Client dinner - challenge on!

When you’re attempting to get back into the swing of being on best behaviour, the last thing in the world that you need is a client dinner (some one else’s clients no less), where wine, bread and cake are thrown onto the table in excessively oversized portions.

            As you can probably imagine, my Tuesday night trying to stick to my diet guns was a bit of a nightmare, but I managed to man up and not cancel my attendance, which is a start.

            Having stuck strongly to my guns on Tuesday, I was hoping to power on through the rest of the week. It worked for Wednesday at least – we’ll see how I get on with the rest of the week full of fun plans and adventures.

            Last night I got home starving hungry and hopeful for huge amounts of dinner. Sadly I was still on good behaviour, but luckily I had a couple of sneaky plans up my sleeve for three course dinner that was quick to make and not too bad on the old calorie count!

            It was excessive, but last night we dinner on lemon drenched asparagus, loaded sweet potato skins (stuffed with ragu style veggies and a tiny little bit of cheese and bacon to make it feel like more of a treat) and dinner was then rounded off with baked apples, covered in a cinnamon crust, with a tiny square of dark chocolate melted in the centre and Waitrose (yeah, we get Waitrose treats out here) low fat chocolate frozen yogurt on the top!

            Yes it was a bit much for a Wednesday night, but it was delicious. If I do say so myself!  

Cinema - the way it ought to be done

I’ve never really been a huge fan of going to the cinema – it’s dark, it’s sometimes dull, there’s not much to keep you entertained if the film ends up being a bit questionable, and often it leaves me feeling sleepy and tired.

            Not so in Singapore! Since discovering “Platinum Class” at the cinemas in Singapore, Nick refused to put himself through any film (no matter how much he wants to see if) if he has to sit in the cheap seats, and if he’s setting the rules, who am I to complain.

            Nick wanted to go and see Hercules, which I wasn’t very excited about, but which turned out to be a laugh out loud mess of rubbish acting and The Mummy style comedy storyline.

            What made it even better (and an even better way to round off our Sunday of relaxed fun) was the Platinum Class service.

Wine, chicken nuggets and popcorn was delivered to our table almost as soon as we arrived. We settled ourselves down on our LazyBoy reclining chairs and covered ourselves with our individual duvets before enjoying the film. It’s like watching a film in you own home, only with nicer chairs, better snacks, a bigger screen and table service just the push of a button away.

 

Testing out RSYC

When I moved to Singapore I got very overexcited about the fact that I would be able to use reciprocal membership at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, and so I maintained my RTYC membership for just that reason.

It took me a good six months to make a plan and book anything in, but with a letter of recommendation in my hand, I have a week to play with before I will have to request another letter to be sent over from the London membership secretary.

            I deliberately spread my ‘holiday in Singapore’ over two weekends so that we could try it out on the first weekend and then if it was worth a revisit, we can return the weekend after too!

            What started off as a plan for 6 of us to go to the club for a causal lunch turned into a table of ten arriving for a huge lunch and drinks to follow. We slightly overtook the main downstairs dining space, which was a lot more relaxed than I expected.

            Before we visited I received a note saying that trousers were required, but it quickly became apparently this was not the case when pretty much everyone else there (both guests and staff) were wearing shorts. Still, whilst the boys began to melt in the heat we enjoyed mountains of local Singaporean and Thai food, with plenty of wine and beers on the side to help us along.

Then we made our way upstairs to their inside bar where the boys got to cool down and play pool whilst we nattered girly nonsense and adjusted to the cooler weather.

            Eventually most of the group had to leave to get on with their Sundays, so myself, Nick, Kate and Duncan ended up on the front balcony bar, enjoying the view in the steadily setting sun and building up to leave and finish off our respective plans for the day.

It was a lot more casual than the RTYC, but in a lovely relaxed way. And having seen the pool facilities (which no-one was using when we visited) I am pretty sure that we will be back to try in out again soon (for dinner next Saturday)!

Saturday with added BANG!

We have Monday off work this week for a public holiday, and whilst normally that would mean that I over-plan and over-fill the weekend with activities and adventures, for some reason I’ve failed to really plan anything much this weekend, which means we’ve had a lovely restful few days!

            Following Friday night at the ballet, this Saturday we spent the day having late breakfast at one of the local art galleries, wandering around the shops looking for yet more techie things and random wires for Nick, and then we just mooched around, cleaning the flat and doing laundry until dinner time. 

            National Day is in a couple of weekend’s time, and Singapore has been getting ready for it for months! There are banners everywhere wishing Singapore a happy 49^th birthday, and they have been practising the flag dragging helicopter fly by since before Debbie came to stay! Whilst this has all been well and good, for this weekend and next weekend they will be performing a full run through of the evening performances on the main stage, which also means they do a full trial run of the planned fireworks display.

If there’s one thing I love most in the world, it’s a good fireworks display, so a few weeks ahead of the actual celebrations I booked myself and Nick in for dinner at OverEasy, a chilled outside restaurant by the water, where we would be sure of getting chicken wings for dinner, and a perfect view of the fireworks. We were only there for an hour or so for a quick bite to eat, but the entertainment that they laid on for us was pretty spectacular and well worth booking in advance for! 

Ballet Under the Stars

After arranging and loving Shakespeare in the Park at the open air theatre space that gets set up in Fort Canning each summer, when I heard that they also run a Ballet Under the Stars event for just two weekends each year too, I was almost the first in line to grab tickets when they went on sale.

            I was a bit disappointed to learn that it was going to be a selection of shorter segments of ballet rather than one almighty ballet story, but with Kev and Jules in tow, and an incredible picnic hamper pre-ordered from the event organisers, we met up in the park to bag our normal seating space and to enjoy a bit to eat before the action got underway.

I normally love arranging a good picnic – there’s something lovely about making a selections of food that can be eaten cold, creating the minimal possible mess, and that is still tasty after more than a day in storage, but the picnic hamper we purchased was an absolute bargain, filled to the brim with treats like sandwiches, cakes and salads, and we got to keep the hamper too!

The ballet was surprisingly impressive (people had warned me not to expect too much from Singaporean ballet companies), but excluding the first slightly lame dance, it was really very good! So much so that even Kev and Nick had to admit that it was pretty impressive. As it was just a selection of shorter ballets (and because it’s so hot that the dancers might have died if they danced much longer) the night drew to an end at a respectable 9:30, leaving plenty of time for the others to wander back to our flat for a few drinks before calling it a night.

For a Friday night it was incredibly relaxed, which was pretty much perfect for us! A lovely way to end a pretty hectic week. I think we might be getting old...