Not a pleasant sight

What an unpleasant sight, my stomach after the wound healed. I just put this in because my stomach is, after a decent break, once again issuing pain. At the moment I have moved from panadol to my second strength level of pain killers with the probability of hitting the third level later.
And Alistair is off to see "Stomp Out Loud" and have a sleep-over this evening; which gives the possibility of an uninterrupted period with Alice, but that's damn all good with the belly playing up. What a nuisance life can be.

Healthy Kids Need Milk

Down on the farm the kids get all the necessary calcium for strong bones!

Sporty Sadler ?

Alice has a great love of tennis, playing with two or three Japanese, Singaporean and mixed groups most weekdays. As a consequence decent shoes are imperative and she has her new "Mi Adidas" tennis shoes which purport to be custom made for exact fit. This is a little bit of an overstatement in fact although they do special measurements and get you to run (or in my case - walk) across a sensor to find your main pressure points. This all looks very high-tech and definitely leads to a belief that you will get absolutely finely fitted shoes (running, footer or tennis) to exact measurements.

However the low tech bit comes in afterwards when to get the exact width to length ratio we are back to the finger down the heel method. It was this that led me to ask how fitted they really were. The answer is seemingly that each shoe is individual to your left or right foot (rather than just being mirror images of the best fit found for one of your feet) but nevertheless the shoes are each made in accordance with the many standard width/length combinations that Adidas use. Never mind, Alice says they are great for her playing and feel very comfortable. You can have an embroidered logo/words added, so Alice has "Alice" on one foot and "Sadler" on the other.

In spite of my earlier whinging about how custom sized they really are or aren't, I have a pair of tennis shoes which I use for walking. My words are "Alice's" and "Husband" because in the sporty world I am a complete unknown and should we meet anyone of Alice's sporty pals I am definitely known merely as her adjunct!

A Rose by any other . . .

As I am sure is obvious, I am a family oriented person and am fully of the opinion that all members (except myself) are of great charm, although there may be slight doubts at occasional times when the needs of the moment lead to less than polite actions. A cold may bring a surprise.

As may other things, Alistair Michael Whitfield Sadler, son of Charles Michael Whitfield Sadler, son of Bernard George Whitfield Sadler, has decided that he would prefer to be called George instead of Alistair, and appears to be enforcing this rigidly at school. My sister (the author, Caroline Stickland) was known for many years by her second name (Amanda) before opting for Caroline, which then took me many years to say instantly without thinking first.

I have always been known by my second name, or rather the short version of it. My father was also known as Mike from his 20s, this arose since he acted in three plays one after the other and in each his character, although different in each play, was called "Mike".

In spite of the difficulties of being known by a name that is not necessarily obvious to all I therefore can understand our youngest son's desire to choose George and think I will go along with it. There may be times when "Mr. Alistair" is called out and he misses his turn, certainly I have not always realised that I was being called when "Mr. Charles" is called but what the hell, life has is slight problems - we can deal with them.

Oh, and by the way, the above is in fact a posed picture with mozzarella cheese at our new haunt of Tony Roma's rib place in Suntec City, which seems nicer than the one in the Orchard Hotel.

Thanks for the Warning

I would never have guessed!

The Essential "Except"

I woke up in the middle of last night and could not get back to sleep, what a nuisance. So I was ruminating on the recent Singaporean clampdown on racial blogs. Of course in a multi-racial society and with a daily influx of Malaysians it is important to ensure that the harmony is not disturbed. The interlinking of influences is essential and probably easier than actually getting the connections shown above to work!

But my mind went wandering on and I thought of how I had my own prejudices. Having been born in Scotland, with a Scottish mother, I naturally view the English with contempt (in spite of my English father). Since my house is in England I naturally view the French with contempt. Having spent a long time in Africa, the Gulf and the Far East I am naturally convinced that, on the whole, westerners are a bunch of rather arrogant, fat plonkers; regrettably this also describes me rather well. And so it goes on.

