We did our first international holiday in a while, prompting a revival of this old blog! I (Johno) am typing this up at 10:30am, 20-somthing hours since my day started, so apologies in advance if this is a little loopy 🙂 We had a week in SIN, thanks to an AI conference my company used as an excuse to get together in person. I don’t think I can carry a coherent narrative, so here are some discrete impressions!

Little India

A coworker organised a hotel in ‘Little India’, which added an extra dimension to the trip. This is a small neighborhood of Singapore with a dramatically different feel to the rest of the city. Densly packed shops full of color, incense and spices and strings of flowers filling the air with scencts, maximalist decor on temples and gold shops alike – this is not a reserved culture!

Singapore – A Constructed Paradise

As soon as you leave Little India, you’re in Singapore proper, surrounded by air-conditioned skyscrapers and cafes. Everything is clean, thoughtful, and carefully crafted. Getting around is easy thanks to good public transport and the ‘Grab’ app (their Uber equivalent that also covers payments, food delivery, and much more). Most of the attractions we visited were impeccably curated, but this didn’t detract as much as I’d expect – they were all done so well, and somehow avoided feeling like kitsch commercial tourist traps even when that’s exactly what they were!

Nature

Nature is pervasive in the city, with lush greenery spouting from every nook and cranny. It’s an incredible dance of careful management vs natural fecundity. We managed a few outings to some ‘proper’ nature trails but also loved just birding through some parks near the hotel and wandering the famous ‘Gardens By The Bay’

Our bird list, in rough order of appearance: Red Junglefowl (the original chicken!), Blue-throted Bee-eater, Common Tailorbird, Lineated Barbet, Pink-necked Green-Pigeon, Wellow-vented Bulbul, Ornate Sunbird, White-bellied Sea-Eagle, Javan Myna, Asian Koel, House Crow, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Rock Pigeon, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Van Hasselt’s Sunbird, Black-naped oriole, House Swift, Crested Serpent-Eagle, Common Myna, Brown-throated Sunbird, Spotted Dove, Zebra Dove, Black-throated Laughingthrush (outside our hotel window!), Collared Kindfisher, Blue-crowned Hanging-Parrot (a special treat for Ellie), Oriental Pied Hornbill, White-breasted Waterhen, Lesser Whistling-Duck, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Swinhoe’s White-eye, Striated Heron, Pacific Swallow, Brahminy Kite, Painted Stork, Milky Stork, Collared Scops Owl, Large-Tailed Nightjar.

Of course, me being me I also got excited about bugs and managed to find four or five types of Jumping Spider 😀

Food

Singapore is a foodie paradise! Nobody cooks at home, so the streets are packed with options. Little India breakfasts were typically Dosa, Poori, Idli, Vadai with a set of curry-ish sauces, with optional Apam or other sweeter options and strong masala chai. All for super cheap. Straying further one morning, we discovered the fluffiest ‘Japanese Soufflé Pancakes’ that were basically clouds covered in berries and cream. Lunches and dinners were fun group adventures to the various food centers nearby, with occasional jaunts further afield into Chinatown or more distant hawker centers that were recommended by our local foodie friends. My favourite spot was a local one with some Chinese stalls, ft. pigs trotters and sea cucumber, Sichuan pepper popcorn chicken nuggets and lots of other tasty options that we’d usually buy and share for more variety.

Conference

The conference was fun – 8000 attendees, with hundreds of posters and presentations and bustle. I met up with someone I’d co-authored a paper with, and a few other internet friends old and new. Mainly though it was a great excuse to get our company together from all over the world, and we bunked a lot of the formal conference talks to code and chat and play Crokinole by the pool 🙂

Culture

Singapore is a gentle introduction to SE Asia. We got to experience tiny tastes of India, Malasia, China and Japan within a few km radius, in a very safe and comfortable city. Perfect for newbies like us 😀 There were some definite undercurrents of tension though – I suspect there’s a lot of prejudice against the poorer worker class there, and it must be tough to try to make a living in such a wealthy and strict city-state. Still, everyone we dealt with was friendly and helpful, extremely tolerant of these clueless foreigners mispronouncing their menu items 🙂

Final Thoughts

Overall a delightful experience, packed to the brim with new flavours, traditions and sensations. So glad we got to push ourselves a little out of our comfort zones and do this 🙂 And now I can’t wait to get back to our happy Portland spots and welcome my parents for their own intro to a foreign land! Stay tuned for that. Love, J&E

The past two weeks we’ve been at the annual family reunion Ellie’s extended family does in a place called Stinson Beach, California. They rent out multiple houses on a spit of land between a lagoon and the ocean and fill them with four generations of family for a crazy fun-filled get-together. Every aspect of the time is pretty idyllic, including the location:

