The final weekend of excess

Right, enough is enough, it’s time to go back on best behaviour – for real this time. Still shattered from Debbie’s visit, and bloated from too much drink, food and laziness, I decided that it’s time to sort myself out properly.

            Knowing that our flat was full of rubbish I set aside this weekend to clean the place from top to bottom, and to rid the fridge, freezer and cupboards of all naughty treats and carb heavy food.

            The weekend itself was therefore not a shiny example of good behaviour – there was bagels for breakfast, pizza for dinner and leftovers for lunch, but the flat now sparkles like a new penny and my fridge almost can’t close properly due to tall the fresh veggies and nice clean food that I have filled it with. No more naughty treats for us!

            Whilst Nick stuck to his weekend plans and spent Saturday lunching with Duncan and Sunday at a big brunch with the boys, I cancelled my involvement in all plans, and spent an isolated weekend getting ready for my Nazi diet, and it was perfect.

Illegally streamed Wimbledon was the perfect end to the weekend!

We ended our Sunday watching Wimbledon and the Tour de France on the projector in a perfectly clean flat, with veggie dinners ready for the week in the fridge and a new calorie counting app ready to go on my phone.

            Best behaviour, I’m ready for you! (Again)

Quiet time

Thursday night is probably supposed to be dancing and drinking night, but as the first free evening in weeks my Thursday evening was a recovery evening.

            I practically ran home from my last meeting of the day, ready for dinner at home and a night on the sofa. I threw together a pasta bake with asparagus on the side, and I chucked the duvet on the sofa – domestic goddess that I am. I then donned by pyjamas (yup, well before 7pm) and I nestled down to waste an entire evening with nothingness.

            Nick arrived home at around half seven with a girly magazine that he got free with his sandwich, and a little bunch of flowers because you never get sunflowers over here, and because they are my favourite. Who says romance is dead, eh?

            Dinner was annihilated, The 40 Year Old Virgin was on the TV, and by 9:30 I was drinking tea in bed with my eyes dropping while Nick watched a couple of old episodes of Black Books.  Living the dream over here in Asia!

Another day, another dinner

With Debbie gone and the excitement at being out eating and drinking every night of the week fast becoming a thing of the past, the last thing that I wanted to do on Wednesday night was go out for dinner.

            I was dreaming of sofa time, of beans on toast, of tea and jammies, but what we had planned was a 7:30 reservation for 15 people at a really cool restaurant called Kilo down near the river.

            This Saturday is Liv’s birthday, and as she will be back in London for the big day (and the two weeks that follow it) the midweek supper was deemed necessary. Lacking in enthusiasm and desperate for sleep, I dragged myself over to the MRT and made my way to dinner.

            It turned out to be a great night, with all the guys on cracking form, and Liv maintaining her reputation for not really being a girls girl with just two female friends to balance out the rest of the male-heavy table.

            Dinner was delicious but entirely unnecessary, with duck, ceviche, two puddings – it was all very nice, but my poor stomach was desperate for less rich and heavy food.

            Once the dinner was finished and the hard-core drinking started ramping up Nick and I made a not very subtle bolt for the door and were highly grateful to be in bed by 11:30. Judging by Liv’s message the next day, and the news that they ended up in a karaoke bar, I think we left just in the nick of time.

 

A little brightener

It would have been very easy to spend today moping around, sad about the fact that my London friend had gone back to London, and that I was left here to deal with the mess, the hangover, the impact of two weeks of eating everything we could find, and the realisation that Debbie was here for two weeks and is rocking a much more impressive suntan than I am brave enough to even try.  

            Luckily, work had a little treat in store for me. Bean bags! Four great big massive, multi-coloured, super bright beanbags.

Work meetings, early starts and long tedious phone calls (where conference cameras are deactivated) will never be the same again!

Bye-bye Debbie…

Having made it back to Singapore from Bali, and after getting ourselves through what turned out to be a slightly shocking acclimatisation process (Nick did not want to be back from his happy place and I was pretty much asleep with my eyes open, achieving nothing and dreaming of being back at the flat and at the pool, where we all knew Debbie would be busily topping up her tan), there was only a few more days of Debbie Time left.

            After battling through work, Nick had an evening of working (and gaming) with his name on it, so he headed straight back to the flat once he escaped the office, whilst I took Debbie to my favourite place in Singapore, PS Café.

Pure terror at the realisation that a side of chips is bigger than her entire head

I first went to PS Café with Nick as a bit of a date night when I was still not too sure about Singapore and we had both been working so much that it had lost some of its appeal. PS Café more than won it back. It’s beautiful there, and whilst Monday night isn’t really the perfect time for a huge dinner and three full courses, seeing as it was Debbie’s last Monday in Singa, it was entirely justified!

            We had a cocktail to start, then shared wine and a cheese toasty sandwich dipped in tomato soup (our healthy starter). Then there was leftover lasagne (with extra layers of veggies, meatballs and penne past thrown in for good measure), salads and even topped off with a shared slice of carrot cake. Fat Girl Mondays just reached a whole new level.

            After dinner we rolled ourselves into a taxi and before heading home to prepare for Debbie’s last day we thought we ought to stop in and take a look at Debbie's family's old house. Just one road further on from our dinner destination we pulled passed the unofficial residence of the Singaporean Prime Minister (and all the other multi-millionaire) to get to Debbie's old front door. The taxi driver laughed at us as Debbie ran up to the gate to take a photo for her parents and then posed for a pic in front of their old house number, and then he very nicely drove us home, all the while giggling and laughing as Debbie pieced back together her memories of singapore and realised that she'd been a bit lost before as her parents lived at the very opposite of Orchard Road from our little flat. She had been close, but no cigar.  

Outside Number Five!

I had been unable to take any extra time off, so even through it was her last day in Singapore Debbie got to do exactly what she wanted to do with her day, which was lie by the pool and top up on those final few rays that were going to make all the difference when she walks into work on Thursday morning. Sun tanning success!

            Tuesday dinner was just at a very causal French place on Club Street, where we shared cheese boards and BBQ chicken and a bottle of prosecco.

The last supper 

Then it was time to bundle Debbie into a taxi, to wave until the car had turned the corner and was out of sight. And then it was home time. Back to the home where there’s only me and Nick. No Debbie anymore. Sad face.