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I speak quickly. But worse than that, I’m also a bit of a mumbler – AND I’m not talking underpants mumbling for those with filthy minds. Anyone who has received a voicemail from me could probably testify to this… With that said, I think I’ve gotten better over the years, but the reality is, not much has changed. So imagine my communication attempts with someone speaking English as a second language or sometimes worse, people who speak English as a first language but pronounce their vowels in a completely different way? Welcome to Singapore. The vowels that seem to be an issue are i and e. For example, the infamous example in Singapore is Ikea. I pronounce it eye-key-a whereas a Singaporean would pronounce it ick-ia. My name always confuses due to the r and e in it, but my favourite of all time is baby powder. One day, while trying to buy baby powder for my husband and seeing it nowhere, I asked an old auntie if she could help. There were a lot of grunts of non-understanding, so I resorted to writing it down at the back of the book I was reading. Ahhhhh baby powderrrrrrrr with an emphasis on the O. I think my version of baby powda was just damn confusing for the old dear. Last time we lived here, Steve thought it was hilarious watching me communicate with just about anyone – face to face or on the phone I didn’t do too well. I tried really hard though and almost always kept my cool, I just can’t for the life of me work out how to pronounce something in a way that is understandable. Most questions/comments were met with a blank stare, but my favourite is what we termed the “Singapore Wave.” The “Singapore Wave” is when you ask someone for directions, they obviously have no idea what you’ve asked but rather than admit it (and lose face), they wave off in a direction, with a blank look on their face and a half smile, assuring you that this is the direction that must be taken. Many a time we have headed off in the direction (because what were we to do?) only to ask someone else and get the same response – usually pointing us back the way we came. We’ve walked around in circles a lot I can tell you. The funniest thing is watching other foreigners react. I learnt a long long time ago, when backpacking in China in 1995, that the worst thing you can do is get upset or angry. If you do I can promise you one thing – you will get absolutely fuck all help. I’d love to be able to teach foreigners reacting badly that this is a sure way to get nothing, but I suppose they need to learn the lesson themselves, and if they don’t learn it, they’re going to have a shithouse time here. Anyway, how could I get upset with anyone for not understanding me when so often my husband doesn’t even understand me? Well he claims not to, maybe he’s just bloody smart and as many men, only listens when it’s worthwhile? Off to the shops now. I wonder how many “Singapore Waves” I get today! Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

I’d have to say that 2009 and 2010 has been a pretty interesting time in our life. There’s been some fantastic moments, but there has also been a lot of “bad” things. The great thing about “bad” things is they teach you great things, and that means life gets better – unless you’re silly and miss the lessons, keeping alive the old shite you don’t want in your life. But we haven’t done that. We’ve continually assessed, reassessed and assessed again, always asking the only important question – what do we need to do/change to be happy? Noosa wasn’t a particularly happy time for us. Steve HATED the work he was doing with a passion and the demands of the job – including regular 2-5am get ups to go to work – YUK! In the meantime, I found it hard getting ahead with my stuff because of Steve’s job demands but there were good bits in there, like ghost writing Peter Hoddle’s book (a brilliant experience) and other writing projects. I suppose there was just too much tedium in the mix to make either of us smile. There were others things, but the work aspect was pretty key for both of us. The boys were pretty happy, but they’d be happy just about anywhere, although Lex definitely had a time of it – both a bully of a teacher and then his operation. Jax cruised through as always, but you’ll be pleased to note, he has officially entered the turd phase of growing up…. We promise you Jax we respect your independence, so no need to fight us love. Kids right? We’ve learnt some lessons, and in summary they are: Sometimes you just have to back yourself, no matter the risk We’re willing to make changes, no matter how exhausting it can be, until we reach our goal of everyone being content with their lot There are always great, strong people around who are willing to sacrifice it all to do the right thing, so thanks Amanda for raising the red flag on child abuse. We really appreciate what you did and all that you lost. You’ll always be able to hold your head up high and will have our eternal gratitude Diversity is really important to us and we want it around us all the time. We also want our boys to think that different faces/ways of thinking about things/religions, etc… is normal Settling down doesn’t appeal to us at all, so the “dream” isn’t something we want or something we are striving towards – we don’t know if we ever will. We don’t think badly of anyone who does want this, we just don’t Full time Mummy isn’t my bag Living with one focus – to be happy – is all that matters to us Believing in your kids is the most important thing of all and not letting anyone make you doubt yourself – it can certainly be hard but you’ve got to stay strong Creating a life that gives all of you time together as well as time to achieve your dreams is important to us “stuff” doesn’t matter Loyalty and doing as you say you will, is something we value highly We appreciate all of the great people we’ve met along the way, will continue to invest in those great friendships and look forward to meeting more amazing people in the future Sometimes friendships/relationships wane, but that’s OK. We’re all on different paths and while sometimes you mourn those no longer in synch with you, I like to celebrate the great years that were had and who knows, one day the vibe might come back We’re willing to keep moving and shaking things up to keep experiencing the true joy that life offers – life experience What’s more motivating than working for yourself? So there you go. I know there are lots more, but it’s a start.   I turned 41 today and I’ve got to say, I don’t like it. I know, I know, age is a state of mind and all that, but 41 used to be really old when I was younger, and now here I am. All I can do is be determined to make this my happiest, healthiest and most successful decade. I’m also working really hard at being more peaceful and serene – not easy for someone like me.   Thanks for all of the support reading my blog. I’ve been a bit busy of late, so not much activity, but I’ve got a whole host of new material since coming back to Singapore, and I look forward to sharing the yarns, the laughs and the memories.   Much love to all and here’s hoping 2011 is a time of joy, success and balance for all.   Yours, without the bollocks Andrea  

