Happy Christmas

This Christmas allow me to gently dream of dimmed lights, a simmering fireplace, snow drifting softly through glossy french doors outside and a silent, musing barefoot dance on a warm carpet to Tori's A Silent Night With You.

Untitled Scribble at Christmas Time

No need for uncomfortable silences
No tribute to modern conveniences
No trite hymns to gifts of frankincense and myrrh
I didn't want anything for Christmas

These gifts gave me nothing to hold
If not of hope, not worth a weight in gold
I'd wished for a thought, a photograph, a signal
Being stubborn to stifle a memory as I was told.

Not a shameless plug to the holiday album I never thought Tori would make, but I like to think that Christmas would be lit by the traditional this season, filled with the thoughtful tunes from old instead of the jolly holiday faves played on the radio.

I'm already living the next decade of my life...

On May 4th a year ago, I wrote about the soundtrack of my life. It's odd how a year or so down the road and it feels that the next decade of my life has begun, but not as a slow transition as you would expect numbers to... moving from one to nine, but as a harsh cutover from 20 to 30.

It's not too bad the next decade, filled with mellow sounds of 70's music and progressing back slightly to angst ridden Robbie Williams with a touch of frost. Not so much beauty in depression than been-there-done-that-sweetheart wisdom.

30's - 40's soundtrack of life would be:-

1. Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun
2. Robbie Williams - Strong
3. James Morrison - Wonderful World
4. Carpenters - Goodbye to Love
5. Tori Amos - Take Me With You

This place has given me very much. But most of all a dream of mellow country flowers, a flavour of food... and a settling of the restlessness of youth that I haven't fully come to terms with.

Just Passing By

I know it's strange for me to like a McDonald's ad of all things, but this one's really quite clever - showing on UK screens at the moment. The use of the poetry makes McDonald's classy instead of cheap, and also cements the image of McDonald's being the food of the the people (rightly or wrongly, since I don't eat it very often...)

Ad campaign "Something for Everyone" by Leo Burnett, poem written and read by David Morrissey. The music is the opening track from the 1990 Anjelica Huston / John Cusack movie The Grifters, with the soundtrack composed by Elmer Bernstein - again, classy contradictory use of indie content for a very mainstream production.

Something for Everyo..
Watch the ad...

Something for Everyo..
Watch the ad...

Commitment to Simpler Living

I have to admit, recently I've been frequenting Life Hacking and decluttering websites, in an attempt to find happiness from a simpler life (and save money).

As a result, I've made the simple resolution that moving forward, I will not be accepting any object gifts from anyone - not for Christmas, birthdays, thank you's or any other special event.

The truth is, I'm an incredibly hard person to buy a gift for. And rather than accept items which eventually become clutter in the house (a thankless acceptance, unfortunately) I would rather live with what I have. Buy me a meal, a concert ticket, something that becomes a memory instead.

So now I have to go around announcing this to everyone. Thanks, Mum. Life is simple.

The Narnia Code

Every now and then, I come across something that wakes up a part of me that's gone to sleep. Today was one such moment. I'd stumbled across The Narnia Code, a BBC documentary about Michael Ward, who'd made what would probably be termed as one of the most fascinating literary discoveries in recent history. I'd daresay it was compelling, and also the type of discovery to catch on faster than a new Robert Frost poem, thanks to the huge movie'ability of the Narnia Chronicles.

I've not read all 7 books of the Narnia Chronicles, I must admit. Or at least, although I can remember reading the full Lord of the Rings twice over as a kid, I remember only vague snippets of the Narnia Chronicles. I feel sure that I was fed the kind of literary diet as a child that would not have missed out these books, but at the same time, it joined the childhood stream of consciousness together with Sandman graphic novels, Norse mythology, Aesop's fables and other odd bits and pieces of information-that-nobody-knows-much-of-anymore.

So imagine my pleasant surprise coming across this documentary and learning that a secret, "third layer" of CS Lewis's subtle plan in the Narnia Chronicles was drawn from precisely the "stream of consciousness" that once made up common knowledge of people before CS Lewis's time.

Do I agree with CS Lewis? Yes, I do. Whole-heartedly. And why not? His ideas are so much more seductive, so much more enticing than the alternatives that I'm presented with by modern science and modern fact.

Watch the documentary - it's a not-so-long download on cable, and for a 250mb wait, if it sparks in you a wanting to believe, if it gives you something else to look forward to besides the end of the weekend - then it would have been worth the while.

(If Wei Chean could watch this documentary, I think she would be very edified in her long held love of CS Lewis's work.)

Incredulous
Upon watching The Narnia Code, a documentary on Planet Narnia by Michael Ward on CS Lewis's unifying theme of the seven mythological planets in his Narnia Chronicles.

Someone told me something I already knew, and had forgotten.
I know you are not the universe.
The universe is matter and mechanism, materialism,
The physical - you held me in your arms, I knew
You held a body, not a self, a discarded image
Of surreal to real, dreams to dust.

