Hollow Echoes

Image via Wikipedia

This is the final week in our condo and with all the boxes gone the place has a hollow echo.  I have never tired of looking out our lounge window at the changing Singapore skyline, with its steady procession of cranes as new buildings rise from their foundations.

I have watched the tropical storms come and go and felt the building reverberate to the sound of the thunder.

The night view is particularly attractive with the various coloured lights from the high rises much in evidence.

Just this morning I watched a large raptor ride the the thermals above Margaret Drive as it searched for prey hundreds of feet below.

These past three and a half years have been my first experience of apartment living. While I have enjoyed the change, it is fair to say that my wife has regarded it as a form of penal servitude and longs for the quietness of New Zealand. She is a Singaporean and has not enjoyed coming back whereas I have always felt a strong affinity to Singapore, going back to the 1980's when I first  visited.

To put it into context, I doubt I would enjoy going back to the town of my birth to live either.  Not that there is anything wrong with Waitara I hasten to add, it is just that we have nothing in common and the childhood memories are largely of wild west coast beaches and burning black sand in the heat of summer.  I have moved on.

The BBC World Service is broadcasting in the background as I write this.  What a marvelous thing quality radio journalism is.  It has keep us connected with the wide world during our time here; in a way that local media simply does not.

I only hope that we can get the World Service in New Zealand.  I recall it was privately sponsored by a wealthy NZ businessman several years ago but I am not sure if the service still exists?  There is a web site which says that the service still exists on 810 AM so here's hoping.