So its official, we’re heading back to live in Singapore and this time, the plan is to stay ‘til the boys get through primary school at least. Who knows, we might head elsewhere as both of us would love to experience living in India, but not until the boys understand that they can’t drink water out of a tap. That’s when we’ll seek out that opportunity. Making the decision to move back to Singers wasn’t the easiest decision to make on some levels, but the reality is, both Steve and I have big personal/professional ambitions that we both need to achieve to be happy. The other thing is we want time for each other and the boys, and to achieve all of this, the one thing we need is time, and Singapore is the only place where we can really get that. Not that we’ll be sitting on our arses drinking cosmos, we’ll be working our arses off, but we’ll have time to do that and the other things we want to do. Vick, our helper from before, is hopefully coming back to work for us, and that means all cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, baby sitting, etc… is covered – I personally can’t wait. Vick is an awesome person and we miss having her in our lives. She’s also amazing with the boys, so we know they’ll be in safe hands when we can’t be around. For the last 18 months we have not had anyone take the boys off us (except for an hour here or there), and then when we entrusted them to a local pre-school, Lex got abused by his teacher! Thus having a break from each other from time to time will be good for all of us. The reality is we just want to be able to work and be together – all of the other necessary life stuff is going to be outsourced. During this time in Australia, I’ve found the jobs of running a house, taking care of the boys, working, taking care of my husband, achieving all of my goals…. it’s impossible. Naturally, as most women will appreciate, the things that are not getting done are the things I want and need to do. I have personally decided that this is not a healthy position for me when I am champing at the bit to build a successful business and get my books published. Now I appreciate that some people reading this may think lazy cow! Or isn’t that how most of the world does it? And I agree with them that this is indeed how most of the world does it, but I don’t agree that I’m a lazy cow. I’ve just identified that some things make me happy and some things make me blah and some things make me really unhappy. For example, I never ever dreamed of being a “housewife,” so any duties in relation to that role make me really unhappy. There’s nothing wrong with being a housewife it’s just not something I ever wanted to do. Cooking is a bit of blah, but sometimes it makes me happy. Washing = unhappy. Shopping = extremely unhappy. Being alone all the time = unhappy. Working on the things I want to work on = happy, writing, anything really = happy. So that’s the focus moving forward. Make it possible for more of the happy boxes to be ticked, less ticks in the unhappy boxes and life will be good! The only reason why this decision hasn’t been easy is because we DID want to come to Australia to find our feet for a few years to get the boys through school. I definitely realise we made the “wrong” decision coming to Noosa, a where we knew no one, but as I don’t believe there are any wrong decisions only learning experiences, I think we came here to realise that we’re not meant to be in Australia and “settled,” yet. We both miss the diversity of Asia. We want our kids to know people of all races, religions and backgrounds as a normal part of their life. We want to be able to shower each other with love and attention because that makes us happy and when we’re shagged at the end of the day with no energy for the small things, well we just don’t like that. We want great friends and people in our lives who come from vastly different places and experiences. We want to laugh a lot and don’t believe that life should be a grind. It’s definitely been a grind here. So there you go, the decision is made. I can’t wait to reconnect with old friends, get SAJE cranking, and go out with Steve on a date – we’ve had one date in the last 18 months…. that’s not good. BTW I can recommend to anyone with young children, who still has a lot of personal ambition and isn’t enamoured with doing the whole stay at home/take care of kids/support husband/etc.. life, that living in a country where you can employ a full time live in housekeeper, nanny, etc… is a very good thing to do for your intellectual satisfaction. That is essentially why we have made this decision. My brain needs it. Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