No longer do we share intimately a knowledge of the ties that bind
Us, universally drawing you from you, me from me,
That Tuesday was for war, and Friday for love,
That we know more than we know, and remember more than fact.
If it's only untrue, but beautiful, then tell me lies,
I want my sky lit with more than coloured dust.

I'd forgotten that Hope was not reserved for children, and
Dreams for courage and fairytales, that a book could lift
A mind beyond what was possible - we should all read -
And my heart would dare to think, that
I could look upon the stars and see a being
Far greater than you or I. Imagine that.

February Snow

First day of work back from a warm vacation and it's blanketed by a white layer of fluffy snow. It's been the coldest yet for the UK in over a decade, with the heaviest snowfall in around 18 years. In the meantime, the dog came back with a cold and is sneezing, and so am I.

But I'm welcoming the white. For the first time I've been in this part of England, there is a thick 4" of snow on the ground, and more is still falling. Continuously. Previous experiences have always been with a disappointing touch of icing that melts faster than you can say "it's snowing!".

There's something powerfully cathartic about the vision of delicate white flakes indiscriminately covering everything that it falls upon with a smooth, white layer. It speaks of the power of the small in the resilience of one or two flakes persisting at the end of a branch, but also of the power of the collective, in the blanketing force that snow becomes over a blue car, a red berry, the asphalt ground, the green fields. Every colour converted to white in a resistance is futile kind of way.

The snow falls like a meme, an idea. A single flake at first, tossing and flicking in one general direction. And then another, in a slightly different direction. Then another, and another, and before long, a series of snowflakes, some catching on each other as they fall, gaining weight, gaining strength.

The half-pleasure, half-guilt of leaving footprints in the snow where no foot had trod before is soon forgiven as the new snow delicately dab away at the traces of my weight upon the white. No postman or milkman has walked today up the driveway to leave a set of heavy shoeprints upon the ground. No one will disturb the pristine levelling of the ground today, I am willing the snow to disappear as softly as it came, in the shade of a tree or a roof.

If colours mean something, and white often means purity, cleanliness, sometimes death or defeat... if only for the snow scene, white must surely to me mean redemption and force.

As colours go, white is the only colour that in nature dominates all other colours, like it or not. The only colour that can say, "Well, be whatever colour you want to be, but when it's my time, I will surpass you, exceed you, blank you out and become the colour that you will wear, regardless of the colour you are inside." Royalty may wear yellow to be like the sun, and purple to be of noble birth. In my world, royalty will wear white - the all encompassing, all dominating colour. It is the unassuming, yet celebratory colour, the colour that says "in my time I will colour everything else across the world with my shade". And I think, quite possibly, because of the prevalence of snow and cloud, it is the single most frequently occurring colour in nature.

It's Probably Autumn Now

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
- John Keats, To Autumn

The season of mists has begun. As it normally does, in rain, cloud, and infrequent bursts of sunshine, not unlike a temperamental child. This year, autumn has come early, as if in retort to my earlier scepticisms of a warm September and a frosty April. I don't normally like Septembers (my favourite months are December and February) and this year, September feels like September. No illusions of summer past it's time, no clinging on to hope that things are other than a dull and bland month. I like it that way. It's real, no pretensions, 100% pure honesty.

If we could break up the periods of one's life into months, I'm probably coming September by now. Assuming uneven months, it feels at this time of the year that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed months of spring, the successes of an earlier summer have faded into a mellow and warm, coffee-drinking, bossa-nova listening, warm-coloured season. It's the season that holds off the seduction of crisp frost in December, the season that is wise to the innocent white of January's pale lips and skin, the season that says, "Tell me as it is and give me nothing more." It is the wise woman of the fates, the mother, the matriarch, the empress.

Eat with me the plum fruits of bliss,
Watch golden rays of sun caress the edge of night
Dance gently in falling leaves and fading light
Intoxicated by the season of mists.

The Bag Lady in the 21st Century

In the 2008 Budget, a carrier bag legislation potentially imposing a tax on carrier plastic bags in 2009 should usage not fall was pledged.

Plastic bags have become the new enemy. They are the new fruits on trees, they take ages (if at all) to bio-degrade, they're unnecessary, they are everywhere. In Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer and other supermarkets, the recyclable bag-for-life or green alternatives have started to become the fad and increasingly the norm.

Fashionable, reusable shopping carriers is the new big market, as Anya Hindmarch found out by scratching the surface, and like a pair of nice, white Birkies, I too would like to own a well-designed, hand-made shopping bag from Greenwich Market.

I'm starting to take on the belief that the only thing plastic really ought to just be my credit card, and am finding myself gravitating, almost moth-to-flame-like, to the fad of fashionable yogurt in glass bottles, eggs in cardboard cartons and clothes in cloth bags. From the technological innovation it was 20 years ago, plastic has become the sticky bane of modern society.

And quite frankly, why not? Your liquid shampoo in a posh glass bottle just seems nicer somehow, doesn't it?

These days, hippie is the new posh.