Here’s a typical day:
– Wake up and maybe take a walk along the beach before popping into the cozy warmth of the main house kitchen for some breakfast
– Rally the troops for PickleBall on the tennis courts next door. Of the ~25 people in our group, maybe 8-10 are keen to play and another couple come along to watch or take a bike ride to the courts
– Return mid-morning and cool off with a dip in the ocean, which usually necessitates a second dip in the hot tub to warm back up
– Play some cards until the smell of panini cooking from the kitchen becomes irresistible, then challenge someone to a game like corn hole
– Take a nap or read, or maybe join an expedition to the nearby town for ice cream and supplies
– More games before supper. Everyone is in charge of one big supper (usually in teams). Of course, every single night ends up highly indulgent as everyone breaks out their favorite recipes and tries to impress! Leftovers abound but the hoards of hungry cousins keep them from overflowing the fridges 🙂
– The sun sets late, and so post-supper volleyball is likely for those who aren’t completely comatose. Everyone else does puzzles or plays games, and then slowly trickles off to bed until only a few relatives remain sitting in the nook, drinks in hand, discussing the deep questions of life.

It would be easy for a time so packed with activities to be overwhelming, but the atmosphere of Stinson is such that you never feel bad for skipping something to sneak off for some reading and quiet time. Ellie and I both seemed to find just the right balance, and ended the two weeks a little tired but in a happy sort of way – tired muscles from all the sport, and tired smiling muscles from all the social! Thankfully we now have a year to recover and try to lose the weight we gained before the next one 😀

After much deliberation I bought the exact same camera model that I had in Zim, having sold my previous one to a friend with vague intentions to upgrade! Turns out my previous set-up was hard to beat on a budget 🙂 This has provided yet another excuse to head out into nature, and my SD card is slowly filling up with bug pictures as usual:

My favourite outing so far has probably been a family hike in Forest park, a much larger expanse of nature on the outskirts of Portland. The paths wind along steep slopes where the ground falls away rapidly beneath an extremely high canopy of trees, leaving you feeling small and surrounded by natural beauty. I’m definitely hoping to get back there soon to walk the trails again at a much slower pace to better indulge my urge to look at everything 🙂

We’ve also had all sorts of other fun things on. Ellie spent the weekend in Albany with family before the rest of us joined her at Hannah’s baby shower. The Portland contingent went floating on the river – picture a dozen extremely happy people slowly drifting for hours down a tree-lined river in colorful floaties, complete with drinks and snacks which only got slightly soaked… delightful. I imagine we created an anomalously high peak in the local happiness landscape.

You’re all going to have to visit so we can share all these places we’re finding with you. LOL. Johno and Ellie ❤

It’s the tail-end of strawberry season, so yesterday we took off somewhat spontaneously with Henry and Diane to a farm just outside Portland to snag the last of this year’s crop. This region is called Sauvie Island, and it is where folks from Portland City visit to live out their farming fantasies. I can see why it’s popular – munching sun-warmed berries and filling our tubs with bounty was pretty much the ideal way to spend an afternoon.

It’s slowly sinking in that we live here, and the picture emerging of what life could look like is wonderful. Some other fun things we’ve been up to recently:
– Movies with Andrew
– Helping Ben and Emily move house
– Day trip down to Albany, where the whole family pitched in to mulch the grandparent’s yard before celebrating our labors with a potluck
– Board games and cooking fun with Henry and Di (in exciting news it looks like we’re going to be housemates – we decided that sharing their current house >> any of the other options we’ve looked at)

A common denominator across all these activities? Family! We are so incredibly lucky to have landed smack in the middle of a welcoming community, a blessing that has made all the difference with this move. Thank you all 🙂

It’s almost impossible to believe that we’ve only been here in Portland for one week! It feels like we’ve been averaging 3+ activities per day, with lots of delightful family time and yet somehow also plenty of space for me and Ellie to explore the area for ourselves. Herny and Di live in a great walkable neighborhood, with easy access to shops, a library (we’ve already read and returned our first batch of books!), and parks, not to mention hundreds of cafes and restaurants.

It was Andrew’s birthday on the weekend, which we celebrated with breakfast and pickleball in the park, supper with Aunt Denise and her husband Rick, rollerskating to organ music, then (the next day) a visit to the rose parade, supper at a Mexican place, and Salt and Straw Icecream to round it all out. The rose parade was highly entertaining – multiple hours of Portland’s finest; floats, old cars, marching bands, dancers, clowns, and even a fire-truck/ bagpipe band combo worked their way past waving crowds. It makes me so happy to see these little groups get their moment in the sun, each performance undoubtedly the climax of months of frantic preparation.

On Thursday I took leave from the madding Ker crowd and met up with a friend that lives here in Portland. Rather than cram in a hasty coffee meeting, we decided to spend most of the day just hanging out. We walked through different parks, ate lunch and dinner at splendid restaurants, and saw some delightful spots like the Japanese Gardens (pictured) which featured an incredible exhibition of glass artworks.

