Babies by the Park

Speaking to one of Tinkerbell's teachers today, made me realise that perhaps we were a little crazy!

I didn't realise that checking out 20 nurserys before you choose one, wasn't normal, perhaps its the only daughter thing? When we moved further away from the preschool I decided to check out another 5!

But I keep on coming back to how fantastic the teachers are at Babies by the Park preschool, they're full of energy, cuddles and always happy, just what you want when you drop off your kids. Since my daughter started over 3 years ago no teachers have left unless they're being promoted to new roles in new centres that they are opening. It is a very local school the children have Chinese everyday and I think the standard is high. They prepare them to do show and tell every week in both English and Chinese so that at the end of K2 they can get up on stage and present in front of 300 parents. I would be nervous doing this!!!! But free play and sport isn't ignored either, the kids have swimming, rugby and hip hop every week.

What you really can't ignore though is how happy she is going into school.

A few years on...

I thought it had been a few years since I blogged, but I am ashamed to say its been 8 years!!

Since the last time I blogged, we have moved country twice, got married and had a daughter! We've now been living in Singapore for 3 years and I have got the best job in the world teaching kids how to swim.

One year on...

We've been in France a year...and well nothing much has changed. To be honest it's been a rough ride and I think at times we've both wondered what would happen, but we're happy enough and we're just about to celebrate our 3rd anniversary with a cheese fest.

We went to see little Hayden last night, Hans and Sara's new baby boy, and it seems this morning we were a little the worse for wear - happily highlighted by the repeats on the shopping list. It seems we really do like coriander!! Wetting the baby's head sure is fun!

Cannes Film Festival

This weekend is a long weekend in France. My favourites even though I'm not working, it just means I get to see more of eveyone and everyone is in a great mood.

Yesterday we went over to Cannes for the festival and strolled the prom, we did our best to hunt down the celebrities but they are a wily lot and we saw zero famous folk. I'll just have to wait to see the photos in Hello!, OK magazine and The Enquirer.


All the stars' boats


The only star we saw was a robot!

The weekend has got off to a great start with more than a few drinks at Smarties and Deux Freres bar, and being invited for a bbq on Sunday to watch the grand prix in Monaco on Sunday. Yippeee, and hopefully making a new friend. We did try to make a few more, but obviously shouting across from your balcony saying, "Are you English... do you fancy going for a drink?" does not work here in the Cote d'Azur and should be best left to Ibiza or Fuertuventura. We were a bit disappointed that they didn't come out but I did like the way Dan put it: "They've missed out on some great friends!"


Dan at Smarties bar

And that pound I've been trying to shed has finally come off whooooohooo.

Health eating

This week has all been about trying to eat healthily and hopefully lose some weight along the way. To be fair I think I was getting there until Saturday and a killer hangover made me resort to my last bottle of Lucozade packed with about a thousand calories. I really wish I hadn't as the 1lb I did lose has gone straight back on, but I do have until Wednesday weigh in day to re-lose my pound.

What have we eaten:

From Ainsley Harriott's low fat meals in minutes we tried the following
Lemon garlic chicken with coriander - tasted amazing
Roasted onion, rocket and percino salad - yum, yum
Grilled peaches and mint feta cheese salad - hmmm, I think I put too much lemon juice in the salad dressing

From Channel 4's healthy food site we tried:
Feta and pomegranate salad
Chicken with mango salad, this seemed to be Dan's favourite although I'm not keen on Mango and the day had been a bit ofa Mango disaster which put me off but it was nice.

Chicken Fu-Yung - wow, simple chinese cookbook
Fattoush - a middle eastern cookbook

Turkish Chopped Salad - defiantely a winner from the 2nd Moro Cookbook

As for next week I haven't decided what to cook yet, but it will definately be on the same lines and I might just try doing a run or two and see if that helps shed a few pounds...