Strange Times

In the words of the esteemed thinker and philosopher Bradley Daniel, in some ways being a little baby has been the right place to be the last 2 months, as, if nothing else, it has spared Amelie from the hysteria that seems to have gripped the world since the start of September. I agree with his sentiment wholeheartedly. Not in my lifetime have I observed a time when journalists have been able to use so many long adjectives from their thesaurus. Markets are always "in turmoil" shares "crash", credit "crunches" and selling is "frenzied". Or to put it more prosaically, the stock market is back to where it was when labour came in 11 years ago - but that isn't very exciting so noone says that.

What is undeniable is that we are heading into a world recession. What is amusing is that leading politicians have been announcing the fact this week as if its a revelation - whereas its about as revelatory to most people as announcing that Sarah Palin is weak on foreign policy ( she might struggle to spell foreign policy in fact).

On the whole I am fairly sanguine about the whole thing. On the plus side my decision not to buy a house last year looks better every month. So does not putting the cash that would have been the deposit in an Icelandic bank. On the minus side that was because I put it in the stock market instead. On the plus side I invested widely ( balanced portfolio blah blah) on the down side every sector - and I mean every sector you can think of - is in the toilet presently. Still its not so bad, I don't need the money for a house deposit any time soon for obvious reasons (I am not certifiably insane for example) and I suspect that anyone who holds their nerve now will be amply rewarded in 3 years time. I'll go further, anyone with a chunk of cash who invests it now will be rich in 3 years- you read it here first.

Of course the other reason for being upbeat is that the our Gordon is an Economic superhero -the saviour of the world economy - man of the moment - thank god we have him to correct the problems caused by that hapless idiot who was Chancellor for the last decade - what was his name? Scottish guy...bit dour..

PS Keep praying that McCain doesn't win - I hear he's been "palin around" with an Alaskan Governor...(if you haven't followed the coverage that joke will not mean too much to you unfortunately..). He should have stuck to oven chips..

Peace In Our Time....

Its been a long six weeks since my last blog, which is surprising given how little has been going on. As you can see amelie and matty sleep all the time and basically you would hardly know we had a second child..............if only this were true....

To be fair the last 8 weeks with Amelie have been better than the first 8 weeks with Matty, mainly because of second child syndrome. This is where you simply cannot get as manically, frantically, eye poppingly stressed about things as you did the first time round. (We had our own room at casualty in Paris) The second reason things could have been worse is that Matty has been great with his little sister - and often very funny and sweet too. Highlights include telling us off for letting her cry, putting a cushion in her moses basket for her to lie on, singing to her when she gets upset and of course giving her her soubriquet of the moment - "Baby Mimi". Lets hope it lasts...

Apart from that the last 8 weeks have been pretty par for the course for a new offspring: not enough sleep, lots of nappies and a certain amount of irascibility, but still nice to have a little daughter.. with a big bruvver to look after her!

If nothing else having to adapt to two kids not one has at least taken my mind off the global conflagration in stocks and shares, the collapse of Western civilisation, the epoch making Presidential election and - most importantly of all - the Andrew Sachs/ Russell Brand affair , but I think all that is another article.

Baby Amelie

Here is an early picture of little Amelie who was born on 3rd September 2008. She is now home with her mum and is, without doing too much, causing a certain amount of havoc. She can already sleep right through, unfortunately its the day she sleeps right through - she then wakes up at about 11pm.

Being born on the 3rd confirms this week as the one every year where I will need to remortgage the house, as it is Ula's birthday on the 1st, Amelie's the 3rd and our wedding anniversary on the 4th. ...Ye Gods.

Her big bruvver is great at the moment and wants to "look after " Amelie - although this can sometimes result in slightly inappropriate behaviour such as trying to feed her toast and juice or climbing in the basket with her.

As Ula is still recovering my paternity leave is being spent acquainting myself with Matty's hectic social calendar. Yesterday was kindermusik in the morning, where a room full of mum's with toddlers, mum's with babies, and the odd Head of HR, encouraged the singing efforts of their little ones. This was followed yesterday afternoon by swimming and this morning by Tumbletots, which was basically 1 hour of pylometric circuit training with a 15kg weight (Matty). Its all go...

I will keep you up to date on the extended Brodie family as the weeks pass.

Golden Effort

Well after 17 days of excitement, drama, disappointment, and dodgy scoring (how do you beat a chinese boxer - answer - knock him out ) the Beijing Olympics is behind us and we can look forward to enjoying four years of Boris trying and failing to be statesmanlike. Fourth in the medal table was a fantastic effort and of course this became first if you look at the medal table for sitting down sports. Yessir noone can sit down like the British, although we do struggle a little when we have to get up (its the pies).

