pre baby wanderings

feels like a lifetime ago when it was just over a month but while waiting for baby i spent a lot of time being self-indulgent. sort of defensive me time because i wasn't counting on getting very much after baby. had a lovely dimsum lunch at minjiang, best dimsum in london and believe you me, i've more than eaten my (pregnancy) weight in dimsum. a close contender would be hutong. best value is mayfair garden (formerly princess garden mayfair) and royal china (queensway / baker street) would be great if could book but the queue usually puts me off. also, minjiang has the most gorgeous view overlooking the gardens.

bought a moses basket for £10 off gumtree and picked it up from holland park. love gumtree and the accidental community of mothers selling and buying. all the mothers i've bought stuff from have been really kind and encouraging, giving good advice and i'm more than happy to learn from those who've gone before.

back to kensington gardens for a walk in the park after gumtree pick up. enjoyed the early winter sunset.

had afternoon tea after the walk at cantrememberhotel but it was cute and along high street ken. occasionally get dubious recommendations and this was unforch one of them. wouldn't repeat but excellent service and they obliged with scones and clotted cream when i didn't want an entire cream tea after a massive dimsum lunch just an hour earlier. 

on another day, i'd ramen in town. new place, really salty. can't remember name again (sense a trend here?) wish it were better but i'd stick to kanada-ya at panton street with matcha soft serve after.

and on yet another day i was craving thai (probably a cold and wet day!) and made the most of rosa's set lunch. not quite cheap but always cheerful.

thoughts on motherhood - day 14

there's an indian proverb that children bind the feet of the mother.

would be the first to admit that i came into motherhood somewhat reluctantly. L was unplanned but not unwanted, a happy accident over early may bank holiday long weekend when i really should've been revising for finals instead of gallivanting in the lakes. sat finals in the ever worsening throes of first trimester, started work in a dangerous job (acute male inpatient psych) during second trimester and felt like my medical career has stalled before it even started when i'd to go on maternity leave. but as my wise obgyn told me (and probably all his other patients!), "there's never a right time to have a baby, but it's always a good time". and i like to think he was right. conscious that we were incredibly lucky to have a baby without any complications and have nothing but respect for parents whose path to parenthood was longer and more intentional than ours. 

the birth itself wasn't entirely straightforward. L was late and i'd to be induced, labour was initially hard to establish but we got there in the end. his heart rate dropped while i was pushing and he needed a ventouse. in a way the ventouse  helped because i literally pushed thrice and for probably less than five minutes before he was delivered in all his slippery glory onto my chest. through it all, i'm grateful that God was in control and the medical team was wonderful. words cannot begin to describe the gratitude i feel to them, and of course nothing but praise for my incredible obgyn. aside: being post-dates is probably the most annoying thing earth because (well meaning) friends keep asking if there's a baby yet (from week 37!) so that's like a month of bother despite my telling them that as and when there's a baby, i'll let them know. it got to a point where i disengaged and stopped replying because was like groundhog day, or what einstein described as insanity (doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different outcome!). also, friends who'd elective sections just didn't seem to get it and kept saying 'oh your baby could come before 40 weeks'. to someone who was doing everything in her power to get the baby out (long walks, spicy food, accupuncture that hurt like crazy, other unmentionables...) it was really discouraging to be told 'maybe you're too stressed', because, oh hey, it's that easy. that said, i did enjoy the peace and quiet before he was born and had oodles of time on my hands to be self indulgent. i like to think it was a healthy, normal pregnancy, low risk, baby was happy and why would i have him before he was full-term? but try telling me that at week 40, i'd probably have had a few choice words.

two weeks on, i cannot imagine life without him. perhaps that's the reason behind a nine (ten in our case!) month gestation because it takes times for the realisation to sink in. while nothing could've / would've prepared me for what lay ahead, the switch just flicked when he was placed on me and everything changed in that split second.what i found helpful was friends who were positive, who told me it'd be more exhausting but also more fulfilling than i could ever imagine. their words ring even more true now he's here. without going into too much detail, what i didn't appreciate were friends, who i'm sure had the best of intentions, were negative about pregnancy / motherhood. constantly telling me 'just you wait till you can't reach your toes' or 'labour is hard then having a newborn is worse' or 'how breastfeeding is painful and hard' or 'you'll never sleep again'. didn't see the point of that - knowing beforehand doesn't benefit me and robs me of joy. and now that things are good, i'm subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to fall because i've been naive and taken the naysayers to heart. granted it's probably about frame of reference and if they've had a negative experience they're more likely to project that negative experience cos they don't know any other way. as C graciously pointed out when i'd a rant to her about negative friends i stopped replying because they got on my nerves, perhaps it was underscored by an element of baby blues. 