Interestingly, in this new fad that I'm starting to really think is an incredible smart idea faintly marketed, not only do you not have to be rich to be clever (tm), this particular hippie posh fad might actually have material benefits, unlike the fads that came and went before. You just have to know how to get the look.

Shop Local = Niche Grocers, not Designers.

Not only does this bring unimagined conveniences having everything you need literally next door, hippie posh dictates that you will be on a first name basis with your niche greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger, who will reserve the freshest, latest and greatest catch of the day for your royal highness's enjoyment.

The Ideal: Your buff and fit butcher bloke (if Italian, add extra points. If also doubling as a delicatessen importing ham from a relatively unknown area of Italy with a population of 25 who all make ham, add maximum points.) slices and dices your meats to your liking, and flashes brilliant, flirty smiles when you walk into the store in your sundress and sandals.

The Look: Name drop your butcher, all the previously unheard of places in Italy where produce is home-made by nonni and wait for friends to ooh and ahh.

Recyclable Bags = Designer meets Supermarket.

A finer excuse to carry an Anya Hindmarch to a supermarket I have not yet come across. This should be a no brainer. Of course you don't use cheap (free) Tesco branded plastic bags! That's so last century and unenvironmentally friendly. Your bag for life is not a plastic bag (tm), it's either a suitably sized Anya Hindmarch or, if you didn't make the queues, a hand-made, one of a kind shopper's from the likes of Greenwich Market.

The Ideal: An "I Am Not a Plastic Bag" by Anya Hindmarch. Cautiously disclose the fact that you had walked, not driven to your nearest Sainsbury's to stand 3 hours in line to get the look.

The Look: A close contender would be a hand-made one of a kind from as exotic a market as you can possibly can get. Double points if you're bagging a bag from Morocco, Istanbul or Tunisia. Maximum points if you had hand-made (personally) your bag using recycled scraps of kimono fabric purchased from a bric-a-brac shop in central Tokyo.

Walking the Walk = Showing off designer footwear.

Top marks for the very Singaporean art of wearing shorts and Crocs to Orchard Road. I lie, do the very opposite and look for casual, understated and comfortable. Because unlike the Gucci heels you used to wear, you do actually have to walk in these.

Yes I know, it's a slight inconvenience. But on the bright side, it is almost an impossibility to be reading, working or otherwise pretending to be distracted by something more important than being on the tube when you're walking, so you have got your fellow walking commuters absolute attention. You now have an excuse to perfect your street stride for more than 60 seconds.

The Ideal: Kate Moss in a recent cosmetic ad did this to ultimate perfection. As she sauntered confidently along the street to turning heads... if street lamps had eyes, they would turn too. Add points for coverage if you're listening to an upbeat tune on your iPhone/iPod, double points for stepping to the music.

The Look: Dress up for walking. Invest in swishy skirts and long legged trousers and take that stride on, baby! And yes, you now have a shameless way of assessing people by the shoes they wear.

My Life is (not that) Cool

On a whim, and because I know I'm not that good at keeping up links/appearances/contacts/friendships/acquaintances/anything at all/in general, I decided to click on Rambo Tan's blog.

Now reading Rambo Tan's blog always brings a smile to my face. Not merely because I actually know the author of the blog personally, but also because to me, and to me only, the author seems a kindred spirit (we were school mates, and walk-out-of-exams-early'mates) to the tune of this-is-one-version-of-how-my-life-would-have-turned-out.

Rambo Tan's in Singapore, living a life that I would have/and have had led, were I in Singapore. It's a sometimes happy life. A single, unfettered by most of the family, away from domestic chores but otherwise needing to fix-things-for-oneself life.

It's only been a year and a half, but looking back, that life seems so far away. Granted it was spent with loved ones, and there were friends, family, mates to hang out with at hand, but it seems now a life that I almost cannot imagine myself spending.

And the difference. Oh boy, the difference.

Singapore-Self looks upon England-Self now with some lack of understanding.

Singapore-Self wonders about:

• Personal crises - what to wear when you're hanging out in Orchard Road and Holland Village, what my mother will think if I stay in a permanent state of almost-married, moving out before I'm officially wed, my family's health or lack thereof
• Food - where the best char kway teow can be found (Commonwealth, I maintain), how much prices of ordinary pleasures (the teh-C kar dai) is rising, the costs of tomatoes in Cold Storage, whether most people eat in food courts or fancy restaurants
• Society and Culture - What my mother thinks my aunts will say when they meet me for the first and only time in the year, whether people really dislike the government despite living in creature comforts and wouldn't vote otherwise anyway, if independent women really attract fewer Singaporean men
• Self-Sufficiency - paying for a part-time, once-a-week maid, purchasing more than I can consume, affording platinum credit cards, doggy classes, the dog groomer clips my dog's nails because I'm afraid to do them myself

England-Self is consumed by:

• World crises - global warming, energy conservation, income inequity and gay marriages
• Food - the difference between organic and free range, whether chickens are bred with hormonal additives, buying local to reduce carbon footprints (see point above), approving of the office cafeteria switching to free range due to popular demand, cooking local cuisine with foreign ingredients
• Society and Culture - the difference between the English, the Europeans and the Americans, learning to live in a high context society that is so conscious about the personal situations of everything and everyone around them, amusement at the stark similarities between English and Asian cultures, working with the Germans, working with Germans who aren't very German
• Self-Sufficiency - doing my own cleaning, cooking, ironing, changing the lightbulbs, doing the laundry, walking the dog, dremelling the dog's nails because it costs 15 quid to get someone else to do them and they'd clip them anyhow and won't do such a good job

I understand now why people want to leave, and why people want to stay in Singapore. In my mind, there are no stayers or quitters, only those who favour the waters in different ponds.

Viewed from the other side of the river, Singapore-Self would perceive England-Self as silly, unnecessary, backward, unsophisticated and manual, while England-Self would view Singapore-Self as silly, self-absorbed, spoiled and small-minded.

Someone said to me the other day that it was remarkable that I had found myself, found my voice, in a place, in a culture that was difficult to understand, difficult to adapt to. Past the initial cynicism of whether that remark was true, I wondered if the purpose of coming here was indeed to find myself, or indeed, if in coming here, I had lost myself and hence needed finding myself again.

In any case, I hadn't left Singapore without a sense of self, as folklore would have had it, neither had I lost that sense of self in a foreign place, as myth would have said.

I see it now that there are merely two selves, like two sides of a coin, multiple facets of a personality that broadens and deepens with experience and exposure to different places and different cultures.

The Teochew girl side of me draws on an analogy - of a fish that takes on the flavour of the water they grow up in. This fish preferred the flavour of the waters of another pond, and swam in it.

And I have to say, I like the flavours of channel fish.

Easter Rising

I just wanted to say, while I'm at it and blogging, that I am frankly aware that a number of readers on this blog read it just to know that I'm still alive, with that faintly quiet reassurance that the blogger isn't:

• A dog (mine, a Westie, to be specific)
• A significant other (but nobody specific)
• A neurotic necrotic
• A glitch in the stream of consciousness

No, jokes aside - I am well, and very much alive, and living - actually living (imagine that!).

It snowed on Easter Sunday.

I've always been warned, and this year was no exception, by the weather service and well meaning colleagues and radio broadcasters that it typically snows around Easter. Why it snows in spring here instead of winter is always going to elude me. But come Easter Sunday, after a sunshine filled dawn, a swirling, white powder began to fill the air, and danced in front of the window.

There was a strangely sweet sort of pleasure watching visibly white bits swirl in front of your eyes. I'm not quite sure what it is. This Easter was celebrated in strangely sweet, quiet sort of ways. I baked a carrot cake, I gave up Coke (the soft drink, not the other kind) for Lent, I walked the dog for an especially long time, I watched Grey's Anatomy.

And then I realised what this small, quiet joy is. It's the comfort that one gets when baking cookies on a sad day. It's the warmth of a kitten's cuddle on a cold day.

It is often said that on Easter, Christ's rising from the the dead is like the breaking of dawn after a long, dark night. It's often represented as the glorious, bright and resplendent ascension of the sun, choirs of angels optionally included.

I like to think instead that the breaking of dawn on Easter day is like any other dawn on any other day. A silent peace that creeps upon you, small and quiet, on a gentle breeze lightly kissing your cheek as you stir and open your eyes, semi-conscious of another day laid like dreams at your feet. Filled with promise, with hope.

No choirs of angels. No fifth symphony.

Love, like redemption, like grace, like promise, like hope, comes without a declaration, arrives without notice, departs without a by-your-leave.

How do we know today's the day among days? And that yesterday, things were different than they were tomorrow?

We mark the moments in our days, months, years, the hours that tick by. We keep our watch through hands that move in circles.

And I just can't get over the idea that one day, just one day, I'm going to wake up with everything around me different and yet the same, and in that instant that it happens, in that very moment, I'm not even going to know it.

Standby Buster

The next time I am back in Singapore, I think it would be brilliant to bring a couple of these. I've been recently obsessed about saving electricity/the environment/water/money/the world and these fit right into that ethos.

Standby Busters are remote controlled electrical sockets that you can plug into as a conduit between the mains (usually tucked behind a shelf and hard to reach) and the multiplug electrical board that powers everything in the house.

You now get to turn off the electricity at the mains with the touch of a radio controlled remote controller.

Laundry bags as reusable grocery bags

One of the biggest campaigns here that has captured the attention of the media and retailers is against plastics, particularly plastic bags. The Daily Mail ran a few articles yesterday about how Marks & Spencers will start charging 5p for each single use plastic bag they hand out. Instead, they are preparing to give away free bags for life to customers instead, to encourage less use of single-use plastic bags that are a key pollutant in British waters and land.