With this in mind I have been thinking of other sports we could nominate for Olympic inclusion which could raise our position above those pesky russians and start to challenge the yanks. first i think there is more to go at in the cycling. Frequently we had two finalists in the events and this means we could easily win a couple more golds if tandem racing was introduced. Dominoes was another early thought, together with shove hapenny and snakes and ladders. This of course takes us into the arena of the public house, and I thought we might do quite well if drinking is included in the Olympics. To be honest we might struggle to medal in the men's event against the might of Russia, Poland and Germany ("its a powerhouse team from Bavaria"), but we'd have a good change in the womens...

Anyway regulars to this blog, the challenge is laid down, what sitting down sports currently unrepresented at the Olympics can we propose for 2012?

Before leave the Olympics - a couple of things need to be said. One is about our dear friends Australia (did they make the top 10?) who started the (admittedly funny) joke about sitting down sports. When they made this jibe they declined to comment on a certain other country who also take part in yachting, rowing, and cycling - yes australia. The lesson here is simple - if you are going to go in for "rugby union" sports - ie ones that only a handful of countries do because they cost a lot of money - at least be good at them.

To be fair the aussies were very good in another sport that requires serious cash, namely swimming. (I mean the kenyans were nowhere in the pool and jamaica had a terrible time in the yngling.) We have learnt from them now though and have our own star, Rebecca Adlington, which means we have another sporting Becks - only this one is the real deal.

Final point - Britain is still the only nation on earth that feels bad about winning. Apparently when it became clear we were going to win almost all the cycling golds, there were some comments that it was too much and becoming embarassing. Can you imagine any other nation feeling that way? I can just see the Australian cricket captain saying how embarassed he is that they have thrashed everyone else for the last 15 years, or Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal apologising for hoovering up all the grand slams netween then for upteen years - or - we now go live to the track where the Jamaican athletic coach is ready to say sorry to the yanks for beating them 5 - 0 in the sprints... nope I don't think so either.

Oxford v Cambridge - Part 2

After Oxford, Cambridge was better. Smaller, more compact, with less of the modern architecture, or at least better hidden. We started with Kings College which was simply out of this world. I have never been charged £5 to walk around a small nondescript chapel before. Yes it had a Reubens and yes the exterior was magnificent, but you could see the exterior for nothing, and the Reubens wasn’t that good. So visitors tip if you are in Cambridge, take photos of Kings College from the river, and save yourself a fiver.

Part of the problem with Cambridge was we were a bit tired after a lot of sightseeing the previous few days, and the foreign students did not help. There were hundreds of them, in the chapel, in the gardens, in the lanes and on the bridges. This was a particular problem with Matty as teenagers can’t actually see small children in a pushchair, with their parents. Their responsibility chip phases you out, and as a result they kept tripping over Matty: and he got really really annoyed.

Now let me be clear. Matty, and I know I’m biased, is actually a very good little boy – 98% of the time. However when he throws a paddy, he throws a paddy, and this was a Beijing Olympic winning effort. He made so much noise when his mummy disappeared to the toilet that several Spanish teenage girls actually noticed him and starting making what they thought were child placating noises. Unfortunately they were more like the noise you make when you are offering a cat some milk and Matty gave their efforts short shrift. When Ula returned they were so relieved they clapped her!

We decided it was time for lunch. We left Jolka and Mirek to their sight seeing and went to a local café called Tatties – or should I say as they do “the World Famous Tatties”. Having travelled to many parts of the world and indeed lived in Paris, I couldn’t honestly recall a Parisian chef saying “mais oui these oysters and beef bourguignon are magnifique - but you should go to Tatties in Cambridge”, but perhaps I never asked the question.

I am not clear what you have to do to call yourself "World Famous", but on the basis of lunch at Tatties, my guess is it doesn’t involve a Michelin audit. There was nothing wrong with my baked potato and chilli but it tasted like I cooked it. The fresh coffee was more memorable; it tasted like burnt coal and was so bad it made me want to drink the house red, which tasted of nothing at all.

Still, Matty was placated and our Polish friends were happy on their return. They had seen London, Cambridge and Oxford in 4 days and taken about 3 billion photos (including one of my wine rack). In fact they had seen many things, although sadly the sun had not really been one of them.

Oxford v Cambridge - Part 1

Fresh from our London excursion the weekend promised new adventures as we prepared for the ultimate tourist double header, Oxford v Cambridge, the old enemies, university rivals and rowing adversaries through the ages. We were also hoping that the weather would start to give a passable impression of summer, but Jolka and Mirek not to be fooled, packed a couple of jumpers just in case.

We started with Oxford on Saturday. My hopes weren't high. I had been to Oxford many times but never to the University part, so it is fair to say I had not seen the best of the place. Emerging from an underpass smelling fragrantly of stale beer and urine to the main shopping street did nothing to dispel this impression. Here, things had clearly improved in the 7 years since my last visit. They had pedestrianised it. Unfortunately they had not been very committed about it. The council had concreted over the road and then pretty much considered the job done. No plants or greenery of any kind, no fountains or statues, just grey concrete blending into slightly worse for wear grey buildings, with only the occasional fast food wrapper to catch the eye. The suspicion that this lack of artefact was deliberate and based on a view that certain members of the local community might nick the plants and pee in the fountain did nothing to improve impressions.