but the negativity is everywhere - even in choice of words and nuance. people ask how we're 'coping'. which implies it's difficult and challenging. singaporean friends are horrified we don't have a confinement nanny but we decided against the invasion of privacy and also i'm very bad at following instructions and could only envision myself going stir crazy if someone was paid to tell me what to do. it's just us three against the world and i'm constantly reminder what a rockstar the mister is. he cooks, cleans, launders, does groceries, runs around the far reaches of greater london picking up gumtree baby kit (moses basket, snuzpod, stokke high chair and newborn attachment, travel cot), does all the admin (uk birth certificate, sg citizenship application, opens bank account etc) so i don't have to lift a finger. becoming a parent has made me less judgmental when it comes to hired help - used to wonder why two adults couldn't manage their own spawn and needed so much assistance (involved inlaws, confinement nanny, domestic helper etc). but now i kinda shrug and realise it's a personal choice and the family unit has to do what's best for them.

my thoughts on the whole confinement issue are cherry picking, to say the least. for friends unfamiliar with confinement, chinese (?) women believe that the month after the baby is born the mother (and baby!) should stay home and be cared for, and avoid the cold and water at all costs. no drinking water, no showers / baths, no washing hands. just wipe down with towel (eww) and eat and drink nutritious, restorative soups and food. there's a whole industry (i call it racket) of confinement ladies who can be hired to care for the mother and newborn for a pretty penny. or the grandmothers do it. from what friends have shared, they care for the baby so the mother can rest and recover, bringing the baby to mother for feeds and giving mother lotions and potions that will increase milk supplies.

with that as the context, the mister has been sweet to brew me 6L of confinement tea every day (red dates and herbs his mother kindly sent us) and cook me so-called confinement food (food with lots of ginger and vinegar). however this has been supplemented by a healthy doses of diet coke with ice and lemon, coconut water and as much takeaway as we can bring ourselves to charge to the credit card. pizza, burgers you name it, we've had it in the last two weeks. i find the no water ban particularly gross because it's so important to keep bits and stitches (yep, war zone but i'm on some very powerful and possibly off licence analgesics!) clean and to wash my hands before i touch baby / food etc. i do what makes me feel comfortable like dress warmly, wear socks and bedroom slippers indoors, have a hot shower at night, wear gloves the rare time i'm doing the dishes so the mister gets some downtime to decompress.

we're inspired by our friends here who care for the newborns on their own and it's a complete paradigm shift from the rules and rigidity (real or perceived) in singers. while everything changed, nothing changed and we still do what we want to do when we want to. blessed to have had a speedy and uncomplicated recovery. we've been out every day for a meal or a walk since being discharged on hospital on day three. nothing overly ambitious, staying in the 'hood and revisiting our usual haunts, albeit with baby in tow. kinda cool to be back and no longer pregnant cos they must've thought i'd been pregnant forever with no sign of baby (not pregnant but fat?). ventured to the country last weekend, and again this weekend for our first overnight stay away. he comes everywhere with us and the only thing i'm picky about is germy children near him. if a kid coughs i grab him and run a mile.

he's a great baby, sleeps feeds pees and poos well, meeting all his baby KPIs. nothing disturbs him  - he slept through really loud worship in church! we get more sleep than the fearmongerers predicted with him sleeping 11pm-3am, waking for a feed, then sleeping till 8/9am since the night he was born, with the sole exception of day 3. he's a happy, alert baby, doesn't fuss, isn't cranky, only cries when he's hungry, content to sit in his own swill because we're lazy about nappy changing (bad parents!). definitely have parent goggles on when i say he's a breeze to care for. cautiously optimistic that things stay this was but also realistic that it's early days yet and it could all go tits up. so again it doesn't help when people check in and i say he's doing well and they go 'just you wait, everything will change for the worse'. you probably wonder where i find such friends haha ;) i'm already paranoid enough and don't need help catastrophising.

