Haze continued and schools were closed on Fri as the outlook for the next 24 hours was expected to be in the very unhealthy range, with the possibility that it may even cross the hazardous 300-point mark, due to unfavourable winds blowing from the south-southeast or south-southwest. And at 7am the haze update did indicate the levels were over 300 psi, in the hazardous level. Pizza Hut and other delivery services suspended their services due to worsening hazy conditions too. Levels continue to fluctuate between unhealthy and very unhealthy day after day and they are predicting these conditions may stay around until well into November. It is awful! We lock ourselves up in the condo but even that is as stale as can be. To make matters worse I burnt the toast yesterday!
More and more people are wearing masks as the throat develops a tickle and the eyes smart when you can't avoid going out in it. I can't imagine how people who have asthma triggered by smoke are coping.
Most of our students turned up for classes in the evening and across the weekend. We avoided eating at the hawker stall and just bought take away. The usual crowds were missing from the tables and the small businesses are all suffering. Only the sale of face masks has spiked.
We met up at Grapevine on Sunday evening, the last chance to see Michael before he returns to Aust and to catch up with Peter who went on an excursion with his class this week dressed up as Sir Stamford Raffles.
I balked on walking Monday with the group, as did a good number of others. I prefer to go to the gym instead of breathing strenuously outdoors. A few stalwarts including Eric, met in Bishan and did the park and then the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, the largest Buddhist temple in Singapore. As a compromise this was more indoors than walking around Lower Peirce Reservoir as we usually do. As well as the impressive 4 storey memorial hall, prayer halls, crematoriums, columbariums the monastery has a fabulous outdoor statue of Buddhist deity Guanyin Bodhisattva, the Goddess of Mercy. She is surrounded by a lawn featuring statues of novice monks.
It is also home to the Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas and a Bodhi sampling from the tree in India under which Siddhartha attained Buddhahood. All in all a massive complex. We walked over it last year with Chen Guan and Peter.
Caught up with both Col and Jude who are both helping Mum with her transition. There is so much to do with both her possessions and the paperwork but it is advancing. Mum has called both the places she is interested in the meantime just to confirm she is serious. Once she has her clothing sorted she will need to sew name tags on everything, that will keep her hands busy!
On Tuesday to avoid going stir crazy being locked indoors we went into Orchard Rd to see Everest at the 3D Imax Shaw cinema. It is based on the real events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and the survival attempts of two expedition groups, one led by Rob Hall and the other by Scott Fischer. Eric has read the book 'Into thin Air' about the same tragedy. It was good to recognise so many landmarks the teams passed as they made their way to base camp. We walked those same steps; across the paired suspension bridges behind Eric, around that Hillary Stupa with the view of the summit, through the memorials to climbers who haven't returned (which now include the names of Hall and Fischer).
The scenery and struggles were very realistic. To me the only thing that didn't ring true was the lack of reference to the Sherpa support every team depends upon. Sadly, during production in April 2014, while the second unit crew was shooting scenes of the film at Camp II on Everest, an avalanche struck, killing 16 more Sherpa guides. The Sherpas were carrying equipment and supplies to camps for climbers in advance of the start of the summer climbing season at the time. I think Sherpas should have at least been mentioned in the credits. If you haven't already done so, go and see it. Fabulous scenery even if some was filmed in the Italian Alps and Iceland or film studio backlots.
So Wednesday we returned to work and it was announced that I will be the Curriculum Coordinator next year. This is a new position developed in part to replace the role that Renee used to do while Assistant Principal. We no longer have that position and she has been trying to do it along with everything else. The job description is still being fine tuned but I do know that I will be released from classes on Wednesday afternoons to spend those 7 hrs managing curriculum matters. I am looking forward to a new challenge next year.
We received the good news early in the week that the house in Yarra Glen has been sold at the listed price. Actually it never got advertised, our agent already knew someone who was looking for just this sort of home in that location and it has now been signed off. The good thing is Mum also knows them through her networks and she is happy they are keen gardeners. Now just the paperwork to be completed and Mum's financial position to be assessed by Centrelink to complete the process for accepting a place in an Aged Care Facility.
We resumed work and exercise schedules but the haze lingered for the week so we chose mostly to stay indoors as much as we could. On Thursday we did venture over to Toa Payoh to confirm the route for the walk on Monday with the group. It was a pleasant surprise to discover the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery, Singapore's oldest Buddhist monastery, is one of the sites chosen to display the colourful lanterns for the Mid Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese festival on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which this year falls on Sunday. It was originally an autumn harvest festival celebrated by farmers in ancient China and is now considered a time for reunion and renewal of friendship and kinship as well. It is being widely celebrated here now with multiple sites (not just Chinatown), making it the second-largest Chinese festival here, after the Chinese New Year. These structures are all constructed of silk and the finishing touches were being put to them on Thursday.