Walking along the high street I started to worry about what our Polish visitors would think. I wondered what the Polish phrase was for – where the hell has he taken us? Then we turned up a side street signposted to the University, walked a little way and suddenly, we were in a different place. The transformation couldn’t have been more stunning. It was as if we had stepped through a rift in the space time continuum and ended up somewhere entirely different. Grey drab concrete was replaced by warm golden stone, cladding ancient edifices of beauty and charm. Looking through gilded iron gates into the colleges we could see immaculate lawns, bordered with dense shrubbery and lofty trees.

We spent a pleasant couple of hours just ambling around. We took in Trinity College and Christchurch (to get Matty’s name down) admired the library and University church and basically wandered about with our mouths open taking lots of photos. I heaved a huge inward sigh of relief. Mirek and Jolka were clearly having a great time; my fears had come to nought. It’s a pity though. Oxford could be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and parts of it can hold their head up with anywhere I have been. But those good parts are centuries old and the new doesn’t blend in – it’s just attached, like an unpleasant guest who has outstayed their welcome. It’s a shame, and with that thought I took our very pleasant guests to Blenheim palace.

Back after the break!

Its been a bit quiet from the Brodie blog over the passed few months as work went a little mental and I got out of the habit of keeping it up to date. However we are back now with an update on what we have been up to in the last month or so. Over the next few weeks I will try and fill in some of the gaps and also get some pictures on the blog as well.



To start off though here are some of the July highlights...

London Calling

I haven’t been on a proper sightseeing trip to London since I was such a young boy that I would have qualified as Matty’s older brother. So the prospect of taking our Polish visitors Jolka and Mirek around all the famous landmarks filled me with a real sense of excitement. Jolka and Mirek our Polish friends had arrived 2 days earlier for their first ever week on holiday in the UK. They were looking for a week of sight seeing, good food and hot summer weather. I was confident I could deliver on two out of three.

If it sounds as if exciting is overdoing it a bit, bear in mind that this was a Thursday in July, and the alternative was doing HR stuff at work: so I was very excited.

Even the news on the radio couldn’t dampen my spirits. Along with all the usual stuff about the credit crunch, falling property prices and Gordon finding new things to tax (breathing, being called Brodie) was an item on the cost of visiting the top 9 sights in major tourist cities like Paris, Milan, New York, London et al. London had come top. The cost of visiting these top attractions for a family of four had come in at a wallet bursting amount equivalent to the GDP of Guatemala. Apparently several unwitting foreign visitors had doubled there country’s national debt on a weekend break to the capital. I kept my spirits up with the thought that as we were on a whirlwind visit we would not have to go in anywhere, saving valuable cash to spend on cocktails later. To my knowledge no one had thought of charging for looking at the outside of buildings yet, but you never know.

People have often asked me whether I prefer London or Paris. The problem with this question is I have lived in Paris but only visited London – if living in Paris can be called a problem. London benefits in this comparison from only ever been seen at its best: high days and holidays, weekends eating steaks with the boys and the halcyon weekend soirees when Ula and I had first met in 2003. I have always liked London and while I am not saying its better than Paris, I have always been tempted to live here for a couple of years to make a proper comparison.

Anyway back to the trip. As you will have gathered I am not over familiar with my native capital city. Despite being from 50 miles outside Warsaw, Ula is the expert, having lived in Notting Hill from 2001 -04. Warsaw, London, Paris, Ula is the cosmopolitan one; apart from my Paris sojourn I have always been out in the sticks somewhere. It was logical that she took over navigating us around once we had arrived at Euston and she suggested we use her encyclopaedic knowledge of London bus routes to see the sights. Sadly 4 years is a long time and things did not start well as we took 23 buses to reach Oxford Street. We decided to walk from here to our first destination, Buckingham Palace and here Ula redeemed herself by threading a great line through Green Park to arrive at the gates of the royal residence. As we had seen it before we left Mirek and Jolka to take photos and wandered back into Green Park in search of nourishment. Having stumbled on a coffee and hot dog van (joy) we repaired to a bench to enjoy the fine summer weather (it had momentarily stopped raining). Here we found that we became London’s 10th attraction. Little flaxen haired Matty trotting along in his bright yellow raincoat (Paris collection) was a magnet for the scores of Japanese tourists walking up towards Piccadilly. Matty put on his very best adorable child routine and the cameras flashed. I was just toying with the idea of setting up a board and charging when Jolka and Mirek returned, leaving the Japanese parties behind we strolled towards Westminster.

I have seen some special buildings in my time, Milan Cathedral, Notre Dame, the Black and White House in Hereford, but we often forget how special some of London’s architecture is when we can leave it alone for 5 minutes. The Houses of Parliament up close didn’t just take our visitors breath away, it took mine as well. It is absolutely majestic; huge and imposing but with a detail and delicacy of design that was stunning and quite beyond anything we seem capable of today. Some nearby buildings clearly designed to fit in with Westminster demonstrated this admirably. Why in a century of such huge strides in physics, technology, biology and yoghurt varieties have we seemingly forgotten how to design buildings?? It’s like when you put something in the garage and forget where. We have put our ability to design buildings somewhere, and need to find it again.

