I’m doing a tour tomorrow and I’m always nervous the night before. Then I walk through those pretty double doors of The Peranakan Museum, past the blue eagles (high-flyers, protectors of the elite, just the job for taking care of the schoolboys who once went in and out of the place), and I’m fine.

Guiding aside, I knew there was a reason for me taking that docent-training course last year and it came to me yesterday, on a trip to a dusty junk shop. Tucked down the side of one cavernous room was a low red chest with metal decorations. I loved it, as did my friends, and we spent a long time fondling the gorgeous thing, wondering what it had been used for. Some symbols gave clues as to its story.

For starters, the dresser had bat handles – bats are signs of good luck because the Chinese word for ‘luck’, ‘Fu’, sounds like the word for bat, and very often the bat character is portrayed upside down, emptying its luck out on those below. There were two birds on the front – parrots or maybe pairs of phoenixes, queen of the birds and another emblem for good luck in marriage. There was the colour itself, lucky red – trademark pantone choice for auspicious events. Finally, right on the top, was the giveaway side-by-side symbol for ‘double happiness’. I looked for another chest because if there were two, then… and yes, tucked away deep in the next room was the matching twin: a pair of lucky double happiness wedding chests no doubt given as a wedding present. Douze points and smugface.

Have not gone back to buy them yet. I may have passed the symbolism test but I need to convince Mr PC that my wedding trousseau is still missing something.

There’s plenty of talk about what it’s like to be an expat on home leave. Well, here I am coming to the end of my UK summer hols, so I’m now qualified to comment on all the quotes that get bandied about on what to expect when you go back home for a visit:

• ‘There’s not enough time’: True, there is absolutely not enough time.

• ‘Nothing changes when you go home’: Poppycock. Any old chat with the person pouring the coffee will reveal that everything changes, for both good and bad. Open your ears.

• ‘Next year I’m hiring a farmhouse in Suffolk and everyone can visit us’: What, everyone? Will you have enough bedding? Will there be enough wine? No, that won’t work for us, or for any of my family and friends apart from those who happen to actually live in or near Suffolk.

• ‘No one wants to know what you’ve been up to’: Partly true, partly false, but it depends on who you’re seeing, how much time you have and what the kids are digging up while you’re trying to chat. I have found most people are keen to hear about work and school, not the swimming pools, and I think that’s a nice reflection of the kind of life I had before we left and the kind of people my friends are. So that’s alright.

• ‘You can’t see everyone’: Very true. Apologies to Parrot, Michaela, Mr Laing (for the second year running), Louise, Pam, ohgodeveryone – and the Cornish lot too #sadandguiltyface

• ‘Haven’t you grown?!’: Yes, if directed towards my stomach, and definitely yes for the children, yes indeed, they have all grown so much since last year, and now I know why old ladies say that a lot. Amazing and a little bit scary.

• ‘I hate living out of a suitcase’: So do I, and that’s why I blow most of our home leave allowance on a rental apartment. Here we can recuperate, chill, allow our pants to spill out of that suitcase, and drink cups of restful tea in anticipation of doing it all over again the next day. An essential booking.

• ‘We spend our lives on trains’: Same here, but I quite like it. Yep, it’s exhausting and can be costly, but what a great way to pack in precious glimpses of my home country.

• ‘It’s hard to work out where home is’: Not such a big deal last year, very much so this year. I’ve got lost in London a couple of times this past month, which is bonkers, yet I feel completely at ease walking around my old neighbourhood. I find I keep referring to Singapore as ‘home’, yet the homesickness I feel for London is very strong this year. I can only see the lines becoming more blurred as time goes on.

• ‘Coming home is a great reality check on how lucky you are’: You betcha, and just to prove how grateful I am I’ll be in that pool before my cases are out of the [fast, plentiful and inexpensive] cab. And to the Sing friends I’ve made, I have missed you (and you, and you).

• ‘Leaving gets harder every time’: Immeasurably so. No-brainer. Sadface #heartemoticon #kiss

• ‘You need another holiday when you get back’: Vietnam? Check.

