Mooncake Time!

It's the Autumn festival once again and families are flocking to the centre of Takashimaya department store to try out the many varieties.

It is very easy to over indulge in the sampling thereof and I am the living proof that this is so.

Quite why we acknowedge this as an 'autumn' event in Singapore is stretching credibility. There are no leaves turning rusty brown and falling from trees. The only things that do fall are large branches in the height of a tropical storm and every year serious injuries are reported.

The Singapore weather chart on televison records no drop in temperature. The graphic that appears is usually the one at left and the temperature hovers between 30 and 33 degrees C.

The Autumn Festival excitement is for children as much as the adults and perhaps even more so. The former clutch their small dough piglets that are imprisoned in plastic baskets. A child sized lantern or two is selected and even these seem to get more sophisticated as the years go by.