it's teamwork and the mister and i quickly learnt to sleep through L's heavy breathing and lip smacking if it's not our turn, with the mister doing the odd night feed so i get extra shut eye. thankfully L doesn't cry unless we ignore his hunger for over 15min (fair enough!) so there's ample warning to get him on the breast. this way we needn't sleep separately, too, which's important for us. L's been exclusively on breast milk since day 3 when we got home (topped up with formula in the hospital but didn't need to once milk came in) and i've been expressing milk now and then for the mister to take over some feeds.

on that note, breastfeeding has been an amazing experience. i'd a little the head knowledge coming into this but until i saw milk coming out, i didn't really connect the two. had a really rough night our first night home from hospital (day 3, milk came in, too engorged, L couldn't latch, i didn't know what to do and grudgingly resorted to formula for fear i'd starve him otherwise) but had a wonderful lactation consultant come round later that day. 90min with her changed everything and we've not looked back. producing good amounts of milk and back to exclusively breast feeding. am so satisfied to watch my baby feed and grow solely on what my body is making for him. it's hard not to be smug / self-satisfied when i look at full bottles of breast milk and thank God for a body that's fearfully and wonderfully made. 

it's a steep learning curve but i feel we're getting more familiar with L and his (few) needs. interpreting his cues better with time and wanting to bottle up his newborn preciousness. he's growing and changing before our very eyes and i finally understand where mothers, whom i previously thought were overly sentimental when they bemoaned their babies growing up too fast, are coming from. oops, guilty as charged.

it's been the longest and shortest two weeks of our lives and i'm once again so very glad it's just us three against the world. we want him to be kind, to have good sound values and prioritise social skills over baby algebra. figure he'll learn to read, write and count when he's ready but more importantly want him to play and regard the world with wonder as a child and beyond. we're trying our best to parent with wisdom and grace, constantly battling self-doubt and asking each other 'did we do the right thing? are we terrible parents?'. it's hard - whoever says it's not is lying - but oh so worth it and i'm looking forward to this journey with him. hence if he binds my feet so i slow down to walk with him, it's a change in pace i'm more than happy to embrace for my sweet baby boy.

petersham

petersham is a summer go-to and think was last there about 18months ago over third wedding anniversary. in fact, we ran from home and met my parents (who went by car!) there so we've fantastic photos of us looking fit in compression tights. or maybe that's just the endorphin high speaking. was much less energetic at 38 weeks pregnant but did still religiously walk my 10k steps / 7km in hope of walking the baby out. no such luck and prof later laughed at me because 'walking doesn't work'. oh well, that was reason enough for me to give up. 

there's a different charm to the place in winter. all lovely soft light and crisp blue skies. walking along the thames path towards kew after lunch was good fun, albeit cold. the restaurant wasn't too crowded and while it does cost a pretty penny to dine there it was a nice mid-week treat.

sloane square

a couple of sundays ago i met C and her lovely baby L for coffee near sloane square. was a little early and we hadn't pinned down a place to meet at so i sat on a bench and watched the world go by. it was a timely reminder to remain present, to enjoy the immediate surroundings. would be lying to say i wasn't the tiniest bit apprehensive about this surprise baby but grace for the day, eh? and constantly appreciative of good health and a smooth pregnancy so far, things i won't take for granted. because, as always, being in healthcare is a stark reminder of things that go wrong. although i've been chastised for being a tad too YOLO for planning to spend week 36 on the ski slopes. it's about the latest time BA will fly a pregnant person and hm i've been medically cleared by my fantastic prof. not that i'm going to be getting any (downhill) skiing done, mind, but you know. why ever not? hope this reckless behaviour doesn't come back to bite me in the backside. don't quite fancy delivering my own baby, ya know?

