Organic-Ally

Recently I came across posts which seem to be coming down hard on Christians in Singapore. One that caught my eye was the displeasure voiced by netizens on the suitability of the principal of a church-based junior college, Mrs Belinda Charles, to speak at a Christian conference. It touched me because though Mrs Charles never actually taught me, she was the person who handed me my 'A' Level results many, many years ago. I don't recall her trying to convert anyone to any faith. I penned the following letter to Straits Times , but it was never published. So I am reproducing the contents of the letter here. =============== (Untitled) My Dutch friend Sheila once said, "Only in my car do I feel safe. Then I have the freedom to go any where." Sheila’s freedom comes from all motorists, including herself, obeying the Highway Code, a set of rules. Imagine someone insisting on driving on the wrong side of the road "because it is my right". Likewise when whole commu...

Oooh ah! Harrow boy Michael Portillo has something interesting to say here in: Idle young should be entitled to nothing "In Britain — maybe throughout western Europe — belief in work, vocation, community, family and God have declined together. " He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28) Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

When we take our kid out, we make sure he behaves himself. I remember my sister-in-law saying of her children (now grown up), "Rather they behave badly at home than they behave badly in public." Us Chinese have this notion called jiajiao (literally "education by/in your family" which can be translated roughly as "parenting" or as I prefer "family honour"). So if a child behaves badly, a grandparent is likely to mutter, "Don't do that. No jiajiao ." Those words alone were often enough to stop most young children from misbehaving. So when we go out with son to an event we make sure he is polite. We also help him with his food when he was much younger, and wipe up any spills, etc. to ensure that we do not trouble the hosts too much. Last Friday was a very emotional day for me. I was in tears a lot in the morning. I was finding it hard to get over how our neighbours' eldest son had died so suddenly, and it was his funeral. This dea...

Is it coincidental that on this Saturday morning, me groggy from last night's responsibility of hosting an "open house" to members of my church, that I should receive an update from Civitas with reviews of their recent publication Putting Patients Last ? (See eg this .) Earlier this week I had phoned two hospitals to try to re-schedule two appointments. I had been given really awkward times during this summer break when I am a full-time carer for my young son. No, they cannot re-schedule, because it would mess up their six-week targets. In other words, if I don't accept the appointment given, then we all suffer. So I had to make some rather complicated childcare arrangements. Could this policy be a good thing? Last Thursday I turned up just before my appointed 6.05pm and found that I had gone to the wrong hospital. Yes, I felt like a complete idiot. This was because I was seen at one hospital and expected the MRI to be done at the same hospital. It didn't occur to...

This time last year we were in sunny Singapore. I often borrow some crime fiction books from our local library to take away on such home visits. It helps to settle the jet lag. Last Saturday I took our son to the library so that he could pick up more books for his "reading challenge". Asked absent-mindedly if they have books on the "#1 Detective Agency". I first heard this on radio and was fascinated. The librarian -- maybe she's on HRT now -- said, "Alexander McCall Smith, isn't it?" and then bounced over to the shelf, "Let me show you where they are." "Bounced" is the operative word. I felt obliged to borrow a book or two after this. The Sunday Philosophy Club took my fancy (why? later ...). I started reading this on Sunday evening. I was really chuffed because the author has allowed the heroine Isabel Dalhousie to sprinkle the book with philosophical musings. As I twittered on Monday morning: "Loving the Alexander McCal...

Son's piano teacher tells us that he has "lazy fingers" and should consider playing the organ. Is he joking or what? Dunno. But some time back he brought to my notice my son's tendency to "swap fingers" and I blogged about it here . Then he organized for us to go to his church where he is organist for son to try out the organ ( here ). The conclusion was son is a 'natural' on the organ. Okay. What do we do? It's good news, but let us not be rash about anything. My feeling then was: thankfully we still have six inches of time. Son was too short to reach the pedals and we will just carry on with his piano and clarinet. He's had a growth spurt. First he was tall enough for us to despatch with the car booster seat. (We highly recommend Freecycle.) Then last week even other parents started telling us that he had "shot up". His mate who has been much the same height as him suddenly looked small. I measured him a couple of days ago and he ...

This morning I meditated on the goodness of my Lord. This time last week I could not stand up straight. I was walking around bent over. We figure it was my attempt to put the washing on the line first thing in the morning that did it. A basket of wet laundry is quite heavy after all, for me at least. That is why I once went into an awful strop at Toddlers when there were effectively just two people putting out all the toys and equipment. I could not stand back and not help, but I knew that if I did I would have massive problems the following day. For months we could not understand why I found it so painful to get out of bed on Saturday mornings. We decided that it was the lifting and bending over, etc, on Friday Toddlers that did it. Any way, so I was at CenterParcs, OK with cycling bent over, but walking rather awkwardly. We brought our microwave wheatbag/hot water bottle. It was there on my back pretty much the whole day. Then I slept on it. Tuesday morning I had this fear: what if I...