Gosh that’s a heavy thought for a day trip, so back on tour. Having circled Westminster we came to Westminster Abbey famous throughout the world as the place where Princess Diana got married and oh yes also where all the kings and queens of England are buried if you are interested in that kind of detail.

This was the one attraction I wanted to visit, a motivation that lasted right up to the moment that I got to the door. Notre Dame is free to enter, so is St Peters and numerous other historic buildings. Westminster Abbey is £12, and that’s just to get in. For the four of us it would have been nearly £50. For that price I would have wanted to be shown around by the Arch bishop of Canterbury and have lunch and photos with the entire royal family. I decided to give it a miss and just pay more attention next time it was on the TV for a state occasion.

Next we went to Trafalgar square to see Nelson and the pigeons and then took time out in a traditional English food place (TGI Fridays) so Ula and Matty could have a break and Daddy could sample the cocktail menu and eat Matty’s chips. Our friends meanwhile went to Piccadilly. On their return we went and visited Wren’s masterpiece St Paul’s (free to enter) and finished off a marathon day with the Tower of London and London Bridge.

Finally we had all had our fill; we headed home and reflected on the day. I like London. I like the atmosphere of the place, the energy of the West End, the bustle of Oxford Street and Piccadilly, the range and variety of food and culture on every street. It is vibrant and alive. Paris by comparison is a more beautiful city than London. But sometimes it feels like a monument to a bygone age when it was at the centre of things. London, flawed though it maybe, feels like the centre of things now.

Matty’s Birthday Part II – Summer etes arrive!

Having found the missing granny and survived the rest of lunch time without further loss we prepared for the Toddler tea party. For those of you who don’t have children this is when your little son has his little friends around for tea, cakes, chocolate, crisps, party games and above all, total mayhem. A few highlights stand out. The ability of small children to transfer sand from a sandpit into their hair, nappies, dresses and your house has to be seen to be appreciated fully. The pass the parcel was not an outstanding success either. Apart from the fact that getting little kiddies to sit and play a game makes herding cats look like an easy pastime, the games master (oui c’est moi) managed to get the prizes the wrong way round and the 7 year old got the picture book for a toddler. The poor kid didn’t know what to do with either it or himself until a tactical swap saved the situation.

The piece de la resistance was of course the cake. A magnificent creation in the style of Noah’s Ark complete with pairs of animals made from icing sugar, and two candles stuck as funnels in the top. Matty face burst into a big smile at the sight of this and with only a little help blew the candles out. This ceremony was thankfully far less eventful than the last time I organised a birthday cake - for Paul Wood ( he was 44 recently) - which had left a few mental scars on all of us, but more on that later.

When the little kiddies had departed – we prepared for the big kiddies party. Undeterred by the frequent showers during the afternoon I decided, to hell with it, I was going to barbeque whatever the weather threw at me. For our evening soiree we had mum and dad of course but also Paul and Alison who sadly arrived just too late to make the toddler party (I had told them when it was finishing).

The last time Paul and Ali had joined us for a barbeque had been that infamous night of his 44th birthday and I think it is worth a little digression. As a surprise we had bought him a cake and decorated it with 44 candles, more than I had ever seen on a cake before ( yes: ok: now I know). We had a wonderful evening; the weather was fine and warm, the steak kebabs a triumph and the bottles of good Aussie Shiraz were smooth and velvety: it was time for the cake. Finding a pretext to get Alison and Ula into the house, I lit the candles and prepared to take the cake into the garden. Unfortunately at that moment Alison rushed over with the news that Paul was in the toilet; unfortunately at the same moment the candles decided to burn more as 1 unit than 44, and started generating a heat reminiscent of the Saturn V rockets that took NASA to the moon. I was told in no uncertain terms to get the cake outside before we burnt the kitchen down. Carrying the cake / blast furnace gingerly, I set it down with relief on the patio table from where it lit the garden and western areas of Milton Keynes.

Unfortunately we still had no birthday boy as he continued to meditate pensively on the khazi. In the meantime the three of us watched helplessly as the candles were consumed by the inferno. Paul emerged finally with a look of shock on his face, understandable for an inebriated man presented with a birthday cake that was, to all intents and purposes, on fire. He blew out the blaze manfully and we inspected the carnage.

What can I say? The birthday cake remained but the candles were gone like they had never existed. All that remained of them was a waxen mixture of charred chocolate and icing solidified into a lava like layer on the surface of the cake. Despite this Paul confidently proclaimed that it was fine (I said he was drunk) and that all it needed was the top 2 inches removed. Indeed despite our protestations he even took it home with him, I never asked if he ate it.

