What have we been up to since we returned to Singapore in July?

Olive
We enrolled Olive in a new childcare centre in July but it’s only temporary as she starts at a preschool in January. This temporary school is 20 yards from my new office, which means I take Olive to school every day. This is the best time of the day for me; I really enjoy hanging out with Olive. We take a 10-minute walk from home to the bus stop, play games at the bus stop and say hello to the Indian construction workers who are building Mediapolis (Olive is convinced they are building her a huge playground). We’ve never seen more the four people on the bus so it’s basically like a large private taxi. We know the driver and two other guys who ride the bus so Olive waves madly at her friends when they arrive every morning. Three stops up Portsdown Road and we arrive at Fusionopolis. We then have a 10-minute walk to Olive’s school. Every morning I have to make up two new stories for Olive that will last both walking legs of the journey. Olive always gives me two characters to create a story around … more often than not a princess and a fairy. I drop Olive at school then cross the road to my office at Mediapolis. I can see the playground from my window and can hear the kids playing. Wonderful.

At midday, Sandy and Leo take the same bus up Portsdown Road to collect Olive and I’ll usually pop over to the school to see them or to pass Sandy takeaway Malay mixed rice for her lunch. If it’s raining hard, I’ll bring Olive to the office and wait for Sandy there. Olive enjoys playing hide-and-seek in the warehouse part of my office.

Olive has now started ballet on Saturday mornings, which she absolutely loves. Olive and I walk to the ballet class, which is housed in a gym in the nearby Science Park so, while Olive does pirouettes, Daddy hits the gym. A perfect Saturday morning. After ballet, I take Olive on the bus to my office where we mess around and buy more Malay mixed rice for lunch. My office is littered with paper cups full of water which Olive leaves for the “friendly baby monsters who are thirsty”. We’ve now run out of paper cups.

Olive loves cooking and she and I often cook scrambled eggs on toast or oeufs en cocotte for breakfast at the weekend. We also love to make strawberry ice lollies … delicious and kind of healthy (strawberries, Greek yoghurt, black pepper and only a little sugar). Olive and I can eat these all day long but Sandy's not used to the flavour as they don't contain any chemicals or preservatives.

Olive’s English is really good and she can chat about anything for hours. She’s quite serious but does have a sense of humour developing. She’s still very shy though, so finds it hard to talk to strangers. Olive’s Chinese is limited to singing and she only seems to have one verb in her vocabulary so her spoken Chinese is pretty non-existent. She knows lots of nouns, she just needs some verbs to link them together! Her recognition of letters of the alphabet and numbers is still very poor but we’re trying not to worry about it. This is Singapore though. I notice during her ballet class that the other mothers (I’m always the only dad) spend an hour drilling other kids in English and Chinese vocab or sentence building. It takes a lot of willpower to hold back and not force your kids into the same intensive learning regime.

On weekday afternoons Sandy takes the kids out to a park, play gym or friend's house. The mother's group tries to meet up once a week and Sandy often hangs out with friends and neighbours. Sandy is truly amazing although I try not to tell her this, lest she requests a raise.

On Saturday or Sunday afternoons I like to take Olive to the local bar where we get a table outside and do jigsaw puzzles and drawing with a few mugs of beer and orange juice.

Olive and Leo now sleep in the same room, which is fantastic. Sandy gives the kids a bath then, if I'm back from the office, I read them three books while they drink milk. They’re both asleep by about 8.30pm and wake at about 8am. I’ve trained Olive only to get up when she sees an 8 on her digital clock!

Another major milestone for Olive is that she’s stopped using diapers (during the day). What a relief. As a reward for using the loo she spent a morning in a toy store and came out with some scary-looking Barbie dolls. Oh well, anything is better than us having to clean poop.

Yesterday Olive told me she is becoming a big girl. She already talks about meeting a prince to marry (usually me!). She’s great at playing with older kids so if we go out to a restaurant she hangs out with the other kids. Last night we had pizza at Pietrasanta and I overheard Olive telling a girl on the swing that her daddy was the one with no hair! I shouted back that I have very hairy feet.

Leo
Like any 15-month-old boy, Leo spends his day laughing, spinning like a dervish, falling over, screaming, refusing to eat his food, stealing everybody else’s food, balancing on raw potatoes, shadowing his sibling, climbing the furniture, smashing glasses and vases, eating chalk ...

Leo’s first word was the same as Olive’s: ball. He understands everything but is much slower to talk than Olive. In addition to animal noises, he can say "hot", “more”, “no more”, “there”, “mama”, “bird”, "duck", “star”, “no” and, bizarrely, "giraffe". He loves dressing up in women’s clothes and wearing high heels. He’s got a molar poking through his gum at the moment and that’s causing him a lot of pain so he likes to carry around a tube of Bonjella.

