paper mama photo challenge: black & white

Another photo challenge, this time from The Paper Mama. The picture has to include at least part of your child(ren) and/or pet, and on this occasion it has to be in black & white. Click on the post title to get through to see the other lovely pictures. Again, first time I've done this one, so I hope it works...

Here's a picture of The Boss teaching her bunny how to draw. In case you're wondering why I refer to her here as The Boss, it's not through any bizarre inverted sense of family hierarchy designed to give her airs and graces. It's because the Uncle at our local coffee house always affectionately calls her The Boss, and it's kind of stuck. He says that she looks like she ought to be in charge, with her wee glasses and serious little face.

I think this photo shows how patient a Mummy she is to her little boy, Funny Bunny (or Mr FB to those who know him well), who's been with her since day one.

sweet shot: chinatown

With my blog now a whole week old, I'm feeling brave enough to try joining a bloggy/linky/challenge type thingummy: Sweet Shot Tuesday with my3boybarians (click the post title). I'm nervous that the technology won't work, so if you see my photo and it's up in the correct place, please give me a comment or something to let me know I've done it right (or advice on how to get it right!). Okay, here goes...

This is one of my favourite pictures from a morning in Chinatown, Singapore the other week. I love the colour contrast, the rain stain texture on the wall, and by some miracle I think I might have got the composition ok. The other reason I like it is that I've played around with tweaking it and pimping it digitally, but I still like the original (the one shown here) the best.

tai tai time wasting

tai tai /tı tı, tʌɪ tʌɪ/ n. [Mand. 太太 tàitai mistress of a household, madam, lady] A woman, usu. wealthy, who does not work but spends her time shopping, meeting friends, etc.; a lady of leisure.

Now, while I normally get quite huffy about being stereotyped, just occasionally it’s so apt that you’ve just got to go with it. Yes, I am a woman. Yes, I do not work. Yes, I have been known to go to the shops, and yes I meet a friend occasionally.

But, though I know I can't really fight it, I wouldn't be me if I didn't at least try to defend myself from the lady of leisure (LOL, lol!) epithet...

what I dream about when I dream about gardening

I have a beautiful garden. At least I did. It’s 6724 miles away (according to the internet) and I haven’t seen it for 14 months and three weeks. While I’ve stopped counting the days we’ve been apart, it’s safe to say that not one goes by without my thinking about it.

Scratch that: not a day goes by without my worrying about it.

Distance and time have added a rosy tint to my memories. It was a charming jumble of abundance. A scruffy playground for children where the sun always shone. My garden filled our house with cut flowers and fresh veggies with no apparent effort. Okay that might be pushing it a bit but hey, they’re my thoughts, so I’ll remember a personal Elysium if I want to.

Slightly more problematic is my vision for the future.

carrot cake for the soul

About eight years ago I quit my job in a blurry downward spiral of misery and heaving sobs. It was a bit more than a job actually, it was a serious bona fide career, for which I had spent six long university years studying like a fiend. I had lasted less than a year at the coal face and I felt dreadful.

I went to stay at my boyfriend’s flat in the city and tried to do useful things that would bolster my narrow and uniquely vocational cv. I bought manuals on Word, Excel and Access and spent hours at his tiny laptop while he went to work, trying not to get in the way of his flatmate.

To kill time during that Summer I made my first (grown up) personal recipe book; a plastic folder, plastic inserts and lots of coloured paper. I think it was probably a self-prescribed form of therapy.

queen of commonwealth avenue

Queenstown bowling alley is one of my favourite buildings in Singapore, though I’ve never been in it and seriously doubt I ever will. I rubberneck through the window of the bus whenever I’m passing through Commonwealth: struck every time by how awesome it is, wondering how it’s escaped the wrecking ball, and wishing I had any reason at all to spend more time in this part of town, so that I could take pictures of it in all different weathers… okay, in both weathers.

Shabby chic, elegant neglect, charming dereliction, whatever you want to call it, those sorts of building don’t tend to hang about here in the way that they might in London. But somehow, who knows why, Queenstown remains. So, in case each day is its last, I went on a long-overdue outing with my camera.