What seems important to me is to avoid ghettos so that there is always a person that one knows. Thus one can think "Indians are {insert your choice of word; e.g. lazy} except for that helpful guy in my department"; or "Muslims are {insert your choice of word; e.g. terrorists} except for that nice lady that lives nearby"; or "Westerners are {insert your choice of word; e.g. fat, ugly, arrogant} except for Mike".

Any tiny bit of thought will then lead to the realisation that the "except" proves the ridiculous nature of sweeping generalisations. Oh that reminds me "Americans are crap at spelling, unable to realise when an "s" should be used rather than a "z"".

So surely anyone with even half a brain should realise that the "except" shows that people have to be taken individually, that to be a racialist is to deny individuality to all the members of whatever race, religion, colour or whatever other division one is attempting to berate.

Luckily at about that point I did manage to fall asleep before getting into anything more complicated!

Pride leads to . . .

It is well known that pride comes before a fall and I deeply regret having boasted about lack of pain. After a good morning and early afternoon, when Alice and I watched some of the videos that she shot on her last visit to the farm in Cebu province suddenly the good old gut started playing up and throwing pain at me.

There had been no standing still nor any strenuous activity so that there was no reason for the pain to start and to be honest I wish it hadn't. Still mixing painkillers and a glass or two of wine held it down to painful rather than the exploding agony that sometimes occurs.

Diverticular disease is common amongst those who do not get enough fibre, particularly before the age of twenty, but luckily the majority of people do not actually suddenly need an emergency operation and need to get large parts of the gut ripped out urgently. However if this is necessary I highly recommend Dr {sic} Maha at Gleneagles in Kuala Lumpur, not only did he save my life but he has a sense of humour so that I feel no qualms at posting this cartoon on the left.

Should I move back to KL from Singapore the medical guy I would trust my life with is Dr Anand and the surgeon (in spite of using Dr not Mr) would be Dr Maha. However I hope you do not need this information

The (short) Weekend

Although I had an MC day last Wednesday due to the infernal cold I did get to work for the rest of the week. Coughing, spluttering and passing germs to all and sundry perhaps but nevertheless there. It was my alternate working Saturday yesterday but I managed to get away at four instead of six, which is pleasant since it is a damn long day from 7:30 each morning.

And today was to be Alice and I walking on a boardwalk. Ha, as ever the world is against me and the rain flung down just when we should have been preparing to set off. However the opportunity to catch up on scanning photos Alice took in the Phils recently was taken and I now only have three albums to scan.

Personally I use a digital camera and here I can be seen trying to use it to catch a bird on my shoulder. Total waste of time, I missed the bird and it bit my ear. Luckily it caught the headphone I was using to listen to Terry Pratchett's "Wyrd Sisters" rather than my flesh but I was nevertheless a little irritated with the obnoxious bird. However it does prove the advantage of listening to books. I do feel though that there should be a little light on the mp3 player to show others that I am not listening to crap music but to a book. "The Pickwick Papers" is ideal for listening as the lack of pure plot means that if for some reason you are diverted for a day or two you do not have to struggle to think exactly what has happened.

Getting back to the scanning, this means that I really must find time soon to update the website, which takes so much longer than adding to the blog but gives a nice satisfied feeling once done. The picture on the left is Mama when she visited earlier this month. She usually has a body but this was at the Science Centre here in Singapore where the most amazing things can happen!

And still no pain, the last time was the Friday when our team dined out and the painkillers plus wine made me rather less coherent than is the norm. I cannot actually remember nine painfree days in a row over the last few years so maybe I should try and maintain a fulltime cold! The disadvantage is that I have been going straight to bed on return from work, old age normally sends me to bed well before ten, with that witching hour being the time to sleep, but this week has been ridiculous!

Good Lord, I do get read!

To my amazement some-one has read my blog, and posted a comment confirming he also is no longer in the first flush of youth.

Unfortunately when I click on him I find that I cannot access either his email or his blog. So here I salute him - Patrick Teoh (yes, the famous actor!) thanks for the first ever comment.