sort of grad trip

if it can even be called that. hadn't been feeling well the whole month of finals and wasn't sure if i'd pass. was keen for escapism but uncertain about flying, much less going to an unfamiliar place and ending up in a&e. so a road trip was the sensible option and the poor friend i arm twisted into letting me gatecrash said roadtrip very kindly rang ahead and plotted all the walk-in centres and A&Es we'd pass en route. to say it was an epic drive is an understatement and i'm a pain to be with for extended periods of time. drove to oban via glasgow then took the ferry to mull where we'd two nights before another series of car ferries to skye. 

won't lie - was in a funny state of mind on the trip. strange mix of anger, frustration, fear (of failing) and my coping mechanisms are far from developed so escapism was the way to go. did feel better as the trip progressed, although again massive props to long suffering friend who'd to put up with my need for constant wee stops (must've fertilised half of the highlands), mandatory afternoon nap (would just fall asleep mid conversation and that would be the end of it) and general grumpiness at being hangry or motion / sea sick on top of sick sick. 

there was also the little issue of my visa that saw us stuck for over 3h at a not so nice part of glasgow. i was hypoglycaemic after not eating and they kept me in past closing because their computers weren't working .it was literally me and the cleaner left in almost complete darkness cos all the lights had gone off. phone was almost outta juice and friend had gone on a wander but dutifully back after under an hour in case i was done (fat hope) so it was just a really awkward 2h where i couldn't leave the building nor communicate. did get the visa at the end of it all but by which time it was too late to head home. ended up somewhere nice because, well, results were going to be out at 9am and i wanted to be in a position to celebrate, or drown my sorrows, whichever the case may be. 

kept waking up in the middle of the night and my study group whatsapp was pinging with our alternative careers should things not go according to plan. but at 9am, the 8 days of misery then distraction came to an end and i celebrated with jubilant facetimes to family from the lobby then glasses of grapefruit juice because i was too cheap to spring for champagne. 

have a photodump coming in the next few days so check back if you'd like to see more highland photos and travelogue.

first week down

pleased to report that my initial apprehension was misplaced. to risk tempting fate, dare i say i love my job. when we first found out in march (?), i had a mini freak out and was desperate to swap my first job because it's not a specialty i'm vaguely interested in. all that stopped me from doing so was this overwhelming sense of peace that surpassed all understanding, so i didn't. and boy am i glad i didn't because unbeknownst to me, this is the best possible job for what's currently unfolding in my life. remain immensely grateful for provision and protection, because so much is beyond my control and i couldn't have planned this better if i had been the sort to plan. 

on a fab team in a challenging and demanding unit but feel supported and understood in a way i hadn't expected. we hear all these first job horror stories and it's hard not to buy into the fear. for obvious reasons (information government, patient confidentiality etc) i'm going to have to be deliberately vague about where i am or what i'm doing but always happy to share more in person. needless to say, things are looking good :)

what does get my goat, however, is the negativity and presumption i'm faced with when speaking with acquaintances and this probably isn't the forum to vent irritation. but when someone asks how things are then answers their own question with "must be very tough" i wonder if they're trying to be understanding / patronising / condescending. if you already seem to know then why ask haha. but it's not and i try not to get my heckles up and go on the defensive. because everyone needs encouragement and i'm less inclined to want to talk to energy-sappers. maybe it is tough and i'm in denial and here i am lapsing into war stories but another bug bear is when doctors say lawyers have it easier. they don't. i've been both. and lawyers work harder and have more demands made of them. why else would i tap out to choose the dark side?!! again, presumption and hm i need to stop taking sides :P doctors don't bring their patients home, it's lawyers who're on call 24/7 with blackberries. doctors know their rotas, have visibility re: being on call etc. lawyer's have fixed periods they know they're going to be busy over, but at any given moment, things can hit the fan and it's all hands on the deck without any warning. evidently didn't last long in commercial litigation myself but had dinner at home max four times in six months, and was in to the office for at least a day every weekend. so no, smug registrar who told me lawyers got off easily, no they don't and i've nothing but respect for the profession and their work ethic. 

as a not-so-funny aside: even today, on the rare occasion an email from my former boss pings in my inbox, my heart skips a beat (in the most adrenaline-driven, unromantic way) even though i know it can't be work-related!

pre-empting the need for hibernation this weekend, had gone easy on the social calendar this week but turns out i didn't have to and ended up going out with friends after work almost every night! which was great :) didn't anticipate having the energy to do anything else but wahey :)

checked out a new salad bar in the 'hood on wednesday with darling M who just turned 30.