I re-use nearly every single supermarket issued plastic bags as rubbish bags anyway, but reckoned that they build up much faster than I can use them, so treat myself to intermissions of reusable, eco-friendly bags every now and then to make my supermarket issued plastic bag supply decrease a little before I start up again.

Here's an idea where something good can come out of something not-quite-as-good-but-which-we-do-anyway.

You know how most people visit hotels and end up pilfering laundry bags, shoe bags and shopping bags, especially the cotton woven ones that are usually provided by hotels in countries with low cost labour?

Yes you do. They're the ones that usually come labelled with a "Not For Sale", "Do Not Remove" indications.

Browsing through Eco Bags (http://www.ecobags.com/) today, it struck me how many of these eco-bags actually look like they may be exactly the same bags as the laundry bags many of us pilfer for free.

Why not do something useful with the petty crime? Reuse these bags as grocery bags on Wednesdays when shopping in Carrefour or bring a couple with you when you go shopping and refuse a single-use, standard issue plastic bag. It's not Anya Hindmarch, but can still do something for the world.

I have switched to free-range chicks!

On the telly recently, to much controversial discussion, was a free-range bird movement, jointly supported by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. Particularly by the former two, through two broadcast mini-series on the life of a broiler hen, Hugh's Chicken Run and Jamie's Fowl Dinners put a stark contrast to the lives of battery hens and free-range birds.

I met Hugh's Chicken Run with a bit of scepticism, but follow up Chicken Run with Jamie's Fowl Dinners, and it almost became too much. I've switched, to eating only free-range chickens and now, my next step, buying free-range and organic eggs from the Farmer's Market, up from the Tesco's Value Eggs.

And surprisingly, like the song goes, "It's no sacrifice... no sacrifice. It's no sacrifice at all!" Admittedly, free-range costs more than value chicken. But it's not twice the price, it's two quid more for 4 chicken breasts (and they are larger). The main difference would probably be in the eggs, 1.10 for 6 large eggs, compared to 0.79 for 6 unevenly sized ones. Slightly almost twice the price, but my bet in quality is on the free-range, organic variety.

So while the three chefs are trying to change Britain's eating habits from fast to freedom, I thought about how affordable the luxury of eating conscience is here, compared to the organic awareness back in Singapore.

Despite the various food/health awareness campaigns going on, Singapore hasn't quite adopted the free-range, organic movement quite as readily as consumers have in European countries. The sensitivity factor is price. Unlike a small step up in price which still falls within my buying power, organic and free-range costs exhorbitant amounts compared to the usual standard-of-living fare that we're used to, and while the brown-rice stigma is fading, a shadow still lingers over many products.

Can money buy conscience? Can we honestly grow to believe that our dollar can save the world, prevent global warming, help chickens lead a better life and make us lose weight and gain back taste and experience?

Perhaps. But in the meantime, tune in to 3 meals for a chicken recipes proudly sponsored on Hugh's River Cottage site:

3 Meals from one bird

Meal one: Roast chicken
Serve this with nothing more than a green salad to mop up all the herby, buttery juices.
Serves 4–5

1 plump free range chicken, weighing 1.5-2kg
25g soft butter
a couple of generous handfuls of fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives and marjoram, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 glass of white wine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7. Remove the bird from the fridge at least an hour before cooking it. Take off any trussing from the chicken and remove the giblets if they’re inside (keep them in the fridge and use them for the stock, see below). Put the bird in a roasting tin and spread out its legs from the body. Enlarge the opening of the cavity with your fingers, so hot air can circulate inside the bird.

Put the butter in a bowl, throw in the herbs and the garlic and season well with salt and pepper. Mix together with your fingers, then smear all over the chicken, outside and in. Place in the centre of the hot oven and leave for 25-30 minutes.

Then baste the chicken, turn the oven down to 180°C/gas 4, pour the wine into the tin (not over the bird) and roast the bird for another 40–60 minutes, depending on its size. You can tell when it’s done by poking a knife into the part of the bird where the thigh joins the breast; the juices released should run clear.

Open the oven door, turn the oven off and leave the bird for 15–20 minutes to rest before carving. Carve the bird in the tin, as untidily as you like, letting the slices fall into the buttery juices, then take the whole thing to the table so people can help themselves.

Chicken stock
After eating your roast, let the chicken go cold then slice, pick and tease every last scrap of remaining meat from the bones. Set this aside.

The carcass that’s left can now be used to make a rich, savoury stock – a potential base for any number of soups, stews, risottos or gravies. Makes 1-1.5 litres

1 cooked chicken carcass
the neck and giblets from the chicken, if you have them, but not the liver
1-2 onions, roughly chopped
1-2 large carrots, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
a few black peppercorns
3-4 celery sticks, roughly chopped
½ a large leek, roughly chopped
a few chunks of peeled celeriac or parsnip (optional)
1 sprig of thyme (optional)
a few parsley stalks (optional)

Tear the carcass into fairly small pieces and cram them, along with any skin, bones, fat, jelly or burnt bits from the roasting tin, into a saucepan that will take them snugly. If you have the fresh giblets, add these too (minus the liver, which can make the stock bitter – save it for sautéing).

