HAPPY BOXING DAY!

YES thats right i have missed a day(the big one too!) but you must forgive me my lapse as it has been a busy couple of days!! Visiting many homes and having many meals! IT has been a great Christmas so far! And we still have 10 days more!
Just posting some shots, no christmas pics unfortunately as i went cameraless most of the time. The pics are from mandai orchid garden, we went there this morning with mum, philip and the dyers....

O little town of Singapore, how you vex me so

WHAT A WEEK!! I knew it was going to be a killer week when my friend called me on monday to ask for undertakers number, his uncle had just passed away 79years old and married for 53 years. That was monday, tues was a busy day at work had multiple appointments plus the regular litany of problems here, managed to get out in one piece though and i met frodo and bala for a light workout at the kingfisher gym. Yes folks thats right the gym laugh it up, Wens was another nightmare here at a little place called the Concentration Camp. we had tons of things going on, leaking pipes, water spray testing, eletrical problems, you name it we had it PLUS i had to work until 8pm even though it was my duty. I was dog tired and had a headache by the time work was done so i decided to take a cab home anyway while in the cab my mood was made better by a cab driver who was listening to eric clapton and singing along so half way home i told him "Uncle, to pasir ris!" i decided to go the wake. I am glad i did, i always feel that everyone deserves a good send off, it is the last chance to do something for the physical person on earth, i dont like wakes but i always feel i should go and am always guilty when i do. So that was wensday
Thursday, i skipped out of work at 1 and met Sherwin n Bala for some serious shopping. I had my list and i check it twice. We started at centerpoint where we decided maybe we should eat first so after looking for a bite and meeting up with bala we decided on marche. Now i know there are alot of marche fans out there, and i admit the food is good but for the prices we are paying i think they could at least learn to be polite (could it be my luck?) Firstly some of the counters had no menu or price and when i asked the guy "what have you got?" his reply "Pasta" was not helpful at all. The other thing is the buyer does all the work, u get the table or hunt for it anwyay, you walk around with that card in your hand always afraind that you might lose it and have to pay 100 dollars, you are FORCED t owalk aroudn the whole place cause you dont know what ALL the stalls are selling. Then you find out what you want but there is no clear start to the line you finally get to the counter and have to have a little discussion with the dude in the back who is hard of hearing so you have to shout the fact that you are a greedy pig ordering everything in sight also that you are cheap cause you keep asking HOW much?? how much?? after all that they tell you, come back in 5 mins. So you thinkl ok 5mins ill go back and grab a seat for 5 mins which you do. 5 mins later your back at the counter and he looks at you as if your an ape that cant tell time and says 2mins more, no sorry no please no i'll send it to you nothing just TWO MINS MORE. now you see why i;m not a fan? and you dont know how much your total bill is untill you pay. damn stupid system.
Back to shopping, we went down from centerpoint through Taka, lucky plaza,paragon, far east plaza, dfs, borders till we reached tanglin mall. A little sidebar i dont like shopping esp for girls, it sucks and its hard i am always afraid i will disapoint them. Guys its easy, books, belt, socks, vouchers, cigars alcohol...but with chicks...sigh..TLOML gave me specific instructions on waht she wanted from Topshop but that was a fiasco as was the disaster that was Mango...i could feel the fear in the shops as we walked in. They said lipstick, sounds easy, you know how many coloured lipsticks they have like a million. red alone comes in 68000 shades how the hell do i know, you seen one you seen em all. Next year i am leavign all the chick gifts to TLOML.
After all taht we met a couple of friends for drinks at Muddy Murphys had a great little waitress named Aundrey who was all perky and smiles, i figure had been working there for a week and when i asked hershe said yes 1 week is it so obvious? heheh yes Audrey your just oo happy.
Friday i ahd to attend the funeral, it was a bittersweet occasion, a celebration of a great journey come to a close, as Father Time said it so well "his 79years as a pilgrim here on earth are over" His grandson gave a moving eulogy which had even the casket company people crying.
Then it was more shopping, thank god i had Jazzy with me she was most helpful, from the swiss butchery to the inside of isetan she knew what to do and where to go!! Finally last night was mexcian night at mums place, a great time with the whole gang, check out Alisons or Philips blog for more details

LAstly...forgive me for the many typos and lack of pictures, its been a long week.

