Testing week again

It was testing week again, usually turns up about the 4th week of each term. They are probably one of the easiest weeks to administer, you just need to carefully juggle your time so that tests are being marked as you conduct the next class. Some students excel and finish very quickly, others struggle and you have to try to reduce the pressure or the little ones dissolve into tears. Then I do too, fancy getting these pre-schoolers to sit still and fill out pages that they don't understand! They are so stressed at the idea of not being successful. 

Eric had a senior staff meeting on Thursday at Jurong and while he was away a funeral procession left the HDB and proceeded past our condo. Hearing the drums and trumpets I grabbed the camera but was still too slow to catch the start. The funeral procession was lead by a band of musicians.  The music is meant to frighten away malicious spirits lurking around the funeral site. This snap just manages to catch the leading walkers, appearing to be pushing the hearse. This would be the sons and daughters in the first row, followed by other family members. What intrigued me most were the costumes which looked to be made of hessian hoods rather like the ku klux klan.  In Singapore, the procession will walk for a short distance as a final gesture of farewell and then board vehicles to proceed to the crematorium, rather than a graveyard, with land being at such a premium.

This was a short week with Good Friday falling in the middle of it. We held the second inaugural Cherry Hill Tennis Championships at our condo in the morning and had a fun hit and giggle session. It wound up with lunch across the road and then in the evening we went over to Jurong to have a lovely home-cooked dinner at Bev's.  

My hairdryer fell to bits in my hand Saturday morning so after work we met at Mustafa's in Farrer Park where I was able to get another one and while we were there found a few other discounts, as you do. We ended up in the food section and not surprisingly we parted and couldn't find each other again without the help of the mobile phones. I was in aisle 62 so that gives you some idea of the magnitude of the store. Aisles are tiny and it is a crush of trolleys, kiddy strollers and people in fabulously coloured clothes. Prices are cheap but it all just gets too much too quickly. We got outside and met up on the street then chose a nearby restaurant for dinner. The Copper Chimney turned out to be a very good choice, from our table we could watch the cooks stretching and molding the breads or stripping the meat off the long skewers as they came out of the tandoori ovens. 

After work on Sunday  a small group returned to Joe's. Michael Munro is in Byron Bay readying himself for the big swim across the bay. Peter is in Bendigo visiting his Mum. At some point during the night I woke up and remembered we had caught a cane toad in the garden of Koolpinyah Cres, Tiwi. I had grabbed it with a plastic bag and tied it up. Eric insisted we put it in the freezer of the drinks fridge on the verandah, to give it the humane death sentence. Personally, I would have just binned, it but there you go. Anyway, what alarmed me was that I suddenly realised we hadn't told Luke and Tahlia about it! But it gets worse, we turned off the fridge before we left! In the morning I managed to shoot off a message to Luke to tell him to check the freezer. The reply was 'All taken care of'. So then I asked him what state it was in. His reply 'Liqified!'
The walk on Monday saw us back at Bukit Timah. At the summit we met up with another regular local group which includes a chap called Ng Kok Tai who we speak with regularly. His group have just returned from a walk around Annapurna too. We put him in the middle of our summit pic and called him leader which he really enjoyed.

Found this Black Bat Flower which belongs to the yam family. The unusual black flower is sort of bat-shaped, with long 'whiskers'. 

After the walk we showered at home then headed to Plonk, a bar in Serangoon Gardens run by two Aussies. They have a a big screen tv upstairs where they televised the AFL. Since it was Easter Monday we caught the big game between Geelong and the Hawks. The packed MCG looked and sounded fantastic. The game was close all day, Cats lead at every change but there was really only one kick in it so everyone enjoyed it. I sat between avid supports of either team so just barracked for the underdog. We had the whole upstairs to ourselves and it was very pleasant on the couches. Food was fabulous (no hot pies though).  

Tuesday morning was spent at home and then we walked another leg of the Great Race to check it on our way to the movies. This week we saw The Grand Budapest Hotel which I found unentertaining but Eric thought had just the right mix of quirkiness and sentiment. Each to his own. We had dinner at Newton's Circus which we first visited with the kids in the 90's. It was closed in 2005 for a big refurbishment and doesn't look at all familiar now but the food was delicious.