Phil
Having lost more than 10kg (1 3/4 stone), I’ve now turned into a health freak. Hopefully it’s a passing phase. It’s not as fun as the eating and drinking phase I’ve been enjoying for the last 20 years. I run 3 clicks home from work, I cycle 5 to 10 km and swim 1 km at the gym several times a week (I know it’s not much but I’ve only just started!). Worryingly, I’ve signed up for a triathlon but I hate running, I can’t do front crawl and I don’t have a bike! Thank god the triathlon season is over in Singapore and the next one isn’t until early 2012. I’m also playing tennis again, which is great fun. A year ago I couldn’t run for more than 5 mins, now I can do an hour on the court. I’ve finally given up smoking and junk food, I’ve cut down on red meat (although Sandy tells me we have steak for dinner tonight), I drink less beer and the result is … none of my clothes fit. I feel great even if Sandy’s family say I just look gaunt (never a good source if you’re looking for encouragement!).

Sandy
I wanted to ask Sandy what’s new in her life but she’s too busy cooking and cleaning so I don’t want to disturb her. I’m quite sure she would have a lot of exciting things to tell everybody. “No, I don’t! Lunch is ready!”

Below is a selection of photos I found on the camera. They date back to a party at Holly and Nel’s house in London.

Ouch! I was stung by an African Killer Bee, or at least a Singaporean Not-quite-lethal-but-still-bloody-painful Bee. Or was it a hornet? You can only see a part of it in the photo, the remainder of the insect is in my upper thigh pumping venom into me. As soon as it happened — at home, so at least I'm thankful it stung me and not one of the kids — it felt like the first millisecond of an injection when a hypodermic needle first pierces your skin. Unfortunately, 30 seconds later it still felt like that first millisecond of an injection when a hypodermic needle first pierces your skin. My leg then went stiff, turned red and fell off. OK, not quite so bad but my advice is don't sit on one of these buggers if you can help it.

Sandy — A typical day in the life of my husband: in the morning slips over in the bathroom flat on his back and sprains some never-before-used muscles; get's stung by a bee in the afternoon; eats too much chilli for dinner and has the runs.

Phil's parents were last seen two weeks ago. Presumed snowed in. We'll dig them out for Christmas.

Olive and I hit the zoo again this morning and when we returned home my two little monkeys, Olive and the squeaky one with no name, gave me a father's day present: a hotdog. This may seem an unusual gift but when daddy has been surviving on Chinese confinement food for two weeks, a crappy hotdog from Ikea tastes like manna from Heaven. Thank you Olive, thank you squeaky one.

A friend recently introduced me to internet tethering using an iPhone as a wireless modem. Amazing! I don't even need to touch the phone, I just connect the laptop to the phone wirelessly via Bluetooth then surf the net using the phone's 3G connection. Obviously you don't need to do that if you're already in a WiFi hotspot but it's great for surfing the net or checking emails in those few remote parts of Singapore that are not covered by free wireless internet ... er, like the jungle.

In a rare display of disobedience, some naughty fellow has spray painted graffiti on the sidewalk outside my office. "We are in love". Radical! Only in Singapore. Hopefully this romantic rebel won't be tracked down by the police otherwise he faces a jail term and caning.

When I arrived at the "Health for Life Centre" this morning the doctor sat me down and explained that I'm carrying around a lot of extra baggage! Apparently I need to lose at least 5kg (11lb) although I quickly pointed out that the nurses had weighed me with all my clothes on! (During the weigh-in I offered to strip for the cute Malay nurses but they turned me down.)

My cholesterol levels are as follows:

• Total cholesterol: 5.56 mmol/L (215 mg/dl) = borderline high
• Triglycerides: 1.96 mmol/L (174 mg/dl) = borderline high
• HDL (good cholesterol): 1.11 mmol/L (43 mg/dl) = desirable
• LDL (bad cholesterol): 3.70 mmol/L (143 mg/dl) = borderline high
• HDL ratio: 5.01 = not good!

My BMI is a bit too high and needs to come down. My body fat is way too high (no more processed pizza and hot dogs for me). My phosphate levels are too low (processed pizza and hot dogs here I come). And if that wasn't enough, the doctor really had to stick the knife in by claiming I have a build-up of ear wax!

Luckily my ECG, chest x-ray and blood glucose results were fine and my eyesight is perfect.

The doctor suggested I cut down on red meat and was not impressed when I told her I'd barbecued a massive steak the night before. She also asked me to cut down on intestines and fish roe, which should be easier to follow. She was a little confused to learn the monthly alcohol consumption figures on her report were in fact my weekly alcohol consumption figures and she didn't appear to be familiar with binge drinking so obviously didn't train in the UK.

I'm devising a fitness plan now and will share it with you if it ever comes into being. I did poke my head round the door of the gym at work this afternoon but it made me rather queasy.

UPDATE: I bought a healthy salad for lunch yesterday (costing me twice as much as local fare) and I now have food poisoning! I've had to take the morning off and work from home.

UPDATE#2: Both Olive and I are unwell, it's probably a stomach bug. Sandy and I have had to cancel our 7th wedding anniversary dinner tonight. I'm on soup until further notice. "That should help you lose weight!" Sandy