Add the vegetables and herbs, packing them in as snugly as you can so that you need no more than 1.5 litres of cold water to just cover everything. Bring the pan to a tremulous simmer and let it cook, uncovered, for at least three hours – up to five. Top up the water once or twice, if necessary. Strain the stock through a fine sieve, leave it to cool, then chill it. A layer of fat will solidify on the top, which you can scrape off – but I don’t usually bother unless it’s excessive.

Meal two: chicken risotto
If you use a good, tasty chicken stock to make a risotto, you need very few other ingredients to make a meal of it.
Serves 6

1.5 litres chicken stock
80g butter
1 small onion, very finely diced
400g risotto rice
1 glass white wine
grated parmesan cheese and a little more butter, to finish
salt and freshly ground pepper

Other ingredients: choose fromabout 200g peas or petits pois (defrosted if frozen)
about 200g sweetcorn kernels
about 300g mushrooms (fresh, dried or a mixture)
100-150g bacon, cut into little scraps
anything else that takes your fancy – including chopped, leftover chicken

Bring the stock to a simmer in a pan, and keep it simmering while you cook the rice. Heat the butter in a large pan and add the onion (if you want to use bacon, add this along with the onion). Cook gently for 10 minutes or so until soft but not coloured.

Add the rice and cook for just a minute, stirring well to coat it in the butter. Add the wine and cook for a few minutes until it has been absorbed by the rice. Now start adding the hot stock, a ladleful at a time, stirring now and then and adding a fresh ladleful of stock once the last has been absorbed.

The rice should be cooked (tender but still just slightly al dente), and the risotto at the right soft, moist consistency after about 18 minutes. If you’re adding peas or sweetcorn, do so after the rice has been cooking for about 10 minutes. If you want to add mushrooms, sauté them in separate pan and add, with any juices, when the rice has almost finished cooking. Leftover chicken can go in just before the end too – just make sure it gets thoroughly reheated.

When the risotto is cooked, turn off the heat, dot a little butter all over the surface, and sprinkle with a little parmesan. Cover and leave for 2-3 minutes, then stir the melted butter and cheese into the rice. Season to taste then serve, in warmed dishes, with more parmesan.

Meal three: the leftovers
Here are just three of the ways you can use up the cold meat cut from the carcass after roasting. And if none of these take your fancy, never forget that a good chicken sandwich – with fresh bread, crisp salad and mayonnaise – is a thing of joy.

The Harder Edge to Soft Paws Anti-Scratching Solutions

So, before going any further, this is a gripe. In fact, this should be a consumer awareness article, but I won't be going as far as putting it up on any review sites.

Some context to start. I love my dog. My landlord loves her too (or has come to think she's very very cute) but before meeting my dog, she had requested that we do something to protect her hard wood floors from scratching caused by nails. This got me very worried, and so having turned to Mr Google for solutions, came across Soft Paws, among many other things to do to prevent your dog from scratching.

Developed by a veterinarian, Soft Paws are vinyl nail caps that glue on to your dogs nails. This amazing product effectively blunts your dog’s nails to protect against problem scratching; protecting against:

• Damage to Household Surfaces: Floors, Doors, Screens, Walls and Furniture
• Canine Skin Conditions Aggravated by Scratching
• Protects You from Scratches from Your Dog
• Dogs and Their Owners LOVE Them!

I bought a pack. It comes with 40 nail caps and 2 tubes of Soft Paws branded super glue that you use to stick the Soft Paws to your dog's nails. And so I did.

It worked a charm, for a while. Until I realised that the Soft Paws which were supposed to fall off naturally didn't. The glue that comes with Soft Paws really is super glue. Over time, the nails grow as they do, and the Soft Paws formed a thick, acrylic layer over the nails, changing the way Beanie walked.

Imagine artificial nails stuck on your toenails for months without coming off. That's probably what my uncomplaining dog had to put up with. I reckon when her nails started to curl, she probably just walked much less.

Dog lovers probably won't read this blog. But over time, I've found alternatives:

• Skilled nail clipping - it's not something only the groomer does
• Dremelling - A sanding tool which files your dog's nails down straight
• A nail file - God bless Manicure, it smoothes not just your nails

Any one of these options were far less painful for Beanie, more natural, and she's still not scratching the floor.

A sharp reminder to me not to opt for the lazy way out and do the right thing for the one living thing who always looks happy when I come home.

Hello Country, Goodbye Nightclub

First post of the new year and I thought I might do a short note about what I think this year is going to be about.

In this year:

• Low-rise buildings, low-rise jeans
• Organic and free-range (food)
• Walks in the park
• Memories (like fire, radiant and immutable)
• Things of value = history, photography, old stuff

Out this year:

• Modern skyscrapers, long hair
• Cheap, mass-produced produce
• Shopping in the city
• New things, the future
• Things of value = money, bling bling, new stuff

In Auxerre, we bought a lovely Trousselier rotating lamp with Le Petit Prince prints on it. Initially I thought that I would love falling asleep to the Little Prince flying through the air in a slow motion natural rotation. But having placed it in a corner, I realised there was another undiscovered beauty to it.