This is very cool and also beautifully optimistic – thanks Siobhan! http://www.flixxy.com/200-countries-200-years-4-minutes.htm  Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

I’ve been a bit quietly lately as I decided to take on the job of designing the www.sajeideas.com Website. I checked around the area for some Web designers but the good ones were all flat out and as I’m not the most patient person on the planet, I decided screw it – how hard can it be? Well I reckon it is hard – bloody hard! Even when you use a template it’s bloody hard, because it tells you what to do and where something can go, and if you want to put a picture there, well screw you, because you can’t – unless you know how to decode the HTML, which I most certainly do not. Then you’ve got the whole font variations, how the content will look best within the design, and the appropriate size of the font – you don’t want it to look like a dogs breakfast after all! But wait, the fun continues – it won’t let you upload the logo where you want to upload it, finding and uploading pictures is a pain in the arse (the photo sites have a lot of naff content), and then you’ve got to link it all together and make it look pretty???!!! I don’t know what kind of a job I did but I’m sure many will be honest in their feedback. It’s OK for now as it’s designed to get the message out, but shite, after the time I’ve spent on this, I really should have outsourced the job. I certainly won’t be doing it again, because now I truly do appreciate what it takes. Therefore I’m officially looking for a good Web design partner. Any recommendations? Anyway, I’ve got better things to do – like writing witty blog content and soon, being the MD of SAJE. Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

I asked my Grandmother a couple of questions recently, as she is officially the oldest person I know. My Grandmother is amazing. She is definitely suffering some pretty intense physical issues that make life pretty uncomfortable, but she’s still going and bright as a button. In fact, Grandma checked herself into a nursing home three months ago – before that she lived in her own house. I reckon that’s amazing. I wrote a blog about her 100 year old birthday last March, which was a pretty interesting experience, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she lives well beyond 101. I certainly admire her strength of character. Anyways, I wanted to ask her thoughts on the meaning of life, because someone who lives that long has got to have an idea right? The great thing is that she did have some thoughts on these questions. If you ask a lot of “older” people they just don’t think about this stuff, so I was thrilled that she had and thought it was definitely worth sharing. So here is Grandma Totties’ life advice for anyone who is interested. Q1. What do you think is the meaning of life?The meaning of life is to keep God in your life because sooner or later we will all have to give an account of our life when we meet God face to face. Q2. What have you learnt in your hundred + years? To treat people as you would like them to treat you To help the underprivileged – e.g. Totties’ chooks in Mannya that I sponsored and the worming program for the village children, both in Uganda. I have done this sort of thing all through my life To keep up with your religion – please don’t think that I am telling you what to do Save some money for a rainy day so you won’t have to depend on other people in your old age Q3. If you could give your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren any advice on life what would you say? Live a good life, don’t take drugs, smoke or abuse alcohol and then you can die with no regrets Always pay your way and don’t rely on credit cards – I have always paid cash for what I want Keep God in your life and remember what you were taught as a child, the world might change but God doesn’t So there you go. I think “God” has certainly taken on a new meaning for me, but some pretty good, basic advice from someone born in 1910. Thanks Grandma! May the rest of your life be happy and comfortable.   Yours, without the bollocks Andrea  