On the loop walk we also visited the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, also known as Wan Qing Yuan, in Balastier. He was the revolutionary who helped to overthrow the last imperial dynasty of China and is regarded as the founding father of the modern People’s Republic of China. In the early 1900's he spent time in Singapore (then known as Nanyang) raising funds and working for the revolutionary cause and stayed at this beautiful two-storey, colonial-style villa a number of times. It is set in beautiful grounds and opposite a park named after him that opened at the end of 2013. A highlight of the villa's grounds is the 2m tall bronze wall mural which spans 60m along the fence line. It depicts Singapore's history from the 1840s as a fishing village to the 1940s and the Sook Ching Massacre in 1942, the "purging of Chinese" by the Japanese after the British colony surrendered.
Unfortunately the museum and grounds are closed on Mondays so the walking group were unable to see the astonishing wall. Everyone enjoyed the rest of the walk though which wasn't physically challenging but includes a lot of history and cultural icons. There is the Dragon Playground, one of Singapore's most loved landmarks, first built in 1979. It is part of the HDB's series of playground designs with an animal theme. This dragon playground is one of only two remaining playgrounds in Singapore with this design, the other being in Ang Mo Kio. Only the dragon playground in Toa Payoh has retained its sand surface. The Lam Yeo ("Nanyang" in Hokkien) Coffee Powder shop in Balestier road has been in operation since 1959, opened by the current owner's father. Visiting the shop is like stepping back in time as it has not changed much since it was first founded, and the owner feels that there is no need for renovation as long as the place is kept clean. The strong aroma of their signature blends drew much interest from the group and there was a rush on his supply of traditional kopitiam cups and saucers. The unmistakable smell of freshly baked bread was the next sensory experience as we stepped into the Sing Hon Loong old-style bakery in Whampoa, it is one of the few remaining traditional bakeries in Singapore. They produce at least 1,400 loaves of traditional brown and white crustless breads which are then distributed fresh to coffee shops and local minimarts daily. We watched as the loaves were tossed out of their tins then stripped of their crusts before slicing and packaging.
Balestier Road was named after Joseph Balestier, the first American Consul to Singapore in 1837. He developed a large sugar plantation, which he called Balestier Plain, around what is now known as Toa Payoh Estate. In this part of town the road is home to rows of shophouses (most of which seem to be devoted to selling light fixtures and other interior decoration items) budget hotels, low-rise apartments and commercial buildings. There are plenty of interesting old buildings worthy of conservation.
Then there is also the Burmese Buddhist Temple, Maha Sasana Ramsi, the oldest Theravada institution and the only Burmese Buddhist temple of its kind in Singapore. It houses the largest pure white marble statue of the Buddha outside of Myanmar, and has become a religious landmark for Burmese and Singaporean devotees. Like we discovered in Myanmar, the Buddha images have a halo of colourful flashing LED lights. Striking the bell 3 times should bring you luck.
On Tuesday a number of us met up at Plonk in Serangoon Gardens for an opportunity to share holiday snippets and complain about the continuing haze. It is by far the worst we have experienced here. and it further deteriorated over Wednesday night. As of 1pm on Thursday, the 3-hour PSI was 260, while the 24-hour PSI was 179-219, in the Unhealthy range. These conditions are expected to persist for the rest of the day, and there could be further deterioration in the air quality as the prevailing winds are forecast to blow from the south-southeast or south-southwest. Warnings in the news - Given the air quality forecast for the next 24 hours, healthy people should reduce prolonged or strenuous outdoor physical exertion, said the NEA. The elderly, pregnant women and children should minimise outdoor activity, while those with chronic lung or heart disease should avoid it altogether.
Unfortunately Thursday is a public holiday for Hari Raya Haji but not many people will be enjoying the outdoors. We had planned to revisit the monastery in the evening to see the lanterns at their best, but we have cancelled and are presently ensconsed in the apartment with the air-con running.
Before we left I got the seams sorted and the sewing project finished in a rush before leaving on a midnight flight to Melbourne after work on Sunday. End of term 3 already.
Melbourne was cold and grey, but not bleak, and Col was at the airport to collect us so we were soon on our way. Arriving in Yarra Glen it was hard to fathom that this is likely to be the last time I walk around the garden, soak in the views of the Healesville and Dandenong Ranges from this particular viewpoint or sleep in this bed. Even a week later both Mum and I kept having to remind ourselves that this chapter is closing. We are expecting the property sale to be signed any day now.
I enjoyed spending time with Mum and going through all her belongings, many of which pulled up fond memories of family life from childhood. One of the most poignant was discovering she still had the rainbow striped, woolen Onkaparinga blankets from the beds my sister and I slept in as kids. We shared the front bedroom at Lindenmere for many years and the beds each had one of these blankets then a paisley eiderdown under a mauve candlewick bedspread. I'll never forget how flash I felt when we were given a pair of second hand matching Queen Anne bedheads to replace the simple bookshelf style. Style indeed!
Through the week we offloaded boot-loads and ute-loads to the garden club, the stitches club, the local library and many of her friends. The local opp shop didn't miss out and will get plenty of what is still left. There is an old washstand in one of the bedrooms that Mum has been keeping for me. It was my grandmother Elsie's, from Port Fairy. It already had some things in it of ours including the favourite books we used to read to the boys, a few of my favourite outfits they wore as toddlers and now I have added some paintings the kids each did for Grandma, probably at Kinder in Cobram, and she has kept them all these years.
