Welcome to the team Baby Max!

We had been waiting for news for a week or so, but when we landed in Australia for four days in the lovely spring weather we received a string of emails letting us know that the newest Porter had made his grand arrival.

            Welcome to the team Baby Max! I won’t get to Facetime or Skype until we’re back in Singapore next week, but until then I’m hoping that a flurry of photos, videos and emails will be enough to bridge the gap. Can’t wait to meet the newest, shorterPorter! 

Diwali Day!

Today is Diwali – this not only means that I don’t have to go to work because Singapore is busy celebrating the Festival of Lights, but even more excitingly it means that in a couple of hours Nick and I will be heading to the airport ready to fly out to Melbourne. That’s right – Australia!

            This is going to be a bit of a double whammy, because whilst this will of course be the furthest from home that I have ever been, but I also get to cross the equator again – I’ve already planned breaking out the bubbles to celebrate…just one more time.   

            Melbourne! We have very few firm plans, other than spending a bit of time with Nick’s family on the weekend so it’s going to be another touristy city weekend. I can’t wait! 

STILL NO BABY!!!

It’s been over a week of waiting now, and there’s still no baby news from my brother and sister in-law.

            The wait continues, and the brambly apple hot cross buns continue to taunt me every time I go to the freezer for ice.               

            Come the hell on baby! 

Super Excessive Brunch

The Ritz Carlton holds what it calls a Super Brunch once every six months, and it’s utterly ridiculous! The normal Sunday brunches are bad enough – too much food, too much drink and not enough vegetables, but this was on an entirely different level of excess!

Rather than there being one very full room of plenty of food and drink choices, this brunch took over two main dining rooms and the entire lobby of the hotel. It was themed as “The Voyage”, with the staff dressed as sailors and airhostess, the food stands all representing different countries around the globe, and drinks being served from airhostess trolley that they pushed between rooms.

There was too much food, of ever kind, and as always, way too much drink. We indulged in chilli from Mexico, the biggest leg of roast wagu beef that I have ever seen from England, salmon from Norway, curries from India, lobster from…I can’t even remember where. There was mountain upon mountain of delicious but utterly ridiculous food and drink choices. It was incredibly tasty, but it was also insane on every level.

            I am not sure that we will do another Super Brunch in the future, but it was a great game to play just once, and it leaves me with a lot of good work to do this week before we fly out to Melbourne on Wednesday evening.

 

Always time for a quick cuppa

Tea and macaroons 

Following our ridiculously indulgent start to the day, we achieved very little with the rest of our Saturday, as planned.

            The only time that we ventured out of the house was for the brief hour or two when the rain held off. Whilst we had no need to leave, I have a tendency to get ancy if I don’t leave at least once during the day, so under the guise of needing to get a gift for the Australian family who will be hosting us for drinks this weekend, we went in search of tea.  

 

There is one particular, very nicely arranged shop that I had in my mind would offer the perfect gift selection (and they have an adjoining tea shop, which may also have impacted my enthusiasm to go to this particular store on the other side of town). With packaging a little bit like Fortnum and Masons, a tin of their Singapore Breakfast Tea sounded like the perfect gift, which we got gift wrapped, ready to go!

On the way out of the shop, overwhelmed by the loveliness of it all, we somehow found ourselves being sucked into their glorious tearoom, where we may have accidentally ordered an afternoon tea to get us through the afternoon. It was a bit naughty, especially considering the fact that we had pancakes for breakfast, but it was a glorious little interlude to our day, so no complaints from me!