Many years ago, I was travelling through Central America, I came across the weirdest thing – a person with the ability to pulse their eyeballs. It happened in Mexico. I was out adventuring and along came this youngish Mexican lad who decided I was pretty hot. He offered me lots of wild sex and all the while, his eye balls were pulsing as he looked at me. He even took me to show me where we could enjoy such lewd activities in his single room hut – a bachelor pad he proudly informed me. Mum, Dad, Grandma and the rest of the extended family were about two metres away in the next hut. Naturally I declined the offer, but thanked him for the attention and went on my way. Since then I’ve tried unsuccessfully to pulse my eye balls and haven’t met anyone else capable of doing it – although Steve does have a capacity for limited eyeball pulsing when he looks at me with real love in his eyes. It’s a lovely thing. So imagine my surprise this week when Jax, my two and three quarters year old, starting pulsing his eye balls at me!! He’s really getting into it too. Every time you change him, cuddle him or look at him, the little man will look back at you and off go those eyes again. It is truly hilarious and he just bloody loves doing it. Jax is a very funny little person. He’s constantly practicing new faces to pull, always discovering new tricks with his eyes, and cracking Benny Hill type gags. He’s the member of the family that always finds the light when things are getting a bit serious, and we’re constantly cracking up over his antics. It makes it terribly difficult to get angry with him though, and that is a bit of a problem, because he has this great ability to divert attention away from any naughtiness. We want to appear fair after all. We love Jaxie and if he turns out to be a stand up comedian one day, we certainly won’t be surprised. His big brother can be a bit intense, so it’s lovely having some balance with a son one who is cruising through life with a cheeky smile most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, he can be a turd too, but on the whole, he’s terrific. Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

We had the absolute pleasure of staying with our great friends Rob and Jules Scullin on the Gold Coast this weekend. It rained all weekend (as is the case down most of Australia’s East Coast at the moment), but it was a lovely time, and apart from getting three hours sleep on Saturday night (as it was my turn to get up with the boys,) it was great hanging out with great people, drinking excessively and laughing. Something we haven’t been too successful at doing in Noosa, unless friends come to visit. Anyways, Rob and Jules have a gorgeous home in Runaway Bay on the canal. Jules is the brainchild behind the design and it’s a magnificent house – this woman has incredible talent! But they won’t be there for long, as they’ve bought a much bigger house on Sovereign Island, and this is going to be spectacular once done. It’s bloody massive and made our seven bedroom house in Noosa look tiny by comparison. After we viewed the new house in its gutted state, they took us on a drive of the surrounds and my god, you should see these places. There was The Castle, which is designed like a castle (doh!) and boy is it nasty. Then there was the Venetian themed home – replete with full sized silver and gold horses in the driveway, along with golden adornments everywhere – crikey. There were Tuscan themes, French themes, modern garish designs and one massive home that looked like a convention centre. I’ve got to say, many of the houses are monstrous, tasteless and huge, but I couldn’t help but admire the balls of the people who designed and live in them. Although, please note, Rob and Jules’ house does not fit in the garish or vulgar bracket – there’s will be all class, as were many on the Island. Coming home to Noosa Waters, which is very much a retirement village by comparison, it felt mildly disappointing as everyone tends towards the conservative and the tame. Bland colours, smaller scale, no big statements…. Not to mention, everyone in the Waters has very small boats – but maybe they don’t need to compensate up here? The boats on the Gold Coast were gargantuan. In Noosa, most people drive around in pontoon boats, while on the Gold Coast, many of the boats are bigger than most people’s houses. I am definitely appreciative of people who aren’t embarrassed about showing off their money – no matter how garishly – because why should they be? They earned it after all! But as a general rule, Australians don’t tend to be huge fans of ostentatious displays of wealth. I personally love it and the Gold Coast is the place where it is on show for all to see. People drive purple Bentleigh’s, Ferrari’s were a common site, as was every other spectacular sports car imaginable. Noosa Waters’ folk tend to drive 4WD BMWs or Range Rovers in beige, white, black or silver – boring. There are pros and cons to everything. Noosa is stunningly beautiful and it feels like a town, whereas the Gold Coast is built up and it doesn’t feel like it has any heart or community. The way we’ve been feeling about Noosa lately, the Gold Coast wins, but that’s just because we’re not supposed to be here. We’re not supposed to be on the Gold Coast either. We definitely know we’re not ready for the settled life in Noosa or even the Gold Coast, but if I was going to build my dream mansion, we could do worse than the spectacular surrounds of Sovereign Island, not to mention Rob and Jules would be there – bonus. I could definitely get used to excessive champagne consumption while on a boating trip. In the meantime, while we’re still trying to work out what our future’s going to look like, we’ll just have to visit the Scullins and party like rock stars whenever we can. We might need to hire a babysitter for the mornings though… Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