I also put aside one English bone china 'high tea' cup and saucer set for each of them. There were quite a few individual sets so all the grandkids got one. I don't know how we will ever get to access them but Col has promised to keep them safe at his place in the meantime.
We saw Col's daughter Anna, who is now looking very pregnant, and her mother on Thursday then on Saturday Judy's Jason and Bec came out for a few hours. Bec is just home from her 6 month trip and by now is with her Mum and Dad in Noosa. So nice to see them all looking so fit and happy and they each selected something from the home to keep. We put aside others for Liz and Col will hopefully find something for James and Nat.
Jude and Rog return from Noosa next weekend so they will go out there no doubt and help Col sort through the rest with Mum on day trips. There is still plenty to do! Mum is reluctantly resigned to the fact that she has to leave and is happy that the people who are interested in buying the property are keen gardeners from Steele's Creek so she knows them well. Colin and Roger are handling all the financial side. I took Mum out on daily visits to Aged Care Facilities within a reasonable geographical area from Yarra Glen and we checked out what they have and how they are set up. She really wants to stay in the Lilydale zone so she is within reach of her friends and active community groups. That really limits it down to a choice of 2 and of course they both have waiting lists as many others in the Valley feel the same way. So we have her name down and now wait while we get the financial paperwork finalised. It seems that Dad's will was not as straightforward as we all initially thought, but I am sure we will find a solution that everyone is happy with. Hopefully that will coincide nicely with a vacancy as someone graduates to the next level.
We had constant, but very welcome, interruptions from our sorting tasks as neighbours and friends dropped in at the house, caught us down the street at the cafes or rang to see if she was coming to this or that next gathering of the many organisations she belongs to. It will be great if we can settle her somewhere not too far from these activities and she can continue to participate.
On Friday Eric hired a car and drove to Maryborough in Central Victoria to visit his brothers. Here they are at the Maryborough bowls club. They don't get together too often and as you might imagine there were lots of laughs and a lot of stirring. Matthew, son of Laurie, (standing next to Eric) won the league best and fairest for the local footy this season. Laurie did the same thing 40 yrs ago, the first father and son combination to ever do it. Then on Saturday he drove to Bunniyong to see Leonie and Peter Evenden. They were work colleagues here last year but Peter has had a setback to his health this year and is on a long, slow road to recovery. We are expecting them to visit us next year and look forward to walking together again as we often did on a Monday. Eric was inspired by Peter's progress and plans a game of golf with him next time we meet in Aust.
Over the week there were some teary moments but also lots of laughs and it was very valuable time spent, which I could not replace so I am so glad we were able to do it. Eric says he felt like an accessory on the visit, since it wasn't his place to make decisions, but I really valued his role as chief cook. If it hadn't been for him we would not have eaten well as each evening I was too tired and too disinterested to prepare a meal. He was also a huge emotional rock for me throughout. Just the same, I'm really glad he got some time in with his family and our friends Peter and Leonie.
On Sunday morning in glorious sunshine Eric, Mum and I went to the 'Hop for Hope' charity art exhibition just down the road at the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie, a fundraising event for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation to help keep children safe from violence. It showcases 40 larger than life-size kangaroos decorated by acclaimed Australian artists and identities. But how do you decide which one to vote for, let alone include a photo of here?
They were truely fabulous and Mum did really well to manage to walk the distance. You can vote for your favourite by gold coin donation, but I found that a very difficult decision and spent quite a bit of money. Never mind, a good cause.
We flew back at midnight again on Sunday night after a final dinner with Col, Beth and Mum at Bickleighvale in Mooroolbark. Mum is settled back in there and I really believe they are comfortable with her staying with them for as long as it takes. He is arranging to move the Mecaps personal alarm system there and has applied for a carer's allowance. Arriving home we both crashed in bed for a few hours and then I went back again in the afternoon too. Only now, in the evening am I feeling refreshed. It was during the afternoon we realized how bad the haze was. Singapore has been experiencing hazy conditions for some time now.
Air quality on Monday was alarming, having been affected by severe smoke haze due to the common practice of open burning to clear forested land for agricultural uses in Sumatra, and borne by the prevailing winds of the current Southwest Monsoon Season. Air quality is measured by the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) with 6 parameters integrated. Today it ranged from 118-146 to 4pm.
We live in the Central region and it is disgusting here but at least we aren't out west as you can see from this graph we (the purple line) are in the best place. Thundery showers on Tuesday might provide some temporary relief but the 4 day outlook is not good. Oh for those clear blue skies of the Yarra Valley.
While we were away the Singapore public voted in their new government, well not really new, they are the same party that have been in power since independence. They have just won again with a majority of 83-6. Such stability! On the other hand Australia will have their 6th prime ministerial change since 2007. What must the rest of the world be thinking? Whatever, it has got to be better than Tony.
