November, 2015 - cushtie.com - Page 2

Month: November 2015

  • The smell of jumping to conclusions

    In the afternoon, we went out, first to the library and then up to Crystal Palace on the bus, a real treat for La Serpiente. She loves buses, although they’re different in London. For a start, random blokes don’t often start up conversations with you on a Singaporean bus, and for another, if the bus […]

  • Parkrun mirage

    This morning it was snowing at 8am, half an hour after we’d downloaded all our luggage from the taxi fdom the airport, and an hour before the start of the Crystal Palace Parkrun. I began to have misgivings about running in just a vest and a pair of shorts.

  • Hunting for illegality in Singapore airport

    As I trudged the hallways of Changi airport tonight, I was seized by the desire to do something that’s legal in Singapore but illegal in the UK. Only I’m not sure what that could be. Is the importation of mangosteens to Europe still banned?

  • Found it!

    This afternoon my wife emailed me a picture of my watch, sat inside one of La Serpiente’s play saucepans. If she’d been a cruel woman, she might have tried ransoming my watch back to me, but for her it was enough to give me the glad tidings. My mood lifted instantly. It’s strange that getting […]

  • Unwatched

    I put my watch down somewhere two days ago, and I’ve no idea where that was. I assume it was somewhere in the apartment, but we’ve turned almost everything upside down to no avail. La Serpiente tried to help, by taking everything out of my underwear drawer and throwing it on the floor, but sadly […]

  • Paying to get into America

    Today I filled in an ESTA application form online. Every two years or so I go through this rigmarole; until about 2009, the visa waiver agreement between the UK and the US meant that you just ticked some boxes on a green form before you disembarked in the States, saying you weren’t a terrorist or […]

  • The Tiger Who Came To Tea

    One of La Serpiente Aquatic Negra’s newest favourite books is The Tiger Who Came To Tea. (One of La Serpiente’s favourite phrases is “it’s my favourite”, along with “almost”.) The Tiger Who Came To Tea is a rather disturbing book, and (as I found when I looked on Wikipedia) possibly a metaphor for the Third […]

  • What I Learned This Weekend

    When recovering from a night of heavy drinking, I breathe too loudly. Apparently.a night of heavy drinking I can run all the way from my home to the start of the Parkrun, and still run 5k in less than 25 minutes. I think this means I should be able to tackle another marathon sooner rather […]

  • Masters of Football

    To celebrate the birth of a friend’s second child, a mob of us men went to a football match, because that’s how men express their emotions. This wasn’t just any match though: this was Masters Football. (That was something drummed into us throughout the match by the commentator.) Sadly, Masters football isn’t a demonstration by […]

  • Nobody knew that something terrible was going to happen – Pompeii

    Tonight La Serpiente was adamant that I read her Pompeii, a chapter book for small children that is inexplicably one of her favourites. She first started reading it around the time that her sister was born, and it’s remained in her top ten ever since, even against the onslaught of glamourous alternatives from the library.