My Fault?

I am getting very little pain this week, and Alistair's flu was all over in a day or so and he was back at school and full of the joy of life. However he has infected me with cold/sinus problems. As a Brit I normally ignore these things, after all my mother used to say that they would take about seven days to pass completely but if you see a doctor it can be cured in a week.

However it is pretty grungy and I have given in to my wife's plea and seen a doctor and am having a day off. She is off at a tennis tournament with Japanese friends and no doubt will claim that any failure to win was caused by her worry for me.

It is true that since having a third of the bowel cut out in an emergency operation (hence the regular pain) I have not the stamina to resist bugs well and lack of sleep or being attacked by even such a minor thing as a cold drags me down. But to get the blame if Alice does not play her best is quite another thing! We poor old husbands have to take lot, don't we?

Keep Singapore Drugfree

If this does not suit you, just join the Aussies in Bali.

Sunday, like the curate's egg

As mentioned earlier we had a nice surprise to find that we could see Kim Clijsters, according to the BBC "long recognised as the nicest person in the game", play a brilliant match and finally win her first Grand Slam. This was a wonderful and unexpected start to the day.

And on to hard labour, working on preparation of my chilli/curry. This has vast quantities of red kidney beans but also other beans and vegetables, and the addition of vindaloo curry powder as well as the chilli and Tabasco makes me rename it. Usually cooking this, the bending over the frying pan for the mince, steak, garlic and onions and the stirring leads to the stomach giving pain, particularly since standing in one place similarly leads to pain, today however I remained pain free, what a pleasure that is. So after filling our biggest pot for the long simmer and filling two slow cookers for the even longer cooking and knowing that we had a month or more of feed for me we could turn to other pleasures.

Walking still became a no-no. Alistair decided to erupt into shivers and sweats and, once his temperature rose above 40, a trip to the doctor seemed indicated. We were told that these things brought a few things to mind: SARS, Dengue and influenza. We were pleased that it turns out to be only the 'flu. Alistair was less happy to find that beside all the other drugs he also had to have an injection, fired into his butt, much against his desires! And a sick note for two days off school, unfortunately now he is in the senior school he realises that time off only means working harder to catch up on return.

And so the F1 had me alone watching it without the son watching with me. A pity since the race was of great interest throughout, and exciting right the the end (although I really didn't think Button would be able to get 2nd, but at least he was back on the podium).

Saturday Steamboat, Sunday Tennis

What a pleasure it is when a two day weekend coincides with pain free days. Alistair was on a sleepover and we had an SMS come in to say he could be collected a bit later than expected, so we took advantage of collecting him after lunchtime to get ourselves over to the Sheep, in the Bugis area.

This is a steamboat restaurant belonging to a colleague's sister (indeed to the the sister of the colleague who so kindly made sure I got home safely the night before) and they really seem to get the best ingredients and to make to soup (or stock) to the best flavour. But it is not Alistair's favourite so it is nice to be able to get there together (with a feeling of being on a date!). And, with no pain coming from my poor stomach, I can really relax and enjoy Alice's company.

The plan was a bit of a lazy day with today (Sunday) showing far more energetic activities. So we got up reasonably early ready to hit the boardwalks by the MacRitchie Reservoir, which gives sights of monkeys such as to the right, only to discover that the women's tennis finals was on. Kim has finally got her Grand Slam win! We still have to watch her previous match against Sharapova, so what with needing to cook a fresh batch of chilli I figure the walking is out today.

But still, no pain and enjoying being with the family!

Baby Back Replacement

After my concerns about whether my lack of sleep would mean that I missed dinner with colleagues last night I managed to get there. And how glad I am that I did since not only has the food convinced me we do have worthy successor for baby backs eating but I was with a really friendly bunch.
In spite of drinking far too much (especially mixed with pain killers) I had interesting chat and eventually was seen home by caring friends, I am not sure why people are so kind to me but I am very glad that they are! Thanks are due.