In the corner, narrow bands of light wait in line to take off into feathered flight as the corner narrows band after band of light, only to stretch them out into a feathered quill, swirl them through the air, then neaten them up into a narrow line of light again in a feathery carousel.

I stared at them for hours, amazed by the simple beauty of a play of light.

Light. It was only light.

After a while, I'd realised it really is just the simple things.

Comfort Foods

I've been ill.

Not to worry, I'm getting better. But being ill is like your body's little reminder for you to stop, take a breather, and let the rest of the world get on with what it's doing for once.

Which is exactly what I'm doing - and probably why I have found the time to blog (having taken some much needed time off work to do the things that keep me sane*).

I've been sleeping a lot. That's one thing I do particularly much of when I am ill - it's my miracle cure to everything. I swear, it's better than chicken soup and penicillin (though those help too).

Somewhere in my half-waking moments, I'd dreamt that I'd woken up to the smell of freshly baked cookies. It was most definitely a dream, because unless I'd sleepwalked my way to the oven, baked a bunch and put it in, there was most certainly no other Christmas elf around that would be figuring out the oven in my house.

It led me to think about comfort foods - tastes and smells that just make one feel better when one is ill.

My comfort foods used to be:

1. Minced pork with garlic soup
2. Pi Tan Porridge
3. Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes with warm milk (I'm a Kellogg's baby)
4. Quaker oats and condensed milk
5. Teh (the kopitiam type with condensed milk - something about the milk and sugar combination is very soothing)
6. Ginger tea
7. Yong Tau Foo - which I eat even when I'm not ill

They now are:

1. Vegetable soup or any creamy soup of any kind
2. Quaker oats and condensed milk
3. Warm apple juice and cinnamon - I wish Lemsip came in warm apple juice and cinammon flavours!
4. Toast - with butter, with ham, with jam, with nothing at all. just toast
5. Warm honey with lemon juice
6. Carr's Table Water

So some things change and others don't. I have found that oats settle one's stomach much more than porridge, but takes a stronger stomach for digestion - so they're useful in a flu situation, and less so in a bad tummy situation.

I guess I never do eat very much when I'm ill in the first place, but give me a choice of what to eat in the worst of situations, and the list above would be what I probably could not live without. The food we eat and come to love must surely be a function of where we are. I believe this now wholeheartedly - just look at how my comfort foods have adapted themselves to harsher climes.

That said, I still take my pi pa gao loyally when I am down with a sore throat.

* Incidentally which were, in no particular order - the laundry, socks and fleeces; cook soup; blog; admire the flowers; sleep.

The Season of Soups

January's BBC Good Food Guide finds one new year's resolution to always have home cooked soup sitting on the stove. I just realised this morning how easy it was to make, and how - given some time, mainly the chief ingredient of a good soup - this was one resolution that will keep one warm and toasty at home in the winter time.

For me, warm soups are comfort foods. Ever since I discovered Pret a Manger's soup collection, which started recently in autumn, I've been chasing up soups and soup recipes from all over.

In a cafe in Nuits-St-Georges on a recent French trip, I discovered what would possibly be the warmest, nicest, easiest to make vegetable soup possible. The secret? A Marigold brand vegetable bouillon stock powder that I have sitting on a shelf at home, thanks to enuwy's lovely recommendation a while back.

So upon coming down with a bad cold and wanting to experiment with the warming qualities of vegetable soup, I've decided to make my own:

Vegetable Soup

3 carrots
2 parsnips
1/2 a floret of broccoli
handful of barley (optional)
2 tsp bouillon stock powder
750 ml water
pepper

1. Chop vegetables roughly and throw into pot.
2. Sprinkle over with the bouillon powder and some pepper to taste.
3. Cover with hot water and bring to a slow boil.
4. Allow to boil for at least 1-2 hours for the vegetable flavours to set.
5. With a stick blender, blend into a creamy soup. Serve.

The soup feeds about 2-3 and in reality, you can toss in any sort of vegetable you like. In fact, I have my suspicion that this is one soup you can keep boiling on the stove regularly, topping up with leftover vegetables and other unwanted odd ends. Just remember to toss in a hearty amount of bouillon powder for taste and blend before serving.

This is one soup I'm definitely going to keep on my stove all winter!

Of many twinkling, coloured lights

This year's Guy Fawkes Day was very different from the last. I was on a plane flying back from Dublin when the celebrations threw many coloured lights into the air. As a matter of fact, I was in the window seat on the plane as it landed in Heathrow airport.

I doubt many people remember the true significance of the 5th of November anymore here, all it is now is an excuse to light fireworks and have something special to do for the evening with the kids while as many twinkling coloured lights as you can manage burst into the air.

For me, by concidence, it became a revelation of astonishing beauty.