There were not such mishaps at this birthday barbeque and in fact miraculously the weather smiled kindly on my foolhardiness by delivering a beautiful summers evening. Matty tired out from his exciting day played in the garden with everyone for a while but finally succumbed to sleep. With good food, wine and company the six of us sat outside for hours, in fact Paul and I could not understand why the others finally wanted to go in, until it was pointed out that we were sat either side of the barbeque and therefore protected from the chilling evening air. We chatted long into the summer night, the perfect end to a hectic day; we even offered Paul some birthday cake….

Matty's Birthday Part 1 - Where's nana!

England in summer. Tarpaulins being scraped hastily across Wimbledon courts, the charred ashen smell as over optimistic men cremate sausages in their gardens, the squeal of noise akin to a jet landing as several million children (and that’s just in Old Stratford) break up for holidays, and of course , in the middle, Matty’s birthday.

These last few weeks barely a weekend seems to have gone by without kiddies’ birthday parties that make the Henley Regatta look like a sideshow. Everyone seems to have children in July. I don’t know whether there is any significance in this, although I guess there is nothing much on the TV in November and it is cold.

Matty’s birthday on the 12th is right in the middle of the month, and as this is the height of summer, you can expect good weather: unless you live in England of course when you can’t. It really is anyone’s guess, particularly the weather men. Take this 10th July vignette from Radio 2, “today the weather will be cloudy with a south-westerly wind, cool with some sun but a chance of showers later.” So that’s blizzards ruled out then. We thought about the party organised for his little friends and wondered what the 12th would be like.

Matty woke early, seeming to sense that something was up, and we found ourselves downstairs, my parents included, at about 6.30, unwrapping presents. We scored an early hit with the electric train for his brio train set which occupied a couple of hours as he found that the train also worked on his new car garage, the kitchen floor and his fathers face.

Matty was impressed by the balloons that his mother had put up the night before (yup, useless at that kind of thing) and liked all his presents. However fatigue set eventually and he retired for a well earned power nap before the partying started, leaving us to get the food and entertainment organised. At least that was the plan. Then we lost his Nan.

Yes I know. You shouldn’t let them out on their own at that age, but these pensioners can be so stubborn. With the help of Ula and Alison, mum had arranged some beauty treatments in Olney for 11am and despite offers, insisted she could get their all by herself. Olney is about 30 minutes away and I drew mum a map of how to get there through that Mecca of roundabouts, Milton Keynes. We were sure she would be ok, not only did she have her mobile with her, but she had remembered to turn it on as well. She left slightly later than intended at 10.30, but I thought she would be at most 5 minutes late.

At 11.15 the salon called to ask if she was coming, I assured them she was and though a little concerned thought she had just had trouble parking. I called them back at 11.30 to check. No sign. Nor at 11.50 am. At this point we were getting worried. Either she had had an accident, broken down somewhere, or was on the M6 north of Birmingham heading for Carlisle, but she definitely couldn’t have taken 80 minutes to get to Olney. I decided to track her down. On the way there I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t called, perhaps her phone was dead? Then I had a thought….wait a minute... what if there are two salons in Olney…what if she was in the wrong one?

I got to Olney without incident or indeed coming across stranded Sexagenarians in Mondeos with a dodgy phone and sure enough found my dear mother patiently drying her nails - in the wrong salon. They had taken her in without a booking sure that it was there mistake. Interestingly though both Alison and Ula thought that this was the place they had booked! We still don’t know where the other place was.

Grand Slam!!!

Nicholas Sarkozy, Edith Piaf, Charles de Gaulle, Zinedine Zidane, Napoleon, Inspector Clouseau, we gave your boys one hell of a beating!!

Sorry if this seems OTT but we did it! A second Grand Slam in 4 years clinched with a breath taking, heart stopping, grey hair creating victory over the French in Cardiff. When you have so little feast and so much famine in life as a Welsh rugby supporter you have to forgive us if we get a little carried away.

In turning World Cup no hopers into victorious Grand Slammers, the coaching team of Gatland, Edwards and Howley have achieved a level of alchemy and wizardry that Harry Potter would be hard pressed to match. with this team in place, and some real talent being allowed to flourish ( most of it was around already - but somehow managed to get wasted) I feel that this revival might last, unlike the "Prague Spring" of 2005.

Victory over France was particularly fitting after some of the comments from their camp this week. Apparently their scrum half, asked for his thoughts on the game, said something gallic along the lines of " come on - its only Wales" . (Thanks for saving Gatland the pre match pep talk boys. )

To be fair though the comment has some merit. It is only Wales. We are not in the same league as the Southern Hemisphere titans and frankly winning a Grand Slam does not change that. When we can start to beat these teams regularly, and not just at home, then we will truly be a good team, and that is Gatland's benchmark.

Fortunately those challenges are ahead. Doubtless if we had had to beat New Zealand or South Africa to win the Grand Slam it might have been very different, but we didn't have to beat them - only France.