When we arrived on the Sunshine Coast about 15 or so months ago, water restrictions were introduced to Queensland for the first time in history, or the first time in living memory, or whatever first time it was. Anyways, it was pretty dry up here in the tropics until the big WR day came into being, and then, ever since, it’s rained – I think it’s the wettest year in living memory, or maybe since records began! Naturally the drought had to break the year we arrived. Rain and two small boys is never a good combination. But, even with all the rain that’s fallen, they haven’t lifted the water restrictions yet – hello! Anyways, people living to the south of Queensland have been enduring water restrictions for some time, as Australia has just come to the end of a decade of drought. It’s ended now right? Most people in Australia are very responsible in drought time – saving water every step of the way, like taking family showers, never showering for more than three minutes, washing sparingly, watering the garden with grey water, not washing their cars, not putting sprinklers on in the heat of the day, etc… Australian’s commitment to the environment is something that has always impressed me, but then, with the ozone hole overhead, we feel the impact every time we step outdoors. But bring in the Queenslanders and we have a different story. Most people living near us love gardening. I personally hate gardening, so don’t understand the passion, but there you go. The gardens in our neighbourhood (except ours) were amazing. Just look at the grass. The perfection is almost impossible to comprehend and would put most championship golf courses to shame. In fact, many neighbours spent hours and hours and hours working towards this perfection. I’d rather put red hot sticks in my eye, but hey, that’s just me. One of the big no nos with the introduction of water restrictions was the use of irrigation systems. You know the ones that are planted under the ground and you set the timer to get them going? No problem for us because 1. We couldn’t work out how to bloody use it and 2. Even if we did work it out, every metre or so along the line there was a hole in the system that was by now above ground. So if we turned ours on, we’d have a marsh instead of a garden. But our neighbours’ perfect gardens had perfect systems and the sneaky fuckers didn’t think the new laws applied to them. Oh but they knew. Steve, who often has to get up at the hideous hour of 4am to travel for work, was witness to their deception. Everyone just reset their systems to go on when “no one” could see them and every morning around 4am, the gardens of Noosa Waters were replenished with this life giving force. I almost preferred our neighbour. We rarely saw them because it was a holiday home but the gardens never missed a servicing by the most extensive gardening team I’ve ever seen or heard. But at least they were honest. They just kept their system going at 10am every morning and 5pm every night – the boys loved it. So much for all for one and one for all. You don’t mess with people’s gardens in these parts and even if everyone was dying of thirst, I’m sure my neighbours (or ex neighbours now), would still ignore the rules. Sometimes I admire people who break the rules, and often I break stupid rules myself, but other times it’s just obnoxious and selfish, and it’s definitely the latter I’ve witnessed in Noosa. Yours, without the bollocksAndrea

I recently went through the sphincter clenching embarrassment of getting a mammogram. It appears that I am now officially within the age bracket that is required to get a screening done every couple of years. Cool! So I’ve got to ask myself – is all dignity gone now? I mean, from 40, do we just have dwindling dignity to look forward to? God I hope not. Anyways, my gorgeous mate Suzie, also of generous sized mammories, decided to get hers done in Singapore. The reports came in soon-after and apparently it was quite an experience because the machines weren’t big enough to take all of her buxomness – Asian girls do tend to have significantly smaller boobs than us Caucasian chicks after all – the lucky things. So poor Suzie had to get snap shots of bits and pieces of boob for the scan and all the while the woman doing the scan thought it was hilarious. I would not have been happy in that situation, but the legend that is Suzie took it in her stride. So now it’s my turn. I arrived at the clinic with Suzie’s story firmly in my mind, and while I’m pleased to say that machines in Australia are able to cope with any jug size, it’s still a hideous bloody process. They put each boob between two bits of a plastic screen, mention that it might be a little bit uncomfortable and then they pressssssssss! As my boys say – “ouchie!” The image of a pancake did come to mind. Once flattened top to bottom, you then have the added bonus of side to side flattening – the pleasures of being a woman I tell ya. But it was over and done with and I’m pleased to report that I’m clear as a whistle as I expected I would be – there have been no cases of breast cancer in my family that I know of. I’ve also got to say the sort of women working at the clinic were perfect at making me feel comfortable – so bravo Breastscreen Queensland. They were professional yet gentle, had obviously seen it all and they did everything they could to make me feel unembarrassed – a pretty challenging task in its own right. Put simply, it was business as usual for them, but not for me… So even though it was a green light this time, it’s time to accept that as uncomfortable as it is, it’s something I’ve got to do. I just won’t be doing it in any Asian countries. Shit if I did it in Singapore they’d probably bring the entire workforce in for a laugh! And you think I jest? It’s happened when bra shopping in Hong Kong. There’s something strangely weird about other women laughing at the size of your tits I can assure you. Yours, without the bollocksAndrea