More of the Same!

With Peter away and others otherwise occupied, it was just me and the Smiths for dinner at Wild Oats on Sunday night. I love the proximity to home and the setting by the lake is superb but unfortunately the food does not always meet expectations. Added to they will not give you a glass of water so we always say we wont go back again but I find myself still going there occasionally. 
Monday's walk from Kent Ridge to Vivo City is always a pleasant, if hot, stroll with a great variety of scenery. I did finish the walk although I felt a bit shaky at one point and chose to take the easy option at the end by giving stairs a miss in favour of a gentle slope. 


There was a MAE social outing to Pulau Ubin on Tuesday which involved a 10 min ferry trip from Changi. Pulau Ubin is a small island (10.19 km²) situated in the north east of Singapore. Granite quarrying supported a few thousand settlers on Pulau Ubin in the 1960s, but only about a hundred villagers live there today. It is one of the last rural areas to be found in Singapore, with an abundance of natural flora and fauna. The island forms part of the Ubin–Khatib Important Bird Area (IBA), identified as such by BirdLife International because it supports significant numbers of visiting and resident birds, some of which are threatened.It was pleasant to be near the water although it was a very hot day. Most of the small group chose to hire bikes but Robert and I decided we would take a walk. We meandered in a different direction to the way I had been 2 years ago and managed to see some old favourites like the magpie robin, with its beautiful song  and another new one for me the white rumped shama, which also has a melodious song. Some of the others saw the Hornbills but not me! 
Everyone returned their bikes in one piece (bikes and bodies) before returning to Changi for lunch at the Changi Village Hawkers.

Asian glossy starling, white rumped shama, magpie robin, olive backed sunbird

Peter returned from his trip to Australia in the evening so I met up with him and Libby and Eric at Plonk for their cheap Tuesday Pizza deal. As it turned out the food was cheap, but not so our drinks!
This week's  Great Race Quiz results flowed in on Wednesday night with only one slightly premature response arriving on Sunday night, but being week one we let the team resend on Wednesday. It was a pretty simple quiz, especially if you used the internet, so the majority of teams had 100%.After A Great Race meeting with the other team members on Thursday all seems to be on track. 
On Friday morning Libby and I went for a walk in the Botanic Gardens to give the binoculars a spin. I am very happy with them as you see so much more than with the naked eye. Disappointingly there was not a lot of bird life about but it is a pleasant place for a stroll anyway.

Luckily Friday had been such a pleasant day because I had a lousy day on Saturday. It began with sitting at the bus stop for 30 minutes waiting for my bus meaning I didn't arrive at work until.8.30. This was compounded by the information that a colleague was going to be away all weekend so my Sunday downtime was gone again. All in all I was out of sorts all day, but managed to cheer up enough to share a meal with the Smiths at their local hawkers at the end of the day. The sight of Libby with a couple of bottles of apple cider dispelled my bad mood for the day!