Holiday Diaries Part II - Perth, The Undiscovered Country

Perth, Capital of WA is perhaps the lonelinest city on the planet. I don't mean that its people are cold and unfriendly, it public servants unhelpful, or its waiters rude and hostile (well not the first two anyway), in fact if those were the criteria, Perth wouldn't make my top 20, first place being a straight shoot out between London and Paris. But if we are talking about geographic rather than personal loneliness, Perth is unchallenged. The next major city, Adelaide, is well over 2200km away.

another cramped beach

Let me try and put some context on that figure for a cramped, narrow, my home is my castle overlooked by 23 others, British psyche. Imagine the city in question was London instead of Perth, how far would we need to go to be 2200km away? Remember Paris is a mere pop to the shops at 343 km, Hamburg, an evening out at 720. Barcelona? Nowehere near. Lisbon? A pitiful 1580km. Warsaw? Forget it. No, to get 2200km from London you have to leave mainland Europe altogether and go to the Canaries. Perth is seriously remote.

This sense of isolation does contribute to a couple of the key characteristics of the city. One of these is the sense of space, hardly surprising when there is some much land to expand into. Admittedly not all of the land around Perth is prime real estate, a lot is in fact decidedly inhospitable; but all the same, Perth does not suffer from the planning limitations, green belt concerns and the neccessity to pack 25m people (more than the total population of Australia) into a small space suffered by SE England. One of the results of this is that houses tend to be a similar size to their British counterparts but all on one floor, often with enough space around to fit in a swimming pool (and the weather to justify it).

Perth's isolation has another consequence, beyond a lack of stairs and a thriving pool maintenance industry. In many ways this is the perfect tourist destination; fantastic weather, beautiful white beaches lapped by the Indian ocean, verdant parks, inviting vineyards and an eclectic fusion of European and Asian cuisine. In short it has everything a dream holiday resort could desire - except holiday makers.

Its just too far, even for other Australians. Sydney to Perth is one hour and three time zones further than London to Tripoli. As for European travellers, its a straight 20 hour flight and 9 time zones to negotiate. While this does not stop everyone, (it didn't stop us!) it does mean that the devil will be skating to work before package holiday makers on chav airlines (you know who i mean) are arriving in force. Of course this means that if you do come to Perth you won't find any Geordie stag parties throwing up on the beach, nor will you find gaggles of inebriated teenagers from Barnsley drinking tequila slammers on the beach at 9am. Sadly it means those ambassadors for our native country who think that required dress on a holiday is an england shirt and speedos, and like to while away the afternoon in ye olde sailors arms pubbe with a kebab, will be similarly disappointed.

Instead, when you get to the beach you find you are sharing it with the locals; families with kids building castles, students on the surf, people from the city catching up after a day at the office over a glass semillion or a latte. And its just fabulous. Its also why Perth, despite, or perhaps because, its so isolated, is one of my favourite places on earth.

Food For Thought

Monday was the first evening we decided to risk dinner, venturing to a local French restaurant, in memory of the many fine meals we had eaten in Paris when Rach and Dom had visited us there. The fifth member of the group had one over on us of course, as he was born there, (technically therefore he’s French – difficult subject) and he quickly rediscovered his pays naturel, scoffing all the baguette, then settling down to some frites before taking a shine to his mother’s grilled lobster. With taste’s like this he’ll bankrupt me before he’s three.

While this was our first evening meal out, I do not want to create the impression we had not been eating well in our days in Singapore. It was just with the baby in tow we had tended to eat out at lunch instead of dinner, with the high point being a rather wonderful Japanese restaurant and KFC at the zoo being a slightly lower point. It would be easy to blame Matty for the latter - easy and sadly wrong - as unfortunately it was Ula who had the KFC attack (there is a good reason).

To be honest though we had eaten like kings in the evenings as well because among his many talents (more on that later) Dom is an excellent cook. Take it from me a friend who can cook like a top chef is worth their weight in gold. Knowing my level immediately I settled in as sous chef, given the important tasks of, helping to carry the shopping, opening wine, and occasionally chopping vegetables badly. Mainly though I just topped us his glass and chatted to him in the kitchen while he cooked. Connected to the kitchen was a utility area - with a difference - and Dom showed me this on the first night (while something was gently sautéing). Within the utility area there were two small rooms, one of which was a toilet, but with a shower as well as a wash basin. These were the quarters for the “maid” and clearly had been designed in. Apparently, having a maid for cooking and cleaning is quite common in Singapore, as this built in feature showed. For the moment though Dominic assured me, they would not be taking on a maid. This was, I thought on reflection, probably for the best. Given Rachael’s standards of cleanliness and Dominic’s cooking prowess, the poor maid would probably have a nervous breakdown in about 3 hours.

Our few days in Singapore had passed quickly, but we had already got to know the place a little and liked what we had seen. There were still more to do, but that would have to wait until we stopped again in Singapore on our way home. Next stop was Australia, where we would be spending two weeks, and catching up with our friends Paul and Sue and their little two year old son Connor. Even better (perhaps unbelievably is a better word here) Rach and Dom, unfazed by their experiences with Matty, would be joining us for the first week to experience the joy of two little people! Read all about it in the next instalment, Postcard from Perth – Part 1.

