2 July 2014
We arrived in New Zealand yesterday morning. Apparently, so did winter! After one of the warmest Junes on record, we arrived to strong winds, lots of rain and the occasional sunny break. The temperature was about 12 degrees. A big change from the humid 30 degrees we left in Singapore. We had been preparing Matilda for winter by talking about it for the last two or three weeks. When we got out of the airport, she asked "where is the winter?" :) Something of coincidence is that today marks exactly 2 years since we left New Zealand for Singapore.
In some ways I find it amazing that 2 years has passed so quickly. A fair bit has happened in that time.
23 November 2014
Again I've been having trouble finishing off my blog posts, as you can see. From starting this post in the 3rd week of our 'summer' holidays, it is now four weeks until our Christmas holidays! This year has started off really well. Our roll has grown significantly and is now approaching 750. With the growth in numbers has come an injection of new staff which has been really positive. Quite few of them came from another school here in Singapore, where they weren't treated particularly well by management. They all seem pretty happy at ours:)
We've done some traveling over the last six months. We took my mum and dad to Cambodia in April which was really cool for them. Then in July we hit NZ and Australia for 2 weeks each. We caught up with a lot of family and friends in both places which dulled the cold somewhat. Although it was very chilly in Australia, with several frosts while we were at mum and dad's place. On the the third or fourth night we were there, Mel said me as we go into bed, "I am so sick of having so many blankets on!" :) Since being back in Singapore, Mel and I have both been able to do training courses overseas. Mel had three days in Phuket in September and I was in Nanjing for 5 days at the end of September. I love that our principal encourages us to do lots of external professional learning.
It was great to get back to Singapore and officially move into our new apartment. We didn't want to leave The Hillside as we really liked it, but our landlords decided to put our rent up by $100 a month despite the market slowing right down to the point where several neighbours were given reductions by their landlords. A bit silly really because as far as I know the place is still empty nearly five months later.
Our new place is great. We have a ground floor apartment with a patio front and back. Which means we can have a bbq! Also, we are much closer to school, which is great for Tilda as she started nursery this year. I can literally ride my bike home in 5 minutes! The pool is also very nice and we have a water slide.
Christmas will see us back in Australia for a couple of weeks and then Mel & Tilda will head to NZ to see her mum and dad, as well as Rose and her girls. They are excited about that. I'l be hanging out in Melbourne for a bit to catch some cricket and catch up with some people.
That'll do it for the moment. Hopefully I can post more soon(ish)!
T
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