I’d love to write more about all of our experiences, but for now this brief overview will have to suffice! We’re slowly ticking off admin chores and settling in, so hopefully in the weeks to come things will calm down enough that the ratio of new things : blog posts will drop to a more manageable level 🙂 In the meantime know that we are well – if tired – and extremely happy with our new home city.

Best,

J

We arrived in the US this week! The journey was pleasant and relatively short (16 hours CPT->ATL, then a 6-hour hop to Portland) although we cut it close on the connection, making it to our gate with only a minute to spare… We were met by a posse of family members and soon got settled in at Henry and Di’s house where we’re staying until we find a place of our own. Between the family and the familiar area, it felt as if no time had passed since our previous trip here.

Portland is a gorgeous city. Between the MANY admin trips we’ve done, Ellie and I have worked lots of walks around the neighbourhood to take in the lovely gardens and parks here. It’s not called “rose city” for nothing – they’re flourishing everywhere in all conceivable forms.

Highlights so far have been family hang-outs and jam sessions, and a trip down to Albany to see Ellie’s grandparents, aunts, and tiny cousins 🙂 I’ve obtained a new instrument called a ‘seaboard’ and will share some recordings in a future post. Not quite up to the Ker boy’s music skill but we had tons of fun running through some songs in preparation for a performance at the big upcoming family reunion.

I’ve been meaning to write this pretty much since we arrived, but this morning is the first slot I’ve managed to sit down to blogging – which shows you how busy we’ve been 🙂 I’m off to see a friend for the rest of today, and the weekend is full of festivities you’ll hear about in due time, but then I think next week we’ll finally get a bit more down time to properly breathe and sit back in our new home.

Love and best wishes to all,

J

We’re moving to the US! This means our blog is having the dust blown off and getting re-vitalized so that, in some small way, you our nearest and dearest can all come along on the journey with us.

Stage one of the journey is Cape Town, where we’re hanging with Ellie’s parents for a few days before the main CPT->PDX leg. A major bonus of this stop-over: a chance to catch up with friends like Claire:

Muizenberg in Cape Town is always a delightful place; this trip has been no exception. We’ve had some good relaxed time with the family and managed to squeeze in trips to the beach and Kirstenbosch gardens despite only being here for a couple of days.

Anyway, prepare yourselves – more posts to come!

Loads of love,

J&E

A few weeks ago, we decided it was high time we built some nicer desks. A trip to the hardware store and some DIY teamwork got them assembled with gratifying speed. But home improvement is addictive, and no sooner were we settled into our desks than Ellie had a glint in her eye and a tape measure in hand.

Plans were hatched, little paper models were made and my dear brother David was enlisted as a furniture mover – it was time for a makeover! Today was the day, and reader, don’t ask about the dust under the bed 😉 We’re all sipping tea in the new lounge and looking forward to what feels like a totally new house 🙂

David (pictured) is looking to build a little cottage on this property, and we can’t wait to have him as a neighbor. Our little village is growing…

Love to you all,

J&E

We’re back in Harare, although between shorter visits to the folks and a recent holiday with them our happy little cottage has spent the last few weeks with an oscillating occupancy rate 🙂 We have some bits and bobs to share in terms of updates, but first, let me tell you about that recent trip!

We were planning a getaway, but our first choice was 9+ hours and impossible to book. Looking closer to home, we decided to try a place called Antelope Park. What a lovely place! We had a massive lodge a few kms into the park, meaning a game drive every time we went to the restaurant etc and a bit of solitude – a major plus for us 🙂

The bush was very dry and hot – we did activities from 6:30am and then retired to our cool comfy accommodation for the heat of the day. The birding was excellent – a different set of species to those we get near home. 130+ species on the list 🙂

Using David and Richards cameras has me hooked – I’ve been wanting one for myself for ages and this trip was the tipping point – a fancy new one is on it’s way as we speak, acquired in the normal Zimbo fashion – via an overseas relative with luggage space to spare 😀

In other news, Ellie has a job as an art teacher next year, which is amazing! Right next door to us as well. And borders are opening, so we might get to see family at some point (fingers crossed). And we have a new vehicle, which means we can finally get off the beaten track and start visiting some more of my favorite bush places. Aaaaand I think that’s the news for now – everything else continues blissfully along, and of course Zimbabwe remains totally crazy which we somehow work around.

Love to all ❤

J

A few weeks have flown by! This is just a quick update as I sit by a fire. Let’s go through the news via pictures:

Weekends are wonderful. We had a lie in this morning (although I confess I did do some coding from bed) followed by a cooked breakfast and a walk. I’ve figured out that I can shake a bush over a tray and catch all kinds of spiders as they fall out 🙂 A walk in the morning justified an afternoon of blobbing and we ended with a family zoom, a tasty stew and an evening watching ‘MasterChef’ by the fire.

Garden golf continues despite the chilly mornings, and we continue to be aggressively amateur in our play! Being with family is so wonderful, and I’m so happy we have an excuse to be here with them for a bit. Cheers for now ❤