Marriage thoughts

This post is actually inspired by another post written by a dear friend of mine.  I couldn't agree with her more that 'marriage goes through its ups and downs'.  In our years in UK, I thought there were more downs than ups.  Perhaps we were too pampered in Singapore and what life threw at us in a foreign land was not quite what we had expected.  But in those difficult days, we grew to be 'stronger and more independent' so to speak.  

Coming back to Singapore this time round, our relationship is on the up.  Maybe it is because he has already completed his course.  Maybe it is because the children are older now and don't need our attention and care all the time.  Maybe it's due to the fact that we're on holiday and away from the hustle and bustle of daily routines in UK.  I think it's a combination of all factors.

We are more tolerant towards each other.  We hold hands when we go out.  We get to enjoy couple time away from the kids, something which is non-existent back in UK.  If only they can all continue (not expecting the dating part though) when we leave here.  Marriage is indeed hard work.  It needs to be nurtured all the time.  But the children and other family matters usually come first so we often neglect each other.  We forget to woo the other partner.  We pay less attention to him/her.  Any free time seemed so precious that we spend it on ourselves.  We will have to remind ourselves of the happy times spent here and not spiral down again.  

Free!!

We're free from Mr Nasty Landlord AT.LONG.LAST!  As expected, he had tried to be difficult almost right to the end - charging us unreasonably for several items, the most ridiculous being labour charge for removing a tiny sticker on a door handle which we hadn't removed totally.  He also wanted to charge us £200 for painting the walls.  I had cleaned the walls and A had used the paint left behind in the garage by the builder to patch certain bits.  He said we used a paint of different colour and he had to get someone to redo it.  Most laughable of all is he sent A a letter asking us to enjoy our last month of stay in the house and hope that we will return the house in the same state as when we had taken over or in an  even better condition.  How is that possible?  Walls will be marked for sure which we had tried to clean up.  To save on professional carpet cleaning, I was on my fours for hours using a strong carpet cleaner to clean the whole house's carpet.  Luckily he didn't mention anything about the carpet.  If not I'll surely hammer him!  One day when A tried to call Mr Nasty, his dad answered the phone instead (he's the big boss of the estate company).  Senior Palmer asked if he could help and A told him everything.  Strangely, he said he had seen the house after we moved out and commented we left it in a good condition.  In the end, Mr Nasty reduced his claim and the rent by half.  I hope his father had given him an earful.  So we're now totally free from him and it feels GOOD!

MC

Louisa was supposed to start school today but she'll be on MC for 4 days!  Which means her summer school stint in Singapore will be shortened from 2 weeks to 1.  What's the culprit this time?  Very bad rash all over her body.  It all started last Saturday evening. I'd thought it was a food allergy.  Brought her to a GP and was prescribed the usual anti-histamine and anti-inflammatory medication.  He suspected dust allergy.  It made sense since we'd visited several bridal boutiques in the afternoon.  She didn't seem to respond to the medicine and the rash looked worse so I decided to bring her to KKH a few hours later.  There were many sick children.  After paying and waiting for nearly one hour, I saw that the rashes were subsiding so cancelled our queue and went home.  It was 2am then.  When she woke at 7am in the morning, there were more rashes and the itch was really bad.  I gave her the medication regularly and the rashes came on and off but it got really bad, even on her face from the afternoon.  My sister Jo (Bless her!  She'd been driving us around) suggested bringing her to KKH in case she became very uncomfortable in the middle of the night.  Along the way, we decided to go back to the GP whom we thought might give her the same treatment as KKH - an injection as opposed to waiting for hours at the hospital.  Unfortunately, the Dr (different from the first visit) said he didn't know what's wrong with her and advised us to bring her to KKH.  His answer to all my questions was 'I don't know', 'I really don't know'.  Good for him for not charging me anything.  So we ended up at KKH afterall.  There were even more children then the previous night.  We were warned of a long wait.  I could see most children were there for high temperature due to the patch on their forehead.  My sister brought Louisa to the car to sleep while I waited.  After almost 2 hours, she was finally seen to.  The Dr asked for many details.  She didn't think it was food allergy as Louisa didn't eat the same thing she had on Saturday and by right, the rash shouldn't come back.  She suspected a viral induced rash.  Louisa was given a jab (so brave of her), placed under observation and prescribed a different anti-histamine which worked this time.  Up till last night, there were still rashes all over but she didn't itch as much.  New rashes appeared on her face and her lips swelled a little.  The Dr from KKH did say the rashes will come and go for a week.  Finally today, she looked more like normal.  The rashes were really ugly.  Big, raised, blotchy and lumpy.  Louisa had been really good these whole time, all the while only complaining about the itch and I could see she tried not to show it at times.  

Doctor visits so far (over 2 weeks):

1. KKH - 4

2. GPs - 3

3. Specialist - 2

My wallet is haemorrhaging.