 

had a fab south african style bbq at friends' beautiful mews house on thursday with newlyweds whose joburg wedding i had to pass on in the midst of finals. gracious hosts JP & F need no introduction, having been in copenhagen with them in october then NYC in feb.

met newlyweds L & N whom i hadn't seen since our first wedding anniversary in london on friday for sticks&sushi at wimbledon

and then malaysian*supper club with D &co. last night. oh and dimsum for 11 (but 14 heartbeats hehe) at lunch time today! so, truly, it's been a bumper week of catch ups and being back in london after summer means seeing all the lovely folk who've reconvened in this little city we call home (for now).

as the dust settles

it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, to say the least. went on a last minute road trip post-exams because eight days of rocking back and forth in a padded cell was more than i could subject my mental health to, went to glasgow (!!!) to get my visa sorted and found out the next morning that i'd passed finals. the shock, the relief, the overwhelming joy. then it was back to toon for grad ball, a 'crisis management' driving lesson and then my driving test bright and early the next morning. passed that too, and felt like a rockstar. yes, been driving since i was 18 but was lazy and got an automatic licence in sg so thought it high time i grew up and learnt how to drive manual. which i did. so there!

was in singers for a couple of weeks then back to london. parents came up for grad and it was busy busy, with a short trip to the country after. funny story there - father had said we were going to the cotswolds before realising it was a 3h drive from london. he made the executive decision that a 45min drive was sufficiently heroic and we ended up at cliveden*house near maidenhead. beautiful setting, set in the national trust so lots of lovely grounds and walks. didn't have the heart to tell him that we could've just stayed in london and slept at mine, seeing how we remained so close to the city.

parents left and i pottered around the flat before deciding i needed a final fling before starting work (tomorrow!) and escaped north as i'm wont to do. lazy weekend with 12h zz, good food and good company, the perfect end to this five year sabbatical.

so i start work tomorrow and am more than a little apprehensive today. the responsibility! this is my career we're talking about! i'm working again (gulp) but the other part of me is thinking that this is about time, that this end point / starting point is what i've been inching towards for the last five years. and now i'm finally here, i should really be more positive.

party animal

have a dear friend in singers who first clued me into the joys of a roasted pig. the mister and i would traipse round to his bearing hawker centre goodies and a roast suckling pig to celebrate getting into medsch / his phD / numerous other life-changing achievements, and occasionally just because because being young and alive is reason enough for celebration, no? so it was kinda cool when our hosts took this a level up by slaughtering the fattened teenage (as opposed to suckling?) pig because there was lots more pig!!! and come on, how dramatic is watching it slow roast on a spit for hours and hours? delayed gratification at its best ;) also, i can sorta get why mark*zuck made a thing about only eating animals he'd slaughtered himself. not that i did any slaughtering but there's something less guilt-inducing about eating an animal that was born and bred in supreme comfort, treated really well during its (short) life and killed humanely. makes me want to avoid supermarket bought pork now and only have pork if it's from a farm shop and reared on site.

but this is quick evolving into a husbandry / responsible farming + consumption lecture so no! needless to say, piggy tasted amazing. roasted to perfection (our hosts are not new to this game, oh no...) and lechon as they taught us was customary for them. the skin was crispy, crunchy and chewy at the same time. they very kindly gave me the ear (!!!) which i enjoyed thoroughly and hm i don't think i can go back to duck*waffle pig ears in a bag after enjoying the real deal.

oh hello

it's been some time! 2016 off to a flying start and um, how is it already march??? time's been whizzing past and the busier real life gets, the quieter things are on the blog front. final year is progressing at break-neck pace and i keep pinching myself wondering how exactly i'm going to sit and be done with finals in three (!!!) months! but the more i think about it, the more accessible / achievable this insurmountable goal is. left with eight weeks of surgery and in the middle of that we've a two week easter break. yay! sound like a broken recorder but i really like what i do and am ever joyous to have cut losses and made the switch when i did. it's surreal to think about how in a matter of months i'm the doctor, i'm the one where the buck stops and i've to take responsibility for my decisions. feeling increasingly prepared for the mantle and am just excited, really, to move on with life! speaking of which, got some fab news yesterday and my first job is going to be in central london, hopefully at a hospital two streets from the flat. that's unheard of and i'm so very grateful, so humbled, by how things have worked out. to get my first choice deanery when the odds were daunting, to say the least, is beyond belief. but God!

