Singapore & BBQs

Not much to report on the house at the moment, hence the lack of updates. The insurance company is waiting for the Hackney Police to supply the files on our break in so they can make a decision. In the meantime we've gone a bit OCD checking that the doors are locked before going to sleep.

Last month we went to stay with our next door neighbours in Singapore. They moved over there a year ago with a job posting, so we took advantage of their hospitality (and roomy house, live-in nanny and massive pool, pictured top) to have a 10-day break in the sun. We enthused over the cheap and delicious South East Asian food and balmy climate, whereas they were pining for gastropubs and chillier days. They're headed back this summer anyway, so it'll be back to competitive BBQing. We may aquire a smoker too - smoked meat and cheese keeps cropping up in conversation. Now that British Summer Time has kicked in and the garden is starting to burst into life BBQ season feels just around the corner. Yippee!

House warming party

We just had the first May Bank Holiday weekend in England, and it was a significant weekend for us as we had a few reasons to celebrate. Firstly, 10 years of marriage (no-one thought we'd last this long, least of all me!), our eldest just turned six and our youngest is about to turn three, and sod it, despite the house not being completely finished we decided to have a house warming BBQ too. I only sent out the invitations a few weeks ago to try and keep the numbers down, and fortunately loads of people had booked trips away or had other engagements. As it happened we ended up with 18 kids and 40+ adults throughout the day, which was plenty.

As you can see from the photos, the weather was cracking - perfectly sunny and completely still, which was lucky as later in the evening we set off 10 Chinese night sky lanterns over Hackney. Even more incredible was that some late arrivals got a bit lost, but found our house by following their noses to the source of the lanterns. The same couple were trekking around Victoria Park the next afternoon and found one of our lanterns still pretty much intact in the park! Amazing co-incidence! (And quite frankly I'm impressed that they were able to leave the house at all, we took two days to surface after the party...)

Spring sunshine

A visitor from Bethnal Green supplied this photo of our BBQ lunch a couple of weekends ago, and as it shows the house looking sort of finished it seemed a shame not to use it. (Notice how half the deck is missing). Can't understand how the previous owners of this property just didn't make it easy to get out to the garden. The back door was off a tiny utility room, through two sets of doors from the stairs, and a whole floor below the kitchen. Bonkers.

Even though the garden is east facing, it gets the sun from sun up until the middle of the afternoon. We're hoping that as summer kicks in the sun will last even longer as it'll be higher in the sky and should peep over the rooftops. The neighbours said previous occupants had painted the entire middle floor black. Maybe they just don't like sunlight, and hence didn't see the appeal of a garden? Weirdos.

The garden, circa 2004?

One of the reasons we decided to look for another property was hubby's insistance that life would be better if we had a garden. Our flat has a balcony which is perfect for a large Weber BBQ and can fit 3 friends comfortably, or 5 at a squash, but we became paranoid about the BBQ smoke billowing into our neighbour's homes and last summer I think we could count the number of times we sparked up the Weber on one hand. (It was also a very wet summer, but the balcony is under cover).

The new house has a 57 foot garden, shown here in a very tidy condition with flat paving stones and plants in cute terracotta pots. Neither hubby nor I are into gardening - the last time we had a (tiny) lawn we paid a fella to come round and mow it.