This blog post refers: Last Toddlers session this morning for this school year. My son came along to help with the 'money-changing'. He's very good at this. I was wondering if Mum-without-a-clue ("G") would turn up. Childminder ("J") was there and said, "O dear! Maybe she won't come again. But her girl needs to keep coming here." Mum with blonde hair (let's call her "B") arrived. She told me that we have better watch out for "that little girl" ("M"). She could see her, she said. "Where?" I asked. My responsibility was to check in parents and toddlers and any visitors. I need to account for every person who is in the building for health and safety reasons. In the event of a fire I am to blow the whistle, lead the folk to safety. Most importantly I must grab all the attendance cards with me so that I could account for everyone. I hadn't seen M. "There she is in that blue dress." "...

Hectic morning at Toddlers on Friday. Difficult mum did not show up so we could not put into action what was planned for her. Back home I realized that in the hurly-burly of the week I had completely forgotten to buy HIM a birthday card for HIS 50th. So having sorted out what I needed to sort out I hurried along to the shops thinking that I would just have time to buy the card and head back to school for the Leavers Service . I rummaged for my purse as I entered the first card shop I came to and searched, and searched, and searched, and realized that I had forgotten to bring my purse in my distracted state of mind (having to switch TV on for mum-in-law for her to watch Wimbledon, eg). There wasn't time for me to get home. I rummaged again and thankfully found some loose change I had thrown into the bag, and two plastic coins from my son's toy cash register. In the end I was delighted to find a 'husband 50th' (not '50th husband, note !) card that I could afford. Yay!...

Funny sort of morning yesterday. At the end of what appeared to be a fairly calm toddlers session, a childminder came up to me to say "Did you know you have a very naughty girl here?" It turned out that this little girl has been pinching cheeks, slapping faces and pulling hair, etc. Usually these incidents get reported to us fairly quickly so I was surprised that it had not come to our notice till then. And then, apparently, in a matter of ten seconds after this report, this little girl had traumatized another three kids. The mother? I had always thought this mother rather strange. Sometimes she sticks around for nearly 20-30 minutes after our closing*. All of us here are volunteers. We have other business and family to take care of. We rather like being able to clean up after a session and head home. Soon I had two or three mothers telling me how the little girl had misbehaved. Well, we expect two-year-olds to go through a certain phase, don't we? But what came across to...

Son's school sports day today. We had the best weather and son was amazingly positive today. Two mothers came up to congratulate me on his achievement in gaining the Chief Scout's Silver Award (mentioned by the Headmaster in the school bulletin last week). Somehow we got round to talking about my making him tidy up from a very young age. This is really the 'luxury' of a stay-at-home mother. (One mum expressed how because she always had an au pair , her son never had a chance to do this.) I had the choice of tidying up for him and get it over and done with in two minutes, or making my son learn how to do it, even if it took 20 minutes. I opted for the latter. When life got a bit messy I used to say, "Let's see if you could put five toys back in the box." He would then count five toys into the box. "OK, I think we need to put another seven in." Sometimes it was nine, ten, or whatever number of toys. Sometimes it was five green colour toys (eg five...

The relevant link from the Telegraph : Ben Kinsella murder: why gang members choose loyalty to each other over family Allow me to highlight a few extracts. The emphases are mine: ''Members are usually from dysfunctional families and broken homes,'' he says. They are failures at school who end up playing truant at an early age and joining groups. From around 11 they join gangs and these become alternative families. But they are ruled by brutal discipline that spills over into extreme violence.'' ''The majority, like Michael Alleyne, come from wildly fractured families - often they are the offspring of single mothers - for whom the gang becomes a surrogate family,'' believes Peter Andrews, author of ''Britain's Gang Culture.'' Often membership, he explains, grants status. ''But it's more than that. It offers an extended family with all the fierce, loyal protection that exists within blood families - something few...

I was not at all surprised to read this article: Councils spend £50m a year translating documents no-one reads Just look a this: "Haringey translated into Albanian, Kurdish and Somali a leaflet for recommending council staff for internal awards. Only 12 people ever viewed the documents." It reads as though this leaflet is for council staff. If council staff cannot read English, then surely they should not be employed by the council at all. What an utter waste of money! Whilst people might speak a language, it does not always mean that they are able to read the language just as well. Also, the councils assume that people have free access to computers and internet. As this is not the case, the headline here is also misleading (let's call a spade a spade). While I am not terribly fond of Ms Hazel Blears her advice to councils to "think twice before translating documents" makes sense. This is a version of my letter sent to Times (the newspaper) and published on 13t...

