Of cars, buses and trains

Dear everyone,

I apologise for the 'deadness' of my blog. So much has happened lately, that it has just been to overwhelming to sit down and pen or type down my thoughts. When something new happens, I immediately think "I must share this", but then I get caught up in the wave of everything that keeps happening and happening, that I never do.

Anyway, this morning we did something unusual. We took public transport. On a Sunday. To go to church! (well not all the way, we caught the train up to Bullcreek and a friend picked us up from there).

We banged up our little white 'bun' car a couple of weeks ago. A young driver swerved across from the left most lane to the right most lane (it was a three-lane road), cutting one of the cars travelling in front of us who jammed the brakes suddenly and caused a mini pile up. The culprit then did a U-turn and drove off without stopping.

It was quite a dramatic day. The had to bring a tow truck in, the police and ambulance were also on the scene, and just so much talking talking talking... talking to the other drivers, talking to the police, talking to the paramedics... and after that more talking to the insurance company, filing a police report, which was totally NOT as amusing as our other experience.


The poor car is currently in the workshop, but in the meantime, we have been already looking around and shopping around for a new car. We were already thinking of getting a new car, but the accident just made things a bit more inconvenient in the meantime.

This is the car we are currently considering...

Anyway, back to today. While hubs and I were catching the bus and train to church this morning, it just brought back memories of how we used to go around everywhere in Singapore on public transport... we would be holding hands, walking down to the bus stop or train station, and just sit back as we were being transported around. The scene there was so different, Sundays were just as busy if not busier than on weekdays for buses and trains in Singapore. Almost everybody in Singapore seemed to be out and about kai-kai-ing. Sooo different from the scene in Perth. We were the only people on the bus, and we had no problems finding a seat on the train.

It was fun looking around, watching other people. I caught sight of an old couple sitting side by side on a train. They each had a book in hand, and were contently reading... and they were reading pretty solid books... the man was reading 'Killing Fields' and the woman appeared to be reading a female autobiographical novel type of book. Somehow I really liked watching that scene, and I thought how nice to grow old together like that, and I imagined them sitting at the breakfast table across from each other, talking about what they were reading, sharing interesting snippets with each other... I nudged hubby and pointed out the couple I was looking at, and whispered my thoughts. He smiled and nodded, and commented back something funny.

Despite being car-less, it felt nice sitting next to hubby in the train like that and it somehow made me feel five years younger.

I will be your witness

Today’s church service was all about Mothers' Day.

There were special presentations and personal testimonies, all centred around the superwoman in our lives.

Here is a video presentation written and acted out by our church’s youth group especially for the occasion…

So first off, a big thumbs up to all these brilliant actors and creative story writers!!! Well done guys!!!

I’m aware that nowadays most of us already know how to give credit to the ‘background people’. But nevertheless, somehow it is still always the actual people you see in front of you who you are conscious of bringing you the enjoyment you experience.

So I just want to use up a few lines just to give special credit to my dear hubby who made this video possible…

…for being the video man, including crouching around the ground and balancing and manoeuvring the camera to get those ‘creative’ angles in the scenes

…for spending a whole afternoon, sitting next to some of the youths to guide them through the process of planning the video editing, choosing scenes, arranging them in the right order, selecting the background music (kudos also to the four youths who did this planning process for the editing)

…for staying up till 3.00am putting the video together, stitching scenes, adding the fade-in/fade-out effects, colour effects, painstakingly sequencing the scenes at the precise timing for the background music and scene transitions

…for taking in the feedback from various parties to ensure everyone is happy, and then doing more research to learn how to incorporate the additional requested items for the video

…then staying up late again till wee hours to work in all those other items such as adding subtitles and meticulously re-editing various sections to bring it together into its final form

…then driving out on Saturday afternoon to pass the video clip file to the projection team so they could have the video in time to show it at the first Saturday afternoon church service

…and on top of that, driving frantically back all the way home on Sunday morning (after we were already nearby church) to get a copy of the video clip file, because the projection team ‘accidentally’ deleted the file from yesterday

…and then after everything, still have that look of pride and joy in his eyes when he sees the proud smiles on the youths’ faces as they receive the thunderous applause from the congregation

It sometimes feels like a thankless job, because as much as everyone appreciates a final piece of work you do, most of the time nobody else sees the hours of work, the painstaking care, and commitment to excellence that went into it.

But I see. I am your witness.

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'

Susan Sarandon, from the movie ‘Shall We Dance’

My Love, Loves Me…

I am thinking of my mother tonight. Not just because it is Mother’s Day tomorrow, but just because it’s one of those moments when images from my childhood come to mind.

So what comes to my mind…

One of the earliest scenes from my childhood I can remember…. I was probably around 3 years old I think, and I remember wearing favourite ‘home’ dress (a sort of comfy ‘T’ shirt material, dual colour - light yellow top and light green bottom), peering into the kitchen and my mum looking back and smiling at me.

Another early memory I have is one time when I was sitting on the steps, drinking from a porcelain mug. I dropped the mug and broke it, my mum happened to walk on the scene just then, and I broke into tears thinking I would be scolded. But instead she just leaned over and said “it’s okay, it was an accident”. Somehow this memory always touches me.

Then there are short scenes… mum gently patting us awake early in the morning to get ready for school… mum taking us out for afternoon outings to the museum, library, to the park or to the club for a swim… sitting on the kitchen floor helping mum to sift flour onto a newspaper…

Then there are songs which whenever I hear or think of them, my thoughts would always turn to my mother. In our family, my dad usually held control of all types of remotes in the house, including the one for the CD/cassette player. So it was rarely that my mum actually mentioned a particular song that she liked. But these are just a few of the ones I do remember as some of her favourites (I hope I am right).

ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ - so melancholic, especially the line “…sleep in her eyes, her and me at the breakfast table…” and I think of all those times at the breakfast table, so sleepy (sometimes a little grouchy) and completely unaware of how precious those moments were.

Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Scarborough Fair’ - the lyrics always suggested some deep philosophical meaning which I was under the impression only my mum understood. You know how sometimes when you are a kid, you would start the opening line, then mumble and hum through the song until you get to the part of the lyrics you actually know how to sing, and then you would sing that part VERY LOUDLY. That part of this song was “…parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…”. This part of the song always sticks in my head, because I remember my mother distinctly repeating it for us clearly… my brothers must have made up some other ridiculous rendition of our own (as we frequently used to do) which was why I think my dear mother felt compelled to correct us.

AND…

Nana Mouskouri’s ‘Plaisir d’Amour’ - actually I’m not certain that she specifically liked Nana’s rendition of this song. But I remember that she had always liked Nana Mouskouri’s voice, and that this song was very special as it was the song played on the piano, as she walked down the aisle of Basel Church on her wedding day.

I searched out this song clip, so that I could dedicated it to her…

Happy Mother’s Day, dearest of mums.