This week I have mostly been talking real estate, a favourite topic with just about anyone who is facing a lease renewal this year. Property both for sale ad rent has gone through the roof, and for no good reason really. A recent article in the SMH suggested it is due to a bit of dubious foriegn investment is responsible, perhaps it is but I am actually quite curious to know if that was Eric Ellis' last article from Singapoo. I couldn't imagine that article being well received in the government control room, and his lease was due, so maybe he was looking to get deported rather than pay 70% more