as a doctor, visibility is something in woefully short supply and i'm just glad to know where i'm going to be for the next two years. one day at a time? yet it feels a little premature to be celebrating my first job before clearing the little hurdle that is finals!

i'm sorry, this must be very boring talk! logistics and future and other adult-y things i've been putting off as long as possible because my castle is the clouds is where i'd rather be. have some posts coming up with photos and brief commentary of life of late. do check back, if you'd like to see :)

2016, let's gooO!

it's no secret that primrose hill is my happy place. am a one trick pony and it's my default 'things to do' suggestion when friends are in town. instead of squeezing into a stinky hipster coffee place, i suggest we take a walk to and up primrose hill if the weather is good. best views of london and have spent many happy hours there this year. so it was only fitting to spend NYE there too with the hordes of other revelers. just like 2012/13 (see, one trick pony!) was sandwiched between schoolgirls and rastafarians, second-hand smoke of the green sort aplenty. was also late (typical!) and ended up sprinting up the hill in wellies as the crowd counted down and fireworks went off. thank goodness that went on for awhile so i caught most of it when sufficiently elevated. at my height, every little counts and wouldn't have been able to see any of it otherwise! 

did a little 2015 review in the previous post so will spare you the self-indulgent reflection. in a way, 2015 was really hard and i'm so glad it's over. not quite good riddance but you get the picture. was recounting the year and it had more lows than highs, and the uncertainty about the future really got to be. there are definitely moments i'm not proud of, and moments i wish to never repeat. but that's life, isn't it. i'm hopeful for 2016, cautiously optimistic about a year that will see five years of hard graft come to fruition, to close one chapter and begin the next. since we got married in 2012 (yay, acquired a spouse and a house!), the years that followed have been a relatively happy continuum but i'm itchy for some action. growth is painful, and being stretched then stretched some more - even more so! but through it all i know Who holds my future, and who holds my hand.

onwards and upwards! here's wishing you a bigger, better and brighter 2016.

majorca!

don't think this was how i'm meant to spend white time but who's counting! the scheduling gods gave me some opportune time off and on a whim the mister booked us to majorca. have heard lots of good things about the balearic islands but never thought to go! my relationship with london is love-hate at best but one of the things it does have going for it is its sheer connectivity. love how we're really only a couple of hours flight away from endless holiday possibility. was never much of a sun seeker, and still am not, but it's been a wet and grey few weeks and was desperate for some warmth. the mister, bless him, was quick to oblige and made it happen at almost no notice. which sort of takes the fun out of delicious anticipation but hey, a cheeky majorcan jaunt? count me in! we were lucky with the flights, seamless and took off on time. the bubbles with breakfast were a nice touch (well done, BA!) and okok maybe we were a little extravagant for a short-haul flight ;)

touched down in palma and the savvy mister who'd done the math figured it was way cheaper to rent a car than get hotel transfers for two both ways. hadn't planned on leaving the hotel (he jokes that i don't really see places but hotels...) but figured having wheels would give us some flexibility for exploration. although there is a rather incriminating photo of my grumpy fase on fb taken the exact moment he mooted leaving the cabana to check out the coastal roads. 

will be posting over the next few days about the hotel and the (reluctant) touring we got up to so do check back if you'd like to see! 

willing bell boy eight years and counting!

starred resto by day

and by night!

beautiful setting in old stone barn, a far cry from the stone bunkhouse i've spent a few nights in with wilderness medicine! they do an amazing christmas 'do or so we're told. and the olive oil was divine. it's all from their land but outsourced to be pressed and we couldn't resist loading up the suitcase with bottles for a chosen few friends.

