In late May we flew to London, to touch base with family, both living — my sister — and passed on — our annual pilgrimage to my parents’ graves in Dorset. I spent a day in the BBC Written Archives in Reading, searching for traces of S. Rajaratnam’s broadcasts during the Second World War, and finding transcripts, correspondence, and more, leads which I’ll probably never follow fully, but are intriguing

We’re back in Vancouver, at that special time of the year. In our first and second week the last wave of cherry blossoms came, the kanzan cultivar, with its thick pom-poms of pink flowers. We had a period of cold, intensely sunlit days, and so the blossoms remained on the trees for a couple of weeks, only finally falling when the rain came at the end of the month. In

In the last month or so I’ve been considering, through thoughts and feelings, the place of writing in my life. In part, this interest has come from a series of conversations. I visited a former senior colleague, who is now approaching a time in life where health concerns become very real, who has been a creative writer in various genres all his life but, to his bitterness, now can no

It’s early February, and I’m caught up by a growing tug of time. In October and November, especially, there was a feeling that our time in Singapore was limitless, and that we had months ahead to explore. Now our return to Vancouver in early April is visible on the horizon, still very distant, but approaching, after Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Fasting Month. In the last month

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with two students from the last batch of undergraduates I taught, in 2017. They were now both out in the world of work, one teaching at junior college and another, after a brief excursion into the private sector, now offering tuition. We met in a tiny café in an HDB block off Waterloo Street, and I got there first, leaving the MRT station

We’ve been here a month now, getting used to new rhythms of life. The time we spend outside in Singapore is much less than in Vancouver: we don’t cycle to the shops or walk downtown. Here it’s the MRT or the bus, journeys that often take an hour or more. There are signs of change in our lives, too. I have a little purple coloured senior citizen’s card for public

In early October, we’re back in Singapore. Arrival this time has felt different from returning last year, on our first trip after two years of absence caused by the COVID pandemic. There hasn’t been that strangeness of the first few days, when you see everything with a defamiliarized double sight. Everything is instantly very familiar, as if we have never left, or as if our HDB flat in Bukit Batok

On Not Standing Still We’re now heading into September, and summer’s officially over. In a month, we’ll be back in Singapore, away from the rhythm of the change of seasons that gives shape to our lives here. In July, the days begin to shorten, but imperceptibly, a minute or less each day. By the end of August the change is noticeable, darkness galloping forward, with the sun now setting before