The island of Samosa

Monday was designated beach day and we headed out to Sentosa island – which I kept calling Samosa - confusing the taxi drivers somewhat. This is a small island just next to the southern part of Singapore and connected by a bridge and train line (as well as a cable car for the panoramic approach, albeit at an astronomic price). Driving over the bridge we could see more of the economic expansion of Singapore in the huge building works being undertaken near to Sentosa, which will become shortly a hotel, leisure and casino complex. Also visible from the bridge was concrete evidence of one of the drivers of Singapore’s economic engine, its huge port. Singapore in fact is the largest commercial port in the world. Over 140,000 ships dock here per year in one of the 600 shipping lanes seconds or to put it more graphically one ship is unloaded every 3 minutes. Singapore’s prosperity is clearly based on more than just its financial sector ( see UK ).

Sentosa with its lovely beaches, chilled out bars and varied activities is in a sense another example of the country’s success and capabilities. All of the facilities have been created in recent years including the beaches. Looking at Sentosa today, it's hard to imagine the island was once a fishing village known as Pulau Blakang Mati (not catchy). It later became a British military fortress until 1967 (Fort Siloso still stands) and was handed back to the newly independent Singapore Government. In 1968, the Government decided to develop the island into a holiday resort for local visitors and tourists. The public was invited to suggest names for the island and "Sentosa" – meaning peace & tranquillity in Malay - was eventually chosen for the island resort. A huge effort was then made and billions invested to transform the island into a holiday resort, and the result is very impressive, if not exactly calm and peaceful. The only thing they could not design out was the view, which is a slightly surreal panorama of huge cargo ships approaching and leaving the bustling dockyards.

Later, after a few hours n the beach, I had the dubious pleasure of joining Rachael and Dominic in a visit to their gym. It had been noticeable on arrival that they were both looking fit and toned, and it turned out the reason for this was their workouts at the gym with “personal trainers” ( I thought people who you paid money to make you suffer pain were called Dominatrixes – but there you go). Following a few days of indulgence I felt the need to do a little exercise myself and talked myself into joining them. This had probably been encouraged by my chat to a Kiwi expat called Paul at a picnic the previous evening. Paul played rugby, and I could not help noticing that although we were the same height and weight, Paul’s kilos seemed to be arranged in quite different places on his physique from on mine – often not even in the same postal area in fact. On arrival at the gym Rach and Dom disappeared to have pain and suffering inflicted on their bodies, and I decided to do a little jogging on the running machines. This proved interesting. At home I go to a gym where running is essential to avoid dying of acute hypothermia within 10 minutes. Here, despite the best efforts of the air conditioning I could not help noticing it was a tad warmer. After 15 minutes of gentle jogging (I don’t have another speed in case you were wondering) I noticed it seemed to be raining. In fact it was sweat running down my forehead – I seemed to be developing my own personal weather system – and I decided to slow down a bit to recover (good excuse). It was all worthwhile though. At the end of the session Dominic remarked that his trainer had been impressed by my effort, which if nothing else I felt justified another gourmet session that evening!

Rhino what you're doing...

On Sunday we started the sight seeing in earnest with a trip to Singapore zoo. Designed in a figure of eight lay out and with large open areas for the animals to roam sans bars, it was a long way from the traditional image of caged zoo animals, although I did wonder whether the pit around the tiger enclosure would really stop a hungry feline if they felt a bit peckish. The range of animals was also impressive with an extensive cat collection including Lions, the aforementioned Tigers, Cheetahs and Jaguars, plus a variety of Primates and an array of other large animals including Crocodiles, Zebra’s, Elephants and Rhino’s.

Matty enjoyed himself a lot although sometimes even the most impressive animlas would lose his attention to something even more interesting; a twig; a shoe lace; his stroller belt buckle. Still, Matty’s youth came in handy when the Rhinos’ got, there’s no other word for it, “horny” (I’m sorry) while we were by their enclosure. While Matty played with his new pet twig, I sympathised with the parents of slightly older children as, “what are they doing Daddy?” why is the one Rhino on top of the other one?” “are they hurting each other?” rang out across the crowd. My day will come for those awkward questions, but mercifully not quite yet.

Shop til you Drop

Itinerary or not however we decided Saturday should be a relaxing day getting over the jet lag and shopping for summer clothes. This gave us a chance to visit some of the city’s impressive air conditioned shopping malls, and to learn a little about the Singapore culture and way of life. One impressive aspect of life here was how clean everything was. This had been noticeable in the airport and was just as apparent in the shopping malls. In terms of cleanliness Singapore makes Switzerland look like a teenagers bedroom. The story I particularly liked was about the government banning mosquitoes. I love that. Apparently to back this up (some of the mosquitoes apparently hadn’t left the country after this edict, probably due to out date passports ) they had then methodically gassed the city with mozzie killer..

