take my iPad to medical appointments. Continue reading
I need a bit of Zen!
My recently re-acquired routine – exercise, writing, physio, acupuncture – has been rudely shattered by yet another health scare. Can you believe it? Only a week after seeing my lovely Singapore GP, Dr Foong, about routine things, like B12 jabs, next scan dates, HRT etc – she is surprised to find me back again. Continue reading
The reclining Buddha
Five days in Bangkok leave me breathless, yet full of energy! We are here to meet up with Dr Fi and her family, and also to catch up with another old uni chum, Patrick Brooks, who has been living a Somerset Maugham-type of existence for the past 30 years or so (actually an ex-dip and now consulting for the EU, trying to teach them diplomacy – the EU that is, rather than the Vietnamese or the Thais, who seem perfectly good at people skills if you ask me). Continue reading
Enormous greenback turtle, as big as me!
Two national parks within a week, four days to be precise! From Mana Pools, Zimbabwe to Bunaken island, North Sulawesi, via Joburg and Singapore! I barely had time to unpack before taking advantage of the long Eid el Fitr weekend and setting off to chart new territories. Continue reading
The beautiful rose Felcity Kendal gave us in Louise’s memory
Went to get an HRT prescription last week, and thought it worth mentioning to the Doc that I was feeling exhausted, and a bit dizzy plus I am losing weight (a kg fell off since I returned from China, now 53 kgs). She took some blood tests to rule out a number of things including under-active thyroid, mycoplasma (a form of pneumonia prevalent in Singapore) and Vitamin B 12 deficiency.
Now back in Singapore after a smooth trip over. It’s been an eventful week with a public holiday, hard work for Ross and an unwelcome health scare to boot.
May Day takes us by surprise and with an unexpected free day on our hands and nothing planned – seemed naughty to take a long weekend after so much time away, as most of Singapore does – so we decide to visit the extraordinary Haw Par Villa, as recommended by one of Louise’s friends. Continue reading
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