A Singaporean In Australia

Outside Savvy Steve's house, we had lavenders planted in a roll. They were small, as matured ones would cost much more to install. I intended to have them grow in a short hedge, to create a buffer between the pavement abutting the house. Behind the hedge, I would perhaps construct a slightly raised platform of pavers, since a pissed poor peasant like me would never be able to afford a timber deck. Pavers on the other hand, were given away free regularly. The only problem that I had to sort out was transportation. Perhaps when the time comes, it is time to beg the company for a T-loan of the Ute. There is no hurry to do these. We would be staying for a while, several years at least, until puipui completes his primary school. Then the kids will be old enough to handle the possible implementation of their dad's crazy ideas.

The little plants and small trees that I would planting around the place will grow up with the kids, together with perhaps, even a small dog. I will make the children weed, prune, water and fertilize the plants with me. They'll learn to grow their own food at a young age and cook them when they can hold a spatula well. I do not have enough land at the moment. The key is to let them learn how to do it, not how to grow enough to be self sufficient. However, one day, they will be able to do both, then we'll try going off the grid. A step at a time.

One of the earliest song I taught Albany to sing was Lavender's Blue. She liked it very much and always gave that radiant smile whenever we went at it. Tiny as they were, the lavenders outside were fully capable of producing flowers. When the flowers bloomed, the first thing I did was to bring Albany outside and told her those blue (purple actually) flowers were what we had been singing about. She was delighted and fussed over it. One thing good about living in Perth is that we get the opportunity to see more things in their natural forms.

I could recall a joke (or was it a fact that went funny?) Angie told us about how Lex were shocked to see chicken running all over the place in a remote place she brought him to visit in Malaysia. His impression of chicken till then was featherless, slightly yellow meat, neatly curled and wrapped on a white foam backing. Elsewhere, I heard some Singaporean kids think watermelons grow on trees.

True enough, when I sent this picture (left) to a few friends, their responses were astonished delight along the lines of, "I never knew Lavender flowers can look like that!"

But of course they look like that. Unfortunately the lavenders we get in Singapore usually look more like dried Prunella Vulgaris, even as complement decor on 'fresh' bouquets of flowers. Wait till they try freshly picked apples or strawberries. They'll know what they have been missing in life. After I picked those flowers, I tied them with a stem of one of the flowers to bundle it up and asked Albany to give it to her mummy and tell her daddy loves her. I believed it went well. That was the least a pissed poor peasant who never bought flowers for his wife could do.