As the plane flew long over London, the ground laid out like glittering embroidery. The rolling, curving lines of street lamps, buildings, the Thames moved like a fabric, one that was fit for any queen. Every now and then, a light winked and shone, as we passed away from the tall office buildings and over households, street upon street of lined houses, gathering the fireworks for the evening.

Almost gradually, the fireworks started, rising from the ground silently, bursting in slow motion. One, then another, and another. This must be the first time I have ever seen a meme made visible. Household after household, it was a hope, a thought, a prayer rising in solemn celebration from the ground.

As the plane landed, there were still fireworks going off around Heathrow, as if the land itself was saying "this is not enough, there is more". I cannot describe how exactly the angles changed, as fireworks seen from above started to grow, and spread itself from tender bubbles into glowing umbrellas, then finally into fiery rain.

But I think I know now why the window seat is Monsieur G's favourite spot on the plane.

Oh Joy

I haven't blogged for some time. I have been bogged down in the mediocrity that I call the work-home-sleep-work routine. It's a short and simple routine, easy to accomplish, and I know if I let it, it will take the next 35 years of my life.

Like Parent Hacks and Life Hacks love to make you believe, apparently there are tips - means, ways, tricks - about this business of living mundanity. Ways, like microwaves and washing machines, attempt to shorten the time it takes to go through the work-home-sleep-work routine.

It's still 24 hours all the same, no matter whether you choose Life, choose a television or choose a washing machine.

I try to be happy. But sometimes, there is very little joy in having to decide what to cook for dinner every day, waking up at exactly the same time every morning, leaving for work at precisely 7.53am in the morning and coming home when the sunlight falls dim in the horizon.

Over the course of this dreary mind-numbness we call the yuppy life, I've realised what it takes to make me smile.

1. Do one thing different every day just for the heck of it. And it has to be obvious. If you take the bus to work, cycle. If you cycle, walk. If you walk, take the bus and talk to somebody on the way to work. Something, anything, to break the cycle that makes you forget your days.
2. See a dog smile. OK, this might be hard for those of you who don't have dogs. But try and make a random passing animal very happy and see what that does for you. Note: animals include humans if you find it hard to be kind to a stray.
3. Take a walk outside for 15 minutes on your own. Say nothing to yourself or anyone, even though you may have many thoughts in your head. Walk slowly. Enjoy and savour each step, each moment as the scenery on either side flick by you little by little with each passing step. Listen to the sound of your feet on the asphalt. If you like the beat faster, try jogging. If you can, try doing this around the time when the sun is either setting or rising. The result is a curious epiphany, filled with the realization of your place in the world, however big or small, and a sense of purpose about breathing and living.

I used to laugh about the vague poetry in taking in the weather, fresh air and surroundings. I suppose it must be part of living life here that suddenly, a great connection to the great outdoors wells up in some hitherto unknown part of this city girl. Suddenly there's no greater joy than to sit or walk with a loved one outside in the cool air, taking in the sunset and smiling friendly faces at passers-by.

The challenge as always, is keeping up the passion for life and everyone, keeping the romance breathing and living. It's all to easy to sink into the sofa, stay silent for two hours and hear only the occassional laughter to "Friends".

Summer Rains

Well, nothing to worry about, but I just thought I'd document for the sake of amusement that I've received my first flood warning notification in the mail this afternoon upon getting home. Looks like they're really serious about my place flooding up in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, with the possibility of closure along my road.

I have been "advised (to) make reasonable provision for personal needs as your movements could be restricted" by the Reading Borough Council. I take it that this means forwarding your phone to work from home, making sure you have enough to eat and stocking up from the Tesco's next door before they close. All this I have done.

Jokes of building arks and learning to swim have been flooding (no pun intended) my office social mailbox already, thanks to the idea that people are getting hesistant to come to work since my office is technically (a bit far out... but technically) in a flood risk area. It's more like looking for an excuse not to come to work, if you ask me, but hey, I'm all for it!

In Reading and Caversham, high water levels are expected to be reached at
about 0700 BST.

Reading Borough Council said river levels are unlikely to rise more
than 12ins (0.3m), and the Kennet, Lambourn and Loddon are not expected to
flood.

Mr Abbott added: "There could be flooding of some properties. Levels in
Reading, however, are not expected to be anything like we have had in
Oxfordshire."

Considering that my apartment building has a lovely river view of the Thames, it may flood up to my ground floor. (Boy, would I love to see that happen.) That is, if the water manages to somehow rise high enough from the small Thames tributary stream that is honorarily part of the river, cross an old bowling green, cycle lawn and football field before reaching the front steps of my backyard. (Not to worry, folks at home, I live on the 2nd floor - 3rd floor in Singapore terms).

I'm rather looking with envy at the ducks and swans roaming happily along the river banks and wishing that I had webbed feet. They are in the meantime merrily being traffic obstacles in the way of every car, bicycle and pedestrian haplessly trying to stay dry and look like they had just discovered duck heaven.