Feeling Fishy

As mentioned previously yesterday night was not a success and, although at work, I am feeling rather like the swallowed fish in these photos. In fact the right lower photo was taken in our kitchen as Alice was cleaning out some squid for dinner. She discarded the fish being eaten feeling that there must be digestive juices over it that she may not be too happy with. Personally I thought we should have cooked it, especially since we had obviously paid for this fish at the enhanced rate for squid! But as we all know wives reign supreme in such matters, particularly since she was eating squid and I was on my usual chilli/curry diet that helps to prevent further pain in the stomach area. So I could not really complain about whether it should be eaten or not.
Anyway, back to my body, the usual source of my moans. Eventually the pain reduced and with the help of half a sleeping pill I eventually dropped off. So this morning at work I am feeling pretty knackered and yet this evening after work there is a pleasant dinner organised for the team at which I was intending to scarf down vast quantities of baby back ribs. So I hope I remain awake to try it. We recently revisited Bobby Rubino's in Chymes only to find that they had dropped baby backs from their menu. Well, after two years of regular use we now drop them from our usual eateries. Luckily this alternative restaurant is being brought to my attention so perhaps we will have a new haunt after today.

Kidney Stones

Oh great, my first day of blogging and I get something actually worth mentioning. I make kidney stones on a two to three year cycle. Guess who has now got the stabbing side pain, the burning line down to the knife in the testicle. And this is not the renal colic, just the reminder that it is likely to fire up at any moment.

I am told this colic is the only time men feel what women feel in childbirth. Well I have stood beside my late wife and my present wife as they gave birth and admired them. Even more so as I know what they felt. No wonder I head for hospital as soon as possible, where I usually get a shot of pethidine or similar, immediately that the real colic kicks in. At the moment a mixture of vodka and synflex (given to me for regular pain after a third of my intestine was ripped out in an emergency operation as my blood flowed out my rear) and concentration on the computer is holding me in bearable pain but I may be heading to Mount E soon.

Panther

This is the car in which Alitia and I would swan around UK, in school holidays when I visited from where-ever I was working overseas. I have to say that it was a beauty and went like the flaming clappers.

So long as one did not go under about 30 rain just blew over your head. There is no doubt that a car like this should be owned at least once in one's lifetime.

Snakes - who's bothered?

Alistair has a moment of doubt as the python is draped around his neck!

Alitia, a sweetheart of a daughter

Alitia, our only daughter, startled me recently. I came home to find a small parcel, which held not only a Marilyn Monroe card but the Texas CD, "Careful What You Wish For". When she was young I would take her around in my Kalista and force her to listen to the first Texas album, the "Trinity Sessions" by the Cowboy Junkies, and the B52s almost ad nauseam. As I think I mention in the Cars section on our website I had her convinced you needed written permission from Panther to put the hood (for Americans, this is the roof) up unless it was raining. But she was a lot younger then.
She is no longer that little kid but a Staff Nurse and hence likely to be rather too busy to think of a fat old dad some thousands of miles away so I really was most pleased that she should remember my tastes and send me a present wholly unrelated to birthdays or suchlike but just because she was in the store and saw something that she knew I would like. What a sweetheart!

By the way the photo is about twenty years old! But she still has the charm!

Oh, Great; Blog Problems Already

Wonderful, I decide to try a basic blog since I get so little time to update the website and what happens, I find that the use of Firefox to view it means I cannot see the image. Which means of course that only those still deluded enough to use Explorer are able to see the images. Brilliant!

Even worse the installation of "Blogger for Word", or whatever its damn name is, means that my "Remove Hidden Data" in Word immediately dies. Guess which of the two is more important to me. So having uninstalled "BfW" I have restalled the "RHD" and can once again do some work.

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Wow, some months later (mid November) I checked and the pictures were visible in Firefox. Wonderful but of course I had to change the blog name and remove the bit about "no images in Firefox", no matter things are so much better when a decent browser can access the blog!

Youth today

Ok, so I'm nearly sixty and our youngest son is eleven, but I really do not recall ever having received a loveletter like this in my youth.