Right about 2005 years ago Joseph would have been telling Mary," its not long now honey only 12miles to go till we get to bethleham(its a good thing we got the four leg drive donkey instead of that jackass zach and liz have:)....i shall entertain you with a song....99 green bottles on the wall 99 green bottles if one of those bottles should accidentaly fall 98 green bottles on the wall...." Mary "Joseph...you know how i am without sin? well if you dont shut up that could change!"

Server is Down

The server that host my website www.edwardsimon.net is down, not sure what is happening stand by for details

Jungle Jewels

So we went to the birdpark yesterday, as is obvious from my earlier post. An enjoyable time, though walking up and down the hills was a chore! We spent 6 hours there fortified by homemade samball/tuna sandwiches, we didnt even have lunch!
Aside from some enclosures where you have to shoot through bars, the birdpark is opening up alot of areas for free flight. They seem to have moved away from the old small cage format to a more natural setting, which is a good thing. Anyway after the birdpark we went back to my mums place, bought dinner for TLOML which we dropped off then we went to tampines mall for thai food. I came home, went to the shop to get milk, settled stuff around the house, did a bit of bloggin and was ready for bed at midnight, i am getting to old for these long days and late nights!
Gripe of the day----Another tourist attraction that always seems to be under renovation.
Moment of the day----(for me) when the parrot landed on my bag and started to nibble the back of my head!
Line of the day-----(same moment) OUCH!!
All pics have been reduced in size to 25% of the original.

THE BIRDS!!

Just some pics i thought were interesting. Taken at the birdpark today. People pic will be uploaded tom, and i shall write more as well. Not the best of the shots but i thought the most interesting .
Pics have been edited.

Babys....all of them

a picture of little 4 month old baby simon
ITS SUNDAY! Wasnt that quick...the 18th of dec 2005. a week till christmas. Yesterday was a long long long day. The start was good as was the end but in between it was work as always. TLOML and i went for a doctors appointment yesterday. Just another of those regular check ups, we thought we mind find out the sex of the baby but the fella didnt want to open his/her legs so it was a no go. All is well as far a s the pregnancy goes, another 5 months and pop the little tyke will be free of its watery confines. Anyway our doctor is also the doctor that delivered my sis in law Tuffy 27years ago to the day yesterday.I have no pic of tuff on my comp! shocker!

HappI Birthday TUFF TUFF!

From gleneagles i had to dash back to work as we had our christmas thingy going on there last night. IT all went off without according to von smallhausens plan which of course meant that what could go wrong did. Sometimes i dont know why these people just dont follow instructions and all will be fine but oh no everyone needs to shine on a night like this, i wish i didnt even have to go. the damn thing ended around 930PM!!!
From work i flew(flew thats what i said) down to bedok res for tuffys hatching day party, a nice couple of hours and it was back home to sleep.
I woke up at 7 this morning, god i wish i could sleep in but als it was not to be today. I am off to the birdpark with the Machado's and the Dyers. I will confess to being very very tired today but as i do like birds and ..it is family so i shall raise my weary almost carcas and prepare for out little excursion.

Bungalow 14

Today was a pretty busy day, some friends and co-workers had a chalet and I went down after work. The back-story to this is that TLOML booked it but for whatever reason we had to find someone to use it or she would lose her deposit. The gang stepped in and took over the chalet and we had a good time, cooking and talking. The group chat is one thing I love. One of my favourite lines is "its all about the conversation". Its one of my favourite things, talking to people I like, doesn’t have to be all politics and religion it could be our shared history or stories about stuff they did when they were young or even yesterday. . Try it, turn the TV off get the kids together sit and listen as we share old war stories(and some new ones), who knows you too might just enjoy yourself as I did tonight. (as you can see below i took more pics of the grounds than of people!) Thanks Richard, Jaz and Mark for sorting everything out!

