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.