22/11: Gift wishes

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NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

It’s my friend’s son’s 17th birthday today. I remember when he was born, we were all so excited because she was really the first of us to pop one out. He was beautiful (still is) and we were all very pleased. We made him a time capsule and put silly things in it (and nice things as well). He has one year left until he’s allowed to crack it open and frankly I’m amazed that we’ve all actually waited this long. His mother has a vague idea of what’s in it and teases me – she knows me and the other time capsule contributors were probably a bit silly and naieve ‘back then’. To be honest I can’t really remember but the only thing I can say for sure that he’ll enjoy is the letter that I wrote him, because I have a feeling it will be a great little snap of the moment. Only twelve more months to go, Ollie! Happy birthday x

21/11: Pot luck

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NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

There’s a pair of big baskets at the Peranakan Museum. These are the ‘bakul siah’, ‘auspicious baskets’ used during the mammoth 12-day wedding ceremony to transport gifts between houses. They are huge things with many units, cylindrical, shiny with lacquer and grasped at the top by a big single handle. For some reason I really like them.

So this morning a few of us from the group went on a tour of the Baba House, a beautiful Peranakan home in town. There in the master bedroom were the baskets, and not just one pair but three or four (she was a lucky lady, this bride). After the tour a fellow student told us she’d seen an antique shop around the corner; even better, it was actually open (things open late in Sing). Three of us went along.

Like most antique shops it was stuffed to the rafters with things: shoes, a phone, Cola sign under an altar with neon candles. Just like my parents’ flat, actually, and as always in junk shops I felt immediately at home. Right at the back, half covered in a blanket, I spotted a dusty little box in three parts with a handle over the top. Red and gold (rather than the usual black and gold) and a great deal smaller, but unmistakeable. I fished out a tissue, started to wipe off the dust on the lid and the colours shone through. Magical.

I asked the owner how old? Seventy years. I asked him how much? In the back of the shop I asked my friend what she’d pay and, muttering out of the sides of our mouths, we came to the same agreement. I opened my wallet and started the bidding.

Now it’s sitting over by our bookshelves, has had a drop of water and a wipe-down, and looks completely at home. I have no idea how genuine, how old, how much of a good or bad deal the thing was or, in fact, whether I should have brought it home at all, but then I look over at it and know that really, I just don’t care.

19/11: Tick

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NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

First formal presentation – all five minutes of it, in front of senior mentor, current mentor and two course members not from my group – checked off the list. I thought I’d plunge into a tall glass of v&t when I got home but in fact I decided to bury myself in Christmas gift wrapping. Mad: I’d usually be doing this about a month from now, with the carols going and the mulled wine mulling, but it’s my absolute favourite and most comforting thing to do each year and it just seemed like a nice way of wrapping myself up in a bit of cosiness. A virtual “PHEW”.

So, back to the red robins and gift tags. In mid-November. With the air con blowing. Funny things it’s making me do, this course.

15/11: TBM

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NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

Singapore loves its acronyms. Today I’m reminded of one of my favourites.

On my Fine Art college degree at Humberside Polytechnic (probably now called something like Hull University) there was a course known as ‘TBM,’ or Time-Based Media, something that I think is still studied today. No one really knew what it was but from our relaxed seats in the college canteen it seemed to be to do with cameras, lights, fiddly bits of kit and dark rooms, and was studied by earnest and slightly angry young men wearing corduroy trousers and goatees all darting about in an intellectual rush, unable to stop and have a cuppa with us because their subject was obviously far more superior than ours. So we came up with another phrase to match the course acronym: ‘Too Busy, Mate’.

Now I find myself back at college and, thanks to a proposal due in on Sunday at 5pm, I’m a little bit TBM myself, today…

13/11: Lunch lessons

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NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

SmallMonkey gets off the bus in tears:

‘I’ve been borrowing money,’ he confesses, ‘because I’m so hungry. There’s a note in the book.’

If you know SM then you’ll know how this could tug at a person’s heartstrings: you can play the piano on his ribs. His food fads are legendary and clearly come from the maternal side (although my waistline sadly shows how I’ve fast got over all that). He’s already been banned from buying snacks in the canteen because this is precisely how his diet ends up: all Oreo, no sandwich. So it’s not a crying matter but still, it’s not really OK.

There is indeed a note in the book, as well as the lunchbox containing one and a half wilting specimens. There has been a class meeting about the proffering of coins and the polite note asks: could we please pay the money back? SM is contrite.

After emptying the pocket money pig, counting out the required cash (it’s not a lot, between you and me, but that’s not the point), drawing up a new lunch menu, sharing a bit of fresh apple and finally talking about how it is the duplicity of the secret canteen-snack habit that is the NotOK thing, I tell him a story:

Mum used to tell me and my sister, with a rather wistful pride, of how she threw her sandwiches in the hedge on the two-mile walk home from school. I’m not saying it’s OK, I tell him: I just want him to know I can see where he gets it from.