A very Good Friday

In Singapore we get the best of most worlds, and therefore get to celebrate numerous public holidays, gathered from British, Chinese and Indian traditions, as well as a few local Singaporean ones too.

            Thankfully, although we don’t get the pleasure of a full four-day weekend over Easter, we do get to enjoy Good Friday without the pressures of work, or most of us do at least. In an attempt to earn back some much needed holidays days Nick is having to work most public holidays this year, so having woken up at my normal early time, I made him a hot cross bun for breakfast (that’s right, I found them on sale again, and I bought as many as I could carry) and packed him off to work.

All the hot cross buns I could get my hands on

For the rest of my morning I spent most of my time in the gym, before having an unplanned skype call with my utterly beautiful niece and sister. 

I did have high hopes for a really productive day with Nick out of the way and so many potential plans ready to be explored, but as it was nearly lunchtime already when I hung up my call, instead I made my way straight into town to meet Nick for lunch. He was the only one in the office and was in desperate need of human contact for an hour or so. 

 The rest of my day was then spent shopping and gathering bits and pieces for a proper Good Friday celebration. Nick had returned from the office the day before with a beautiful little white chocolate Easter bunny for me, which will be living in the fridge until Sunday, when it will have to be scoffed in one day - the bad last bad behaviour day for a while - so that I can final stop thinking about it and get back onto the good behaviour bandwagon! In the meantime, I would need supplies to make our house as spring and Easter themed as possible. 

I wasn’t able to find any daffodils or tulips in Singapore as it’s just too hot, so I got the next best thing, which were just the most cheerful looking yellow flowers that I could find. One of the things that I miss most about living in the UK are the seasons. Perpetual summer (and a scorching hot summer at that) is frustrating and over-whelming sometimes. There is often nothing I would love more than a good, clear English day, either spring or autumn. Just clear, crisp and slightly drizzly. Ideal! 

Happy yellow flowers to welcome 'spring' 

The rest of my day then passed in a lovely flurry of baking, cooking, and chatting to both my parents and the lovely Miss Morgan.

Good Friday fish supper

By the end of my super active session in the kitchen we had a traditional Good Friday fish supper and chocolate Easter nests for pudding, like the children we are.

            It’s always pretty interesting cooking fish out here. The only recognisable fish that you can buy here is salmon and tuna, everything else is unrecognisable and often unpronounceable, but it’s always fun trying to mix and match my limited fish knowledge with the broken English of the men at the wet market. Tonight we had steaks from something known locally as batang. It was random and very meaty, but it worked well for the dish, so thankfully this fish experience was a relatively positive one!

Well it is Easter after all!