You may notice I changed the video from creed to red hot chili peppers..this song to me is one of my all time favourite songs, the boys and I mean a couple of batches ago and I would sing this at the top of our voices. We used to get the words all wrong and the verses mixed up but our angst more then made up for it , doesn’t really reflect my life or how I feel now, but those days when I or rather we all felt lonely even in a crowd. ....."its hard to believe that there's nobody out there its hard to believe that I’m all alone" looking back from where I sit now, its hard to believe that I felt that way at all.
Today before I log off I wish for you and your family a good, peaceful, joy and laughter filled day.

Evolution of a blog and its blogger

I started blogging for the first time only 6 months ago, according to my archives that is. It feels alot longer, the strange thing is that when i go back and read my earlier post i sometimes wonder did i write that? I am not known for my writting skills and my blog isnt the most exciting one in town lol . Some of my post include rants against State sanctioned executions while others have been nothing more then pics taken at lunch time. Originally i did know if there was a direction to my blog and after a scant 6months i realise that there isnt. I ramble along putting bits of my life on screen for people to read, does it give a slanted picture of me? Does it matter? Not one bit. I find blogging very calming and i think the people i encourage to blog are enjoying themselves too. My favourite part of blogging is the pictures, i enjoy taking pictures and posting them here, of course i realise that most people dont really bother with them (I find that people respond more when there are pics of them or the post is about them ).The other thing i enjoy are the comments, which are few and far between lol just goes to show how many peole actually read my blog, does it disappoint me that so few wander in here? heck no..i am suprised that even 1 person bothers!!and if no one came in here and read my rambling rants or saw my photography, i would still continue..the blog is a form of expression, artistic, politcal, personal, social it can and is all these things to me and that is what counts!

Anyway i started with a basic blog template, to which i added music, followed by my own pictures as backgrounds(they do change just not often) and now i have added a music video window courtesy of the fine folks at freevideocodes.com...will i change things? sure i will, will you like it?

The week gone by

What a busy week. I shall focus only on the good for this post!
During the week we had TLOMLs cousins drop by, for a short visit. Although a short visit it was an enjoyable one none the less!
After that we went to Ikea to pick up some Christmas stuff with Mum, Alison and the 3 kids. I was a little disappointed with Ikea’s Christmas stuff I found it pretty poor in relation to what they normally have, so we did not pick up a live tree as all the live trees looked terrible. We left Ikea and popped down to the John Littles sale at the Singapore expo, I got lots of new stuff (thanks honey) although they too had a drought of Christmas goodies. All in all I enjoyed our little outing although it may have run abit long. We were really tired by the time we got home.
Saturday was the return of the sisters day and after work I went to mummy’s house for lunch, My sister Jocelyn and hubby Scott had arrived at some ungodly hour of the morning after an 18hr flight! I can barely take 1hr on the bus! The horror the horror. After a pleasant lunch I made my way to bedok res where Tuffy and her beau Jamie were(along with another lovely meal), for those that don’t know Tuffy is TLOML’s sister. ( I shall not blog too much on these two arrivals as my wife and sister shall be doing it all)
Today was a really long day for some reason or other I woke up at 530, looked out my window and saw it was raining. Terrific a nice morning of photography (at kahtib bongsu) was cancelled or rather delayed with an sms to Philip. I tried to get back to sleep. It was not to be, there was no second wind and I tried a bit of reading and wondered around my empty home(TLOML and fatty were staying and the doomil mansion) till around 730 when the rain had slowed to a drizzle and off we went. Philip got some good shots of kingfishers with his new zoom lense while I sat and watched ….sigh for a 300mm my kingdom for a 300mm . Not much in the way for other bird life but kahtib bongsu is an interesting place to go to. I am sure I will make a return trek.
Once again we went back to my mums house for a great pepper crab lunch, and of course they decided to play scrabble….i politely declined to participate and helped out from the sidelines…it was a lot safer. Anyway just a simple post with lots of pics today…maybe I will elaborate tomorrow . (All pics are reduced to around 25% of the original size. Typos should be forwarded to bill gates care of mircosoft)