Last weekend the Affordable Air Fair came to town, setting up behind the Flyer for the third time since I’ve been living here. This was my second visit; last time I went to the bunfight of the opening night and spent the entire evening being careful not to spill my bubbles on the artwork. This time I went early one Saturday, going along for the ride with the same friend who took me before. She’s an art buff, she knows her apples, and she can recommend what to look for. She can also tell you what she likes and doesn’t like – she’ll give you a polite: ‘hmmm…’ if you show her something unsatisfactory. If she likes it she’ll propel you right up to the exhibit like a member of Miami Dade police at a house raid. While I prefer to dot in and out of the cubicles, firmly telling people I’m ‘just looking’ (as you have to here in the shops to avoid being hassled), ArtFriend is falling over herself to accept those grabbing hands. She gets drawn in by vendor after vendor, asking for cards, adding her name to lists, asking all the right questions, and – in fact – usually walking away with some other stunning bit of kit to go with the growing gallery that makes up her beautiful home. Watching her work the floors is as satisfying as the artworks themselves. Me, I just like to potter.

I did go to art school, actually – ArtFriend was surprised to learn this as we drove away from the show in a halo of good art vibes. Oh yes, I got a degree in printmaking, having spent my second year putting the painting tutor to the test by doodling a series of scrappy Tony Hancock-style feet in ‘simplistic style’ and being heralded as someone funky and innovate when, in fact, I’d just scribbled a few toes. That taught me, and in my third and final year I moved on to screenprinting, where the nuts and bolts of the technique blended with my passion for writing and I completed a series of sarcastic prints that heaved me up and over the precipice (along with a competent thesis) of a shabby Third and got me the 2:2 degree I didn’t really deserve. As a result of my cynicism I didn’t leave college with a great deal of knowledge about or love for modern art, but those years at art school at least left me with an idea of what I like on my wall. I go through phases: it was portraits for a while, and for that I had London’s National Portrait Gallery, a place I now realise I never visited enough. Now I’m in Asia Lite I find myself drawn to paintings of goldfish, for some reason, and I found several of those as I wandered around the galleries last weekend, sipping my free [brand name] espresso.

Although my happiness at blagging a precious ticket to the AAF wasn’t so much about ‘getting something’ but was more about dipping a tentative toe back into the art arena, I did love the venue and I loved the show, room after room of fun, fascinating, clever, poignant and funky pieces of original art, with friendly faces to tell you all about it and that nice free coffee thrown in. In fact I loved about 80 per cent of the pieces on show and after a while found myself seeking out local artists, looking for something different, something fun but not garish, most importantly something to put my current life in context.

I’m never going back with ArtFriend again, that’s for sure – she was far too good at the whole thing. It’s because of her that our dining room wall will, in about three weeks, look substantially more beautiful, and that whatever holiday fund we were hanging onto just went down to zero. It was definitely worth it. The ‘local’ context has ended up being a somewhat more far-off blend of Shanghai and London, but it will do. There are also no goldfish, but the fun theme is there and so is the beauty – it’s going to look amazing, and to top it all off the artist went to St Martins School of Art, where Mum went in the 50s. I think she’d have been happy with all that.

As for naughty ArtFriend, she is banned from taking me anywhere else for a while (though if there’s any more of that free coffee I might come along for the ride).

Just woken up after our first night in a proper bed in a hotel in Perth, and still finding it weird not to have that rattling noise and swinging sensation every time someone moves.

Saying goodbye to the van was a bit sad, actually. We didn’t even create a hilarious family name for it, it was just ‘Campervan’. I feel bad with the way that we parted – on the main road outside the hotel with Mr PC standing at the little side door throwing out our enormous suitcases and a couple of stuffed plastic bags, and then driving off to the depot to dump the truck. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye properly, no parting hug or fond farewells, and when SM and I got into our hotel room I had a little weep to myself while he jumped around on his new white fluffy bed. We’ve discovered a magical way of travelling, us three, intimate and exciting, and just not present here in our comfy hotel room. Yeah OK, I got over it pretty quick. But we’ll be back again, Campervan, I know it.

Now I know why adults end up living in static home parks (the nice leafy tranquil ones, I mean, not the mid-US rusted wastelands that you drive into by accident). Living in a parked mobile home is an alternative to being rooted because you can be transient yet grounded all at the same time. It’s a fun way of playing house, the grown-up equivalent of setting out the tiny teacups, only the smallest of household items to take care of, a life almost void of responsibility. At the first campsite these permanent homes were wedged and slightly tattered, occupied by quiet long termers who came and went unobtrusively. At the last one there was a more established set of permanent inhabitants, and the long-term caravans were fenced in and bordered with plant pots and garden gnomes, festooned with seasonal tinsel and flashing Christmas lights. The one nearest our van was hosting a little family dinner when we rocked up. We weren’t invited but I suspect if we’d stayed longer, we might have been.

Funnily enough, Mr PC’s parents lived in a static home when I first met them – but a big, proper, box-shaped thing down by the river Thames. Mrs hated it, Mister adored it. In the end she won, and they decamped to the house. Their son tells me he secretly went to stay on his own once when his folks were away travelling. ‘It was a peaceful, private place,’ he said. We won’t be giving up our London apartment quite yet, but I can now see the point.

I’m wondering if there’s a way of locking down the camaraderie you get when you’re all getting along in a confined space – doing that organized morning dance of packing up and driving off, chucking tasks at SM and getting him to join in and actually enjoy joining in (sometimes). I’m not about to suggest building a den on the deck when we get back to Singapore, but I think there’ll be some new rules.

NEXT STOP: Sydney

Sorry Singers, it’s not that I don’t like coming back to you, it’s just that I wasn’t quite ready yet. SM’s first international soccer tournament had a load of us piling onto a plane heading north for a quick weekend trip to the Thai capital but then yanked us sharply back again like a load of spitballs out of a rubber band, allowing us zero time to explore, and that’s a shame because I think the place could well turn out to be a high scorer in the MrsPartlyCloudy Favourite City Charts, all of which seem to start with a B: Berlin, Bruges, Bilbao, and now (potentially) Bangkok.

There just wasn’t the time. We nipped next door to a supermarket to get snacks for the players. We saw a LOT of the motorway because the traffic was rubbish, and even more of it on the way back home because the coach driver got confused and set off for entirely the wrong airport (it’s OK, we spotted it and re-routed). We saw no riots (*see below). We wore a lot of yellow for the King, who was having a birthday weekend – so was Jen and so was Jack, so there was a lot of cake involved and that’s always nice.

Someone who lives there told me that Bangkok is ‘a real place, very hip and modern’, and I’d have loved to put that to the test. [Just as a sidenote here, most places in the world are real compared to the bubble that is SingSong. Don’t get me wrong, I like coming home to the vacuum, stepping onto the fragrant carpets at Changi, popping the passport into the Machine That Goes Beep and snapping the cab door closed only 5 minutes after getting off the plane, before swooshing down the fast, clean roads to home. I know nasty things happen here but most people can relax in a way that is not possible in most other major cities, and then comes the irony – that the city’s security buys you all the freedom in the world to do just the risky sorts of things that you’d never really think of doing in a place like this because they just don’t crop up, so in the end it’s all a bit of a false promise. Apart from the odd riot there’s not a lot of scope for public shouting here, and those riots are very much one-offs, much less prevalent than *the now-and-then ones in Bangkok. Not that I want to do risky things but if I DID want to, I’d have to work hard at getting a group together… Anyway, sidetracked. Forget it. Carry on.]

Ah yes: Bangkers. Those who had been to the city before told us we really needed to do a proper visit; us first-timers got a very good vibe from what we saw, and agreed it needed more days. The fresh, Spanish-warm weather helped, perfectly blue skies and breezy heat allowing the children the physical ability to play six hard matches in a row on Saturday (or was it five?) and three on the Sunday, without passing out from humidity like in Sing, or searing their feet on 45°C astroturf.

And what a great tournament, so well organised and comfy. Festive, basically, with stalls and claxons and a bloke on the tannoy and lots of shiny happy people. The team put up a good fight but it was pretty ugly, as predicted. We were carved up over the course of the weekend like chopped peanuts in a wilting popiah, matched against epic teams who would have done well playing proper grown-ups. Time and again the kids picked themselves up and went back out for more. The other teams’ balletic movements were at best captivating and at worst – well, I saw SM do a little elbow-shove at one point (Naughty! Mum would have loved that). We came out OK and hobbled onto the bus home in an oddly buoyant mood (even when we realised we were heading the wrong way) and the kids’ only concern was who was digging up the most diamonds on Whinecraft.

Predictably we water-glided to a stop on the tarmac at Changi because of rain lashing down, then waded back to an apartment stinking of mould after only two days without us. The Christmas cards instantly called out to be filled in and stamped and the next batch of coursework was sulking as it hadn’t had a single glance all weekend. Not to mention both boys coming home with potential colds.

So you win this time, ‘Kockers, and thank you for having us – I think we’ll be right back.

I’ve worn glasses since I was two years old, so I like to think I know what works for me and what doesn’t. What I don’t need is someone following me round the shelves making me try on pairs and pairs of random and bizarre frames straight from a nine-year-old’s dressing up box. I don’t mind my husband doing this, or my son or a good friend, but I do mind YOU, Mr Total Stranger Shopowner, giving me your utterly useless tuppence ha’penny.

This was my first experience of spec-shopping since leaving England, a place where you often get the opposite – no service at all, big chunks of your lunch hour spent quietly queuing until someone is free to get THAT pair down to try on. On the flipside I’m also familiar with having a broad range of shapes and styles from which I can make a well-balanced choice; these blasted specs are welded to my persona so I have to get it right. Sadly, due to a recent age-related change in prescription meaning that I can no longer read without actually taking my specs off (a novel thing for me), I can’t have what I want any more and I need new ones and they can’t be any old shape because they need to work in more ways than just one. When SmallMonkey updated his prescription recently, Mr PC nagged me to get a new pair, too, and so it was that we spent the best part of half an hour today having a good laugh at my expense (that’s OK, I’m used to it from those two).

An ordeal, to be frank. It’s been a long time since someone asked me to (no, insisted that I) put on a pair of bright purple frames, then some pink ones with orange sparkle, then a mad Gucci pair with fat gold logo all down the sides. Really? My friend’s family had a charity fancy dress party in the 1990s in a rented out Oxfam shop. Huge fun, I have the dusty pics somewhere. I think I tried on some crazy specs on that day – twenty years ago. For sunglasses I think a bit of show is OK, but when I mentioned to The Two Ronnies that I had to wear these things all day (like, when I’m eating my Cheerios, when I’m waiting with the other mums for the school bus, when I’m pretending to be a tour guide in front of total strangers) it fell on deaf ears. Or blind eyes. Whatever.

The biggest laugh came from a pair that made me look just like Grandpa Bryan. I loved Grandpa Bryan so very much, and in fact he looked alright, you know, quite handsome in his younger years, but that doesn’t mean I want to actually look like him. What I wear on my face, absolutely all of the day, defines me and gives people an impression of who I am straight away, no second chances. Later they can find out who I am, and might realise that the first impression was not what they thought. But it has to fit, to be innocuous, that first time. So it really pays, spec-shop-owners, to put yourselves in the customer’s shoes when forcing random frames on a punter – would YOU want to wear the bright orange ones or the Mister Magoo specials? Then why would I?

Sale lost.

NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

Goodbye NaBloPoMo – goodbye to posting every day throughout November. I’ll miss you, but it will be nice to going back to posting when I feel like it, not because I have to. Thank you for teaching me that one-liners can be fun.