Initial impressions also had a slightly American feel, both in the big shopping malls and the focus on car transport over walking. People don’t really do walking in Singapore. However the American comparison certainly doesn’t stretch to size. Either Singaporeans have a very healthy diet or they shoot people with a BMI over 28 (along with litter louts). They are also quite petite, in fact standing a far from impressive 5 foot 6 myself, I felt quite at home. According to Rachael the slightness of the local population can give a few problems finding clothes even for a slim Anglo – Saxon frame. Ula however with Rachael’s support spent no time in showing you underestimate the female shopper at your peril..

Matty's World Tour Part 1 - Plane Sailing To Singapore

13 hours and 8 time zones after leaving Heathrow the big jumbo descended gracefully towards Singapore. Back in London it was a cold grey February morning, the wind was chill and Gordon Brown was thinking of new and innovative ways of removing my disposable income. Here though it was a sunny Friday afternoon and I looked out of the window with a mix of excitement and expectation. Ahead lay a three week holiday for me, my wife Ula and our little son Matthew, far away from the drudge of work and the awful weather of another damp dark UK winter. Perth lay sparkling ahead on our holiday itinerary, but for the moment all eyes were on Singapore.

Perhaps expectation is not a completely accurate description .Truth to tell I did not know what to expect from Singapore, for the simple reason I knew slightly less than bugger all about the place. Quizzed on whether Singapore was a city, island or state (“and remember if you get this wrong you slip back to £1000”) and I would probably have guessed at city (I know, trick question – its all three). Pressed further, my misers hoard of useless junk information would have produced the following feeble list. The Raffles hotel, vague memories of “Tenko”, General Slim’s WW2 victories over the Japanese (spot the History Grad) and…. the Raffles hotel. For me Singapore was a kind of twin with Hong Kong, busy, cramped, lots of people, little space, rich, and thriving economically.

This step into the unexpected was augmented by the Matthew factor (19 months) which had almost resulted in the whole holiday being shelved. Would he cope with the flight? Would he cope with the jet lag? Would we cope if he didn’t? Matty had extensive flying experience under his belt due to being born in Paris (another story) and because Ula is Polish and therefore half his family is there ( more a book than a story), but all his flying had been short haul. London to Singapore, was clearly a different order of magnitude. We had decided to risk it on the grounds that it wouldn’t get any easier as he got older, we might have a second child, and most important, he was free until he turned two. Our decision was looking good as thanks to an overnight flight, the good service and our DVD player (note for parents of small children, never go on a plane flight without Pingu) he had been fine - so far. The challenge of jet lag lay ahead, but we tried not to think about that.

Singapore from the air made a positive impression, shimmering in the afternoon sun. It made a second as we left he plane. It was hot. Really hot. Given that we were near the equator this was not a huge shock. The surprise was in the nature of the climate, a humid tropical heat that reminded me of a gym steam room. Clearly air conditioning would be essential, but the jeans and jumper I was wearing would not, and could be safely packed away for the next few weeks.

One of the key reasons for stopping in Singapore, beyond the fact that we had never been - and the practical reasoning that London to Perth direct with a small child was a level of masochism too far - was to visit our good friends, Rachael and Dominic, who moved to Singapore last autumn. How good these friends are, can be deduced from the fact they were prepared to share there new home with a potentially jet lagged child for the next five days. Further detail is I feel, superfluous.

Rachael was there to meet us on arrival and as we headed to their apartment I got my first glimpse of Singapore up close. I realised that one of my assumptions, the one about no space everything being crammed together had been way off the mark. Singapore may have the de rigeur skyscrapers and high rise apartments of a modern metropolis, but it also had a pleasant, verdant feel, with spacious parks and plentiful tropical vegetation.

Arriving at their condo we unloaded ourselves from the taxi, (one foldable bed, one stroller, multiple assorted bags and one case the size of a wardrobe) and went up to meet Dom.. On our skype calls before the trip, Rach and Dom had proudly told us how they had “baby proofed” the place. On her own blog, which I can recommend for a different perspective of this holiday, Rachael admitted that this process was not quite as impressive as they had hoped. Looking round I could see a worrying number of breakable objects within easy reach of Matty including, in no particular order, wine bottles, lamp stands, DVD player, IPOD station, Computer, glass cabinet with a lot of expensive crystal and some nice glass candle holders. If this was post baby proofing, I wondered what had been removed. We quickly helped them make some urgent alterations while I mentally cursed not including house repairs in my holiday budget.

Finally when most of the dangerous items had been locked away and I had read through my travel insurance cover, we got a chance to catch up properly over a glass/bottle or two of wine. Later with Matty in bed and over a few more glasses / bottles / flagons of wine we discussed the itinerary for the next few days. Rachael and Dom had been used to people -sans children - coming to see China Town, the Indian quarter and Singapore’s night life, but they adapted with impressive speed to the kiddie challenge and quickly came up with a list headed by the zoo, the park and the beach. Before we did any of this though we decided the first day was for chilling and shopping.

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