Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy New (Lunar) Year

The last few weeks have been busy indeed including Christmas and two new years, ending with the Chinese one -  the Lunar New Year. The trouble with being away from home for so long is that when one returns there are a million and one things to do, especially over the holiday season. But these started for me with some work commitments at Kings, Portsmouth, Brussels and Breda in the Netherlands. The later seemed especially ill-starred as both my Eurostar trains were cancelled, obliging me to shift to less convenient alternatives. Then twice in one week there was an 'incident' on the line near Maidenhead (a phrase that often denotes a suicide attempt) which closed all the lines going in and out of Paddington. Confusion. Hopping off and on trains going back to Reading.  Stress ! Would I be able to connect with my Eurostar ?! I made it though. The same thing happened on the way back two days later ! To cap it all, after a lovely London day out with the family out on the Saturday of that week GWR cancelled my last train home. (I didn't think they actually did that kind of thing !) I was a lot luckier than many others who wanted to go further down the Plymouth line - as the 'Swindon and paid-for taxi option' worked quite well for me. This was all a bit deleterious of the festive spirit I have to say.

                But it didn't take away one highlight of that day - which for me was accompanying Philippa and Martha to a little shop in Covent Garden to get Martha her first pair of ballet shoes with points. The shop was full of Russians; that expectations, drama and tensions were running high was evident as soon as one crossed the threshold. Particularly,  a family whose daughters were visibly upset and jealous of a girl younger than them getting the coveted shoes when they had been found to be 'not ready'. The air was electric. Wonderful ! 

                 Brussels was in its full Christmas  regalia with a hugely  thronged Christmas market  and a spectacular sound and light show in the Grand Place. I did all the usual things and patronised the familiar cafes, not forgetting to pat the stuffed horse in the King of Spain, as I have been doing since the 80s at least. My picture of it didn't come out for some reason. There were a lot more students in my class than usual ,from all over Europe and they were very good.  No problem at all. Some of the products of this trip (Belgian chocolates and beer) were distributed round the family over an extensive and varied Christmas period. Chris and Beth checked in to Wansdyke first, closely followed by Shelagh and the next day Team Powell, and it was very jolly and included a service in Salisbury Cathedral which was a bit shortened as I got the time wrong ! The weather wasn't inviting but we managed a trip round the village to see the cows.

 

 

 

Team Powell and I rendezvoused again at Simon, Ruth and Violet's new house at Cross-in-Hand in Sussex (Weird how that Tills keep returning to the county of our ancestors !) for the first of my New Years, which was great. On New Year's day we all went for a walk on the Downs guided by Angus, who disconcertingly kept disappearing into thick fog before our eyes. On my way back home, Maxi, the car, clocked up his 100,000 miles.

 

                Other incidents of note in all the rush ? A visit to Salisbury Museum where a young chap pored over the various little bits of pot that Deborah over the road and I had picked up in one of the fields in the village.  He kept back some of it for further analysis with a colleague from Dorset, but said about a quarter of what we had was Roman or pre-Roman and another group early Medieval, so that was very interesting. I had to mark out the finding spot on a large interactive field map. On the same history note I had an industrious day at the Country Record Office in Chichester taking notes on the countless Tills of the area from the 19th Century backwards.  On not quite so old family history,  I also met an old school chum in a delightful pub in Mere and visited Pat and James for a spectacular old-fashioned high tea on the way back. And of course I met up with Graham and Lo for  the commemoration of Grandad's Battle of Heligoland (18th Dec 1939) first at the RAF Memorial  high on the hill overlooking Heathrow and then to Brooklands. Somehow after the great success at last year's effort at Ely Cathedral, this seemed a bit of an anti-climax but perhaps I was getting tired by then. I also managed to squeeze in various medical assignments. And had a last minute IT crisis when both of my computers went AWOL. Christopher, remotely, helped me out by tracking down a local expert who came and worked out what the problems were. Black magic, as far as I was concerned.

                Then it was time to return to Newport for a rest. The weather was still surprisingly mild but with ominous warnings of cold weather threatening. I flew back out of Boston hours before it arrived starting what was a 27 hour journey straight through to Singapore, where the temperature was 29 degrees and my thick winter coat just a touch superfluous.  Here another busy academic period followed which included a fun trip to Jakarta as well. Fun, because for the first time in my life I had the disconcerting experience of having keen young students press their foreheads against the back of my hand in fulsome respect. Selfies and book signings I'm fairly used to but this was a new one on me.

                The trip just underlined the fact that I really do like Singapore, and explains the fact that Cherry and I toyed (quite unrealistically) with idea of buying a flat here. Pity we didn't in some ways as the price of accommodation over the past ten years has sky-rocketed. I make a habit of revisiting as many of the favoured places as I can in the time available. The impressions of Cherry are especially strong in the Tanglin Mall where all the ex-pats go to get their food supplies. The associations are so strong that I half expected her to come walking round the corner at any minute. A strange feeling. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.  I also met several people who hadn't heard about her death, including a former head of the Indonesian navy, and who were visibly shocked. One, a Malaysian, swiftly  countered 'Well, we're your family now' which rather took me aback.               

                Despite our familiarity with the place,  there's a lot that we never really got to know, and my hotel was in just such a place. It was a weird building that looked like the moving Black Fortress in the film Krull.

No princesses though - at least not on my floor.  It's near the upper reaches  of the Singapore river - a quiet leafy area with just enough  bars and restaurants for locals and resident expats away from the major crowds. From my 23rd floor I could see what looked like an abandoned  Chinese cemetery in a wooded area and on my last afternoon decided to go an investigate.  Just another of those fascinating little corners of the City of much steel and glass that you can still find tucked away amidst all the high-rises. I did a bit of bird-watching, getting a yellow-vented Bulbul,

I also discovered what was clearly an old rubbish dump with loads of bits of pottery (if I'd had my little trowel,  I could have picked out a suitcase full). Best of all I found two decayed merchants'  tombs going back to the first half of the 19th Century. The eyes of the guardian Liondogs were painted red and there were old joss sticks in front of the inscriptions - so someone still cares. I was fascinated to discover that one of the departed, a  Madam Chua, was the widow of the merchant who introduced the Governess Anna  Leonowens to the King of Siam. Just one of the little surprises that Singapore still has to offer.  By a curious coincidence, the other tomb it turned out to be that of a merchant I found myself reading about in a book I was reviewing in Newport.

                On the way back to Newport, I stopped off at Wansdyke for one night and the family came for an official birthday party - the real birthday was early on in the trip. That was lovely.  Fire, cake and candles, chatting, old films, village walk, cows and canal. Once back in Newport I was taken aback to find that the first of  our regular 10 o'clock meetings was another birthday party for me. I didn't think anyone knew about it. Complete with balloon, cards, singing and cake - no candles though as we were in a heritage room. I was quite overcome. A nice and encouraging start to a new year.