The last bit of photos from Malacca
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In My Hands Today…
Silent Night – Deanna Raybourn
After a year of marriage—and numerous adventures—Lady Julia and Brisbane hope for a quiet, intimate Christmas together—until they find themselves at her father’s ancestral estate, Bellmont Abbey, with her eccentric family and a menagerie of animals.
Nevertheless, Julia looks forward to a lively family gathering—but amongst the celebrations, a mystery stirs. There are missing jewels, new faces at the Abbey, and a prowling ghost that brings back unwelcome memories from a previous holiday—one that turned deadly. Is a new culprit recreating crimes of the past? And will Brisbane let Julia investigate—?
2018 Week 25 Update
School holidays have ended and the children have gone to school for term 3 & 4 this morning. The house feels a bit empty this morning after being filled with their voices for a month.
This week we also managed to get their passports renewed. I could not get an e-appointment to pick up the passports, so we decided to just walk in. We had to wait for around 45 minutes, but this being Singapore, it was done very efficiently and quickly. The passports now have retina scans and fingerprints for the children also.
I also received notification from the ministry of manpower that my helper R’s contract is expiring in two months time. I am now in a real bind and don’t know if I should renew the contract or not. Without full-time work, it makes no sense for me to have a helper at home, especially since she does not have much to do now that the children are older.
One option is to wait for a couple of weeks to see if something clicks in the job front. If that happens, then it’s back to status quo and I don’t have to have any difficult conversations with R. Otherwise, I need to have to the difficult ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘ talk and ask her to look for other options. I will then become a SAHM for the next 16-18 months till the children complete their ‘O’ Levels and then look for full-time positions. We will not have any helper at that point since the children will be out pretty much the whole day. I will probably get some part-time helper to come help once or twice a week for the more intensive chores, but yes, that will be it. In the meantime, I am going to see if I can get some part-time work which I can do when the children are in school or some freelance work from home.
Anyway, let’s see what the future holds for us and me specifically.
Have a good week everyone!
2018 Secondary 3 Week 25 Update
School holidays end for BB & GG today and they start term 3 of Secondary 3 tomorrow.
Schools here have new timetables for the second semester and this is a chance for them to make changes depending on the class strengths and weaknesses.
BB’s school has listened to parents feedback and now has incorporated a lunch period for the days when they do not have CCA. This means his class ends around 40 minutes later each day. This does not include any supplementary lessons or extra classes like the Maths Olympiads.
GG’s timetable also has been released and the timings are pretty simple to the previous semester except on one day when she has an extra period of physical education.
The holidays have ended quite quickly and these terms will be quite short. Before we know it, it’ll be the end of the school year and the children will be in Secondary 4!
In My Hands Today…
Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer – Cyrus Mistry
At the very edge of its many interlocking worlds, the city of Bombay conceals a near invisible community of Parsi corpse bearers, whose job it is to carry bodies of the deceased to the Towers of Silence. Segregated and shunned from society, often wretchedly poor, theirs is a lot that nobody would willingly espouse. Yet thats exactly what Phiroze Elchidana, son of a revered Parsi priest, does when he falls in love with Sepideh, the daughter of an aging corpse bearer…