also, we stuck out like sore thumbs because everyone else was senior citizen and white. not that i'm usually conscious about these things but i do wonder what's going through their mind when they clock us. just like how over dinner we'd people watch and guess their backstories, like the elegant german couple who wore the same thing two days in the row. the lady oozed a refinement that money can't buy, and the man looked like an evil inventor sort in suspenders. suspenders!!!

come wine with me

don't know about you but the mister and i celebrate most things with alcohol. not the healthiest of habits but it's testament to the power of advertising and branding, like how it's not a celebration if we don't pop open a bottle of champers. in fact, C very kindly gifted us bubbles graciously carried to london from trieste that we'd been saving for the occasion. it was such a labour of love (especially on ryanair!) and sweet of her to want us to try a product her hometown was famous for. all for cottage industry and this was from a small producer that doesn't export. she's born and bred and proudly trieste-ian(?) so if it's got her vote of confidence, that's more than reason to try. 

oh! but for this celebratory steamboat meal we cracked open the brunello the mister's folks carried home for us after his tuscan trip two summers ago! they were in london when i was having exams and he knew for the sake of my academic transcript the three of them were better off in italy ;) good call, mister. without going into too much detail, it was a rough time at work and the mister brought the brunello to look forward to when the tide changed. 

speaking of tuscany and brunellos, we've a bottle in singers waiting for me to graduate from medsch. because it was while we roadtripped tuscany in 2010 on my grad trip that the idea to sit medsch entrance exams and apply germinated. keep saying that if not for the mister's encouragement, and signing me up for entrance exams the same time as the bar exam (!!!) i would never have bitten the bullet. so we bought a good bottle then and i hope it's somewhere safe with his folk in singers for us to share with family when we're next home over summer. and our respective folk aren't big drinkers so hey, more for us :)

as a funny aside, the mister unilaterally decided our current red wine glasses were substandard (they're ikea...) and insisted on only drinking out of 'proper' wine glasses. which resulted in a race against time to the shops before they closed but we got lucky and it was love at first sight (for him) at john*lewis with this set. i initially lamented the expense but as the night wore on and the alcohol got the better of me, the wine glasses started to grow on me and now i think they're absolutely splendid and wonder why we didn't splurge earlier. oh i know why, he didn't have a fab job then ;)

crash landing to reality

oh, hello. thanks for stopping by. have been admittedly errant in not updating this little space. it's been a busy summer and it's been nice to take a step back and let life sweep me away. melodrama aside, fortunate to have spent time in both homes (london and singers) and quite accidentally circumnavigate the globe. was in london for the first half of my elective and singers for the rest of it. and in a vain attempt to console myself that unlike my less encumbered classmates who were spending their electives sipping rum on the beach in aruba, i thought i'd squeeze in some travel. a family friend was tying the knot in beverly hills and that was all the excuse i needed to hop over to the west coast. flew from london to frisco then roadtripped down the coast (big sur oi oi!) before breaking inland to yosemite, because, well, why not then back out to the coast towards LA (and beverly hills). had a funny moment at immigration when filling in the form and realising i knew the postcode (zip code haha) for the beverly hills hotel. grew up in the '90s, guilty as charged. although a much older friend also knew the post code so i think someone's development was arrested but let's not point fingers now. 

after the wedding, flew east and over to singers via tokyo before going from singers to london at the tail end of my pseudo summer break. round the world in (not quite) 80 days!

have been posting sporadically on fb, more for my benefit and memory than anything else (contrary to popular belief, the highlight reel that is fb is ALL FILTERED AND FOR SHOW). so no, real life is far from as glamorous or glossy as it may seem. bumped into K a few days ago, on a day where i was organising my closet by colour, and reminded her that hermetic days where i regress into OCDed strangeling is as representative of this funny existence as the holidaying may be. will be posting photos and thoughts over the next few days. in desperate need of post-processing as i started final year (!!!) last week and feel i can't quite move on mentally and ready myself for the onslaught that is finals prep if i haven't categorised the simmering maelstrom of thoughts and feels from the blissful interim between third and final year. fourth year, oh ya, was truly get out of jail. 

so do check back if you'd like to read :) thanks for hanging around and bearing with me while i made repeated forays into the real world X