The Stayover

Each time the subject of staying over at the flat on weekends comes up, I have to endure a round of snide remarks before it pushes thru (IF it pushes thru, that is). The last time we tried to do a stayover, it didn't push thru, but I still had to endure snide remarks. As I've said before, Big & I may be married in the eyes of the law, but obviously not in the eyes of the in-law.

Anyway, ranting aside, we managed to do a stayover last weekend. The initial plan was to start on Thursday night since it was a long weekend. But I was (literally) running media for the event on Thursday night, and dead tired. Then we wanted to start Friday but I spent the entire afternoon gawking over Peranakan jewellery, and that lasted too long, so we didn't either. Even when we did finally stay over Saturday night, we spent most of Saturday advising the parents on which laptop to buy, and rushing to another parental event in the evening. So, actually, we didn't spend very much time at the flat.

Still, it was very nice to stay over, and to have a place of our own. It does seem like a good hideout from our daily annoyances & frustrations, and the rest of the world. Neither of us had much problems adapting to the smaller bathroom, except that we need clothes hooks in there, and we would much prefer the water pressure to be higher. We slept without the aircon or the fan, and it was nice & cool. In fact, the living room can be get windy at night with the land breeze coming from that direction. Of cos, there's all the extra noise we had to deal with - someone upstairs using the toilet/taking a bath, kids shouting in the early morning and etc. But that's to be expected living in such close quarters with everyone else.

Big shoved the oven into its rightful place Sun morning, with some minimal help from me. And we discovered our thermal flask only keeps water warm, not hot. And that we really really do need those hanging basket things for the bathroom for the bath stuff.

AND we have a flea market every Sunday nearby!

Would be a good idea to stay over every weekend. As I said, itz a really good hideout, and becos we don't have to waste time travelling (from my house to his or vice versa), we managed to get a lot more stuff done. The only issue is how much I can tolerate the snide comments.

The bed & other stories

The bed
...is in! The Serta mattress, 2 free pillows, 2 free mattress protectors and a No.6 plush sheep were delivered on Fri. Apparently, the delivery guy spent 2 minutes showing Big how to undo the plastic wrapping becos he had encountered customers who gleefully slit it open with a penknife, and slit the mattress in the process.

The bed frame came on Sat. It looks humongous in the room. We laid on the mattress, 1st unwrapping it and managing NOT to slit the mattress itself, pulled on the mattress protector, and the rather bright bed sheet, and then jumped on to test it out.

Big's 1st comment, "The ceiling looks very close (to my face when I lie down)". Actually, it doesn't. It's just lower than what he's used to. This is a flat after all. Landed property have higher ceilings.

Parental visit number 2
The second of parents finally came over to visit on Sun night, with the hatted sibling in tow. This proved to be a surprisingly mellow visit, perhaps buffered by the chilli & black pepper crabs before it.

Comments made were on the choice of wall paint colour for the front room, why the kitchen sink should not be top-mounted, how the TV is too near the sofa, how the bed should be against the wall, how much problems we would have adapting to the small size of the bathroom (and flat), how we should get Big's parents' maid over to clean on weekends, and how the cat shouldn't be brought over at all...

Not surprisingly, they came from 1 parent only. The other took a walk around, declared it very nice and sat down to watch the failure of a soccer match between Singapore and Thailand (1-3).

Further parental advice
- We shouldn't invite the neighbour into the flat yet. Or let her look in thru the door. For info, she had already gone in just after reno was completed.

- We shouldn't release too much info to neighbour. e.g at what stage of completion the house is in, what we already have in the house and etc. For info, Big told neighbour our bed had arrived that morning.

- We should, however, let the neighbour know that our parents will be dropping by now & then to check on the house. Er, right, sure...

- Before moving in, we had to have people come in to meditate so as to bless the house. This is a new one...

Hard labour

On Sat, we swung by Expo to see if there were any mega-sales, thanks to Val's tip-off. And there was! 3+ hours and $200 later, we had gotten the water-boiler (no kettles for us), a juicer, 2 sets of bedlinen, and a couple of other small items. Big almost got a luggage bag too. We're still not sure about the rice-cooker (anyone knows a good brand and suitable size?), and haven't bought the pots&pans, or crockery. Or the curtains & blinds.

Sun - Big loaded up the car with all the stuff we had bought before he went for reservist, and we trolley-ed them to the flat. That is to say, he carried the big TV, and I pushed the fully-loaded trolley which had an unfortunate tendency to list to the left.

After much sweating and grunting, we finally unpacked, stowed away and fixed up whatever appliances we had brought in. Big even christened the bathroom by taking the 1st shower there.

And he very nicely shoved the quest for bedlinen, curtains and cushion covers to me. Like I know anything about draperies...

Any recommendations for reasonably priced, good quality cloth stuff, with nice sophisticated subtle designs?????

The bed frame will be in coming Sat. And we need to call for the mattress too....

Halloween at the flat

Big is obsessed about Halloween. It seems he's wanted to throw a big Halloween party since forever but has never gotten the chance. I've had several, courtesy of my cousins who delight in dressing up in mostly-homemade costumes, and icing cupcakes with spiders, pumpkins and such.

So, when we finally got the flat, and Paul had declared it would be ready by Oct, Big got his hopes up about throwing a Halloween party at the new place.

Unfortunately, with the delays in renovation, and our very packed work schedules, this was not to be. By end Oct, the house was not ready to receive guests. The fridge was only delivered on 30 Oct for goodness sake.

Halloween at the flat was thus reduced to this:



P/S - We spent Halloween running around doing errands. I was at The Arts House briefing foreign media at 10am, and then I rushed to Orchard to meet my mum, and then back to The Arts House to see Neil Gaiman. Big was braving bad traffic from his place to Yishun, and then to see Neil Gaiman. In the middle, we rushed off to feed Spooky...

Welcoming the big boys

Last Fri, Big & I rushed down to the flat to welcome the big boys. Ok, to be fair, Big was there much earlier becos the plumber had to pass him some pipe-extension-whatever thingy for the washing machine which he (i.e the plumber) had forgotten to fix last time we met.

I got there in time to get a tutorial on how to operate the washing machine (which I already know how to operate) from the delivery guys, and to write the cheque.

You know, this is the 1st time in 30 years that I can actually look into the top shelf of the freezer without having to stand on my toes. It feels a little strange. Maybe we need a base...

The oven hasn't been installed yet. I think Big will call Paul for help once he's done serving his country. Kinda doubt he can lift the thing up on his own anyway. Here's the kitchen with the big boys in:

For info - that's a Toshiba 7kg washing machine & a Hitachi "anti-mould gasket" fridge. The box is the Cuizino oven which goes into the gaping hole in the cupboard on the right...