IKEA love and Italian carbs

It’s January, so I like to think that it’s time to have a clear out and get your house and life in line. The way that we have decided to kick-start this process is by getting new balcony furniture in order to ensure that we’re able to continue hosting our 6 people dinner parties without any accidents (the old chairs were falling through the bottom, and were adding an element of danger to two diners at each party we hosted!).

            IKEA is something of a happy place to me, I think it’s because you can get so much for so little. Seeing as we’re only planning a year or so out here, we didn’t go overboard, but we did have a glorious time wandering through and pointing out potentials for future consideration.

            Once were all stocked up on goodies then it was time to head home and work out what to have for dinner. We have list of places that we had to avoid like the plague when we were being properly well behaved, but now that we’re trying to ease back into real life, we’re slowly ticking them off, one by one.

This time around was the Italian restaurant underneath the Singapore Art Museum, Trattorai Lafiandra, which smells amazing every time I walk past the door, and which did not disappoint one little bit.

            Very reasonably priced red wine, a bowl of delicious pasta and a great super crispy pizza did us very well, and confirmed our suspicions that this might very quickly become one of our favourite carb refuelling stations in the very near future.

Final Singapore weekend of 2015

 It feels like it’s been an incredibly long time coming, but we’re finally on the week or less countdown to home, and so our final weekend to be spent in Singapore in 2015 flew past in a flurry of jobs getting ticked off the list!

            With the accompaniment of some of the best Christmas films (we’re talking Home Alone, Love Actually and Miracle on 34^th Street) we made our way through all of our lists, and yes, we checked them twice, and it finally feels like our time to get home is edging ever nearer.

On Saturday we also celebrated a full year since Nick popped the question on a slightly stormy sunset beach in the Gillis with the aid of steak and champagne, so there were even a few celebrations to be had alongside the planning, online shopping, list consolidating and packing plans.

Then there were all the standard jobs like hair dying, flat cleaning and a quick lunch with our friend Scottie to get done. What could have been a totally manic weekend managed to be pretty calm and collected, but we’ll see whether we manage to maintain that over the coming few days as the flights home get ever closer…I already know that I am going to need to pay for extra luggage when I get to the airport! 

Nesting

When Nick comes home with a stonking hangover, I generally do the only thing that I can to help. I make him a little nest on the sofa, and I leave him to either game or watch crappy boy movies for a while.     

            Whilst best behaviour, including regular gym sessions, will be kicking off again tomorrow, for one night only, it’s time for a good nest. It is the day after a whole weekend of stag after all! This time I have gone one step further to try and make today's nest even more epic than usual, with the hooded dressing gown that Nick almost bought for himself a few weeks ago, but never quite managed. He's been talking about it ever since, so I popped out to pick it up this weekend. Coupled with some special healthy crisps, man-Uggs and a little naughty treat of chocolate milk, I hope it will do its job!

            The dressing gown alone is a man-sized hug woven from cotton, and hopefully it will help to ease his pain ever so slightly. Thank goodness for Diwali meaning that there’s a whole day of freedom stretching ahead of us this Tuesday. Nick will sleep, I’ll get the wedmin folder out. It will be glorious!

Hiding from the Haze

This is our last weekend of no plans before the countdown to our wedding really starts to speed up and we find ourselves without a minute to spare, so we decided to make the most of it by booking in absolutely nothing, and just mooching around as much as possible. Sadly our nothing plans could not include any form or outdoor activity or sun lounging due to the continued disgusting haze, and so our entire weekend had to be arranged to be as inside as possible - clear air activities only!

            On Friday evening we were supposed to go to a happy hour at a bar with no walls, ie, a smog pit. By this point the cough that I have been nursing for a few weeks had already turned to some disgusting sounding smokers cough, so this plan had to be ditched in favour of wandering around a couple of shops and a healthy chicken dinner instead.

SHARKS!

Saturday started strong with a good gym session, before we had a lovely coffee and then headed out for a kids day of fun at the aquarium. We had thought that we were going to the Singapore Maritime Museum, but it turns out that the Maritime museum is a short corridor of “examples of trade items”, and then you enter the aquarium. The museum was clearly a disappointment, the aquarium really was not!

All the most colourful little fishes

There were tanks in there the height of four story houses, and just as wide. The shark tunnel was surrounded by five foot beasts of every kind, including hammerhead sharks which amazed me. I always love an aquarium, and I think that this might be the best one that I’ve ever been to.

            Sunday was gymming and wedmin day for us, and then a little lunch with Kev and Jules that lasted well into the afternoon. Rather than heading out to eat we went to theirs where we demanded, and were served, super healthy chicken salad, lemon water and tea. It was simple, well behaved and delicious!

Wedmin plans are GO! 

Good behaviour ruled the way all weekend, and now we’re really are getting close to the wedding, we hope that this will continue through for a good few more weeks!

Farewell Liv!

Once a year, for around two months, Liv gets sent back to Europe to work from their head office. This means that I lose my walking to work buddy, but weekend coffee buddy, but occasional hiking buddy, and my gin loving buddy. It’s not much fun!

            This Friday her flight out of Singapore was at midnight, and whilst she would normally go out and drink all the gin she can find on a Friday night, she decided that the best way to prepare for her flight was to come and have a healthy low key dinner with us at the flat.

            Salmon was poached, cauliflower was mashed, and apples were baked for a healthy two-course effort as we bid farewell to our buddy Liv for the next few months. Boo!