Just a few photographs of Singapore

The Sky Wheel.
F1 Starting Grid.
Leaf at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
"My bike".
Tilly in her "bed".
Clouds over the Tasman Sea on the journey to New Zealand.

Thoughts of Singapore.

This continues to be a good gateway city and introduction to the Far East. Not only is English spoken, interchangeably it seems with Chinese, but they drive on the left hand side of the road.

The city is clean and has the feel of being very safe. I have walked the streets late at night and not felt any nervousness of being at risk which, sad to say can be the case in the UK.

I last visited Singapore 10 years ago and found a modern economical thriving commercial and tourist centre. Today the city shows signs of being a prosperous place and is undergoing further massive development; it looks set for major growth.

It's Getting Closer

Here I am sitting in a well known frothy coffee shop in Clifton sipping my skinny, decaf (is that really coffee you may ask) capo and thinking by this time next week I shall be at London Heathrow waiting to board my flight to NZ via Singapore.

Pleasant thoughts.

Listmania

Although I am ticking off the items on my list its mostly a case of two items done but three more found to do.

Still I have house and cat sitters so I can leave the UK knowing all will be well on the home front.

The interesting thing is I shall leave my house with two house guests and come back to three as David and Charis are due to have their first child at the beginning of January.

WHAT NEXT

Handed in Notice - tick
Retirement Party - tick
Last day at the office - tick
"Retired" - tick

But it's retirement Jim but not as we know it.

Two weeks to go now before I leave for New Zealand for Tom's wedding on 4th January, but there are still a number of things to be done, not the least of which is to confirm the dates of my return flights. Back in May, when I first booked, I had no idea how long I would be away for and so chose a random return date, but I want to stay out away for another three weeks or so and now I am waiting to hear from the travel agent to find out the best day and ticket price to return.

So at the moment it's all booked for the flights out on Singapore Airlines on 28th December with a two night stopover in Singapore itself and an arrival at 23:45 on New Years Eve at Auckland International Airport. I hope the plane arrives on time and not late as I think it would be a good idea to avoid the New Year fireworks as we come into land.

I have a long list of things to do before I go; it will be interesting to see what actually gets done.