Don't like the term 'housewife'. Married to a man, not a house, so why 'housewife'? In Singapore the preferred term was 'homemaker' for a while. But all the potential homemakers migrated to the corporations and the home had to be made (maid?) by FDWs (Foreign Domestic Workers). In 2004 I undertook research on 'stay-at-home mothers' or SAHMs in Singapore (thanks to a grant from the British Academy). The results of this research have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal ... because I am still a SAHM. This term has gained popularity in Singapore (since then? maybe it wasn't anything to do with me, who knows?). An interesting finding was most of these SAHMs did not do much 'housework'. They stayed at home, but they still had FDWs to cook and clean for them. So while they might do the food shopping (called 'marketing' in the 'wet markets'), SAHMs often only supervised others in homemaking. The whole objective of being...

Since the start of this 'swine flu' scare, there has been an increase in the government-sponsored advertising with the slogan 'Catch it. Bin it. Kill it'. Well, it has certainly killed much of my hankie business which is usually in full flow this time of year, it being hayfever season. And you know what is even more exasperating? They are using MY tax money to bring you this advertising, effectively ruining my business. This admonition to 'bin it' suggests that disposable tissue paper is more hygienic than cloth hankies. One school website says explicitly that cloth hankies are to be avoided. But when was the last time you disinfected a piece of tissue paper? So, being the researcher that I am I took a closer look at my internet search results for 'swine flu and hankie'. Here are some of my conclusions: (1) The habit of covering one's mouth with a hankie or tissue when one sneezes or coughs is no longer a habit amongst some of the younger people in...

OK, this awful MPs' expenses scandal is really quite cathartic. Today another two female MPs said they are stepping down in order to "spend more time with their families". These are MPs/Ministers in their late 50s/60s. Their children are not nine years old, like my son. What I found particularly galling is Patricia Hewitt saying: "I did initially want to serve another term. But I feel the time is right," said Ms Hewitt. "The truth is that after 13 years as an MP and ten years in Government, I have not seen enough of my family. They have paid a high price for that." THE TRUTH IS thenext election (if she's voted back in, no guarantee of that) will take her to past the 15 years in Parliament which qualifies her for a much more generous pension. She would now have to forgo that. O, poor thing! As for not seeing enough of the family, isn't it a bit late to spend time with family and children who have left home, or are leaving soon? My husband is als...

Yay! I've been given an appointment to see someone at the neurology department some time in July. My GP ran all the tests and found nothing wrong with me, but I am still getting the numbness in both my hands (usually when I sleep) and we both want to know that it is not the onset of some degenerative nerve disease. They now have this 'choose and book' system. One is given a long list of hospitals we could go to (previously one could go to the one decided by the GP, I suppose). We then check them out online, see how long their waiting list is, and try to book an appointment. The hospital I chose did not have an online booking system, so I had to ring up. The hospital had not issued any dates. So it could be two months or twice that. Who knows? I was told that if the hospital does not contact me within two weeks, then I must go back to the GP for advice. What? Go back to the GP? Do you know how difficult it is to get an appointment to see my GP? So I put it down in my diary t...

One of the mums from my toddler group came in some time with a box full of popular magazines she rescued from the bin at her office. There was quite a scramble as mums tried to pick a magazine either for themselves or for their children. I got myself one on home decor. Me, home decor? Ha! Before we got married I made it quite clear to my husband-to-be I am not the proud house-owner type (ie: don't expect me to keep the house spotless, etc, etc.) Thankfully he was of the view that it is no fun living in a showroom. We can boast of living in a very 'lived in' house. Toys everywhere? That's only because my son had not tidied up. I do not go tidying up after him. Anyway, I spotted this section on covering up an 'open cupboard' (ie open shelves) with a patchwork curtain: "Sew together fabrics until you have a piece one and a half times the length of your worktop. Stitch a narrow casing at the top and hem the bottom. Thread curtain wire through the casing and fix...

Looks like the police refused to tell even the owner of the house about the case. He was around earlier and I went over to share my commiserations. He told me he rented it out to a Chinese family who never paid the rent, so he came down with the police to see what happened. Apparently there was some guy upstairs. "Any arrests?" The police wouldn't say. Hmm. Today he engaged a couple of guys to empty the pots of compost into a truck. The piles of plastic pots are shown below. How many pots did they find? Note there are more pots behind the green wheelie bins. Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

Tuesday we noticed police presence across the road. After son's piano concert I walked across to police officer and asked if there's been a break-in. If there's one, I needed to know. "Nothing to worry about, madam. Not a break-in." No dead bodies? "Nothing like that madam." Wednesday I could see policeman guarding the open door as colleague was doing something inside. Dusting for fingerprints? Poor chap standing there all morning in the cold. So at lunch time I went over to say, "Would you like a cup of tea?" I don't think he's allowed to accept hospitality while on duty. I mean, what if I spiked his drink? No, he said. What about your colleagues? "I'm fine," came the voice of his female colleague from inside the house. I could see that the house was in a bit of a mess. Thursday. Another policeman at door while his colleague was inside. Then she was outside, writing up some report on the big wheelie bin. Today (Friday), b...