Dear Singapore,
Thank you for having me for the last ten months, it’s been so exciting. I’m just popping back to the UK for a few weeks. Please do all that smoky and rainy stuff while I’m gone and if you’re going to do the dry and bright thing then keep the lights on when I come back because I won’t be happy returning under a cloud.
I’m very grateful for a few key things that have cheered me this year, notably: the big blue skies on bright days and warm, balmy nights, plus absolute lack of need for tights; your big, bushy hedges, incredible banana plants, odd snake-like seeds; your bonkers morning bird calls, chit-chats in the kitchen, bats over the pool and cheeky monkeys at MacRitchie for my Wednesday walks with L.
Thank you for your exotic global positioning, and although your crushing humidity is a bit mad (three showers on a bad day is just wasteful), thanks all the same for allowing me to wear the minimum – I love it. Thanks for building the Central Line just before we arrived and for making my MRT the stop with the shops. Thanks for putting a beach at the end of the line and also for running loads of buses up and down Holland Road. (No thanks for making it rain just as I step out). Thanks for giving me alternative choices – MRT, cabs – when it does. (No thanks for making cabs impossible to get in the rain). Hey, though, thanks for creating such city-wide empathy for rainstorms that being late in a downpour is totally expected.
Thank you for Crystal Jade, Kinokunya, Cotton On, Charles & Keith, Simply Bread, Lim’s, Tangs, wet markets, dry buses, cool trains, hot swimming pools, little green lights over vacant car park spaces, natural vitamin D, condos with open-door policies, mostly clean public lavs (world take note), air con, taxi stands, food courts in malls, considerable lack of dog poo, weird and wonderful Sentosa, beautiful East and West Coasts, the awesome ACM, sweet TPM, posh buffets, tasty hawkers, ramen bowls, dim sum baskets, Esarn, Indochine Supertree, rickety river boats, the beautiful, mad surfboard, Sago Street, Amoy Street, the skate park at Scape, all my friend’s houses, my beautifully warm wooden deck and my (blush, ahem) Jacuzzi. Huge thanks to the StreetDirectory app, without which I would literally have been lost.
Some bits and pieces you might consider sorting out while I’m gone:
• websites that act like websites – a Facebook page IS NOT A WEBSITE
• shop assistants who can direct you to other places in the mall – you WORK HERE ALL DAY, surely you know more then me?
• dishes served at the same time – I want to eat WITH my family, not half an hour later
• booze we can afford – can’t stand flinching when I open the menu
• taxi drivers who don’t jam the pedals – I don’t get car-sick, it’s just that I’m often carrying trays of cupcakes
• shop assistants that leave me alone – do I have something stuck to my shoe? Am I on fire? No? Then go and stand over THERE because I have no idea what I want, WHICH IS WHY I’M BROWSING
• endless construction on every street corner – I think you might have enough new buildings, now

Ultimately, though, it’s been a right old journey. I know I’ll kick myself for saying this when I go all homesick again in a few months time, but out of all the places we could have relocated to, I’m glad it was you. I’ll never belong here, but at half time I can say it’s been an incredible journey and you have been so very welcoming. See you in a few weeks and good luck with the Haze; if it comes back I’ll blow fresh winds your way.

Love, Mrs PC