Into double digits

The season has begun.  Laughingly referred to in our house as birthday hell - it is July!  My beloved Rosemary has reached her first double digit birthday and I have a ten year old.

A house full to brim with giggling, squealing, limboing girls helped to celebrate the birthday.  They made origami frogs (of course), scooped smarties with chopsticks and proved you are never to old or sophisticated for pass the parcel.

The actual birthday was celebrated in true Rosemary gourmet style with her choice - roast pork belly with crackling and chocolate mousse.  I've always said she has excellent taste!

Rosemary is one of a kind.  She thinks so far outside the square sometimes it feels like she exists in another country.  If there is a creative way, a different answer or a novel approach, she will find it.  You will also never find a kinder heart or a truer friend.
 

Happy birthday Rosemary.  It's been a pleasure spending ten years with you so far and I'm looking forward to the rest.

Went to a garden party...

In England. Names omitted to protect the innocent.

And on the way back,

Just a pile of stones, really. Nothing to see here.

Singapore!

Singapore is great. The public transport system is made for humans, the zoo has tigers, lions, and bears (and orangutangs!) , the architecture delights, and in the side streets there is plenty of asian-style fluid, cooperative chaos.

The people are friendly. Stand on a corner and look like a lost tourist, and within a minute or two, you can be sure to get an offer of help. Instead of an airport full of cops with guns, customs officers eyeballing you and feeling you up, and signs telling what you can't do, Changi airport gives you short queues, reasonable prices, signs that are useful, and – how about this – staff that genuinely help the travelling public.

Of course, Singapore is not for everyone. There is a lot of people. The shopping centres are like shopping centres everywhere, only louder. Only the very wealthy get to live in a house. And if you are male Singaporean, you have two years of National Service after you leave school.

Singapore gets a lot of bad press in Australia. Don't listen to the knockers; Singapore is great!

Breakfast in Little India.

Walking about

Buildings with plants

... can sneak up on you.

Olde Singapore

Here be tigers

And baby pigmy hippo

And gardens

Stick insects.

Orchids

Don't mess with Texas

(I have no idea what his name is. Texas seemed suitable.)

The white tiger.

Swimming

Another tiger

Public transport is awesome

Laundry on a stick. Makes sense.

Until you see it, you have no idea how big the Marina Bay Sands is. Good thing Claire is here to help.

Claire is not a child any more. We have to pay.

The only "don't do it or else" sign I saw during our visit to Singapore. The only one.

Letting go, just for a little while

It's time to reflect on being a parent for a moment.  My daughter Claire is so close to 13 you can see it from here.  13 going on 30.  When she was five years old, we were at a party with a very diverse group of people of all ages and stages and at one point a man came up to me and asked if I was her mother.  Yes, I said.  He said 'I've just had a more interesting conversation with your daughter than I've had with women five times her age.'

That's the way it's always been.  Claire is so interested in the world around her, it is a joy to watch and experience.  But along with that goes a very kind and loving heart.  At the moment, she is my second in charge.  She helps with her sisters and takes some of the load of parenting and after school juggling off my shoulders.

We got her end of semester report home from school on Thursday.  One B and the rest As.  Two merit awards and one academic achievement award.  Every teacher commented on how interested she is in learning, how much she enjoys a challenge, what a joy she is to teach.  I was so proud I thought I would burst.  To see how she has matured and grown up over this past year, to see how she has thrown herself into high school is wonderful.  As parents, we must be doing something right.

So it was with mixed emotions that on Friday I let her go for a little while...  I put her on the plane to Darwin, where she met her father and they flew to Singapore and then to the UK.  I pick her up in Sydney in two weeks time, when she flies in on her own from Singapore.  She was nervous, excited and scared all at the same time.  She'll come back a little bit different, I'm sure, hopefully with the appetite whetted for more overseas travel.

What was she most looking forward to about going to the UK?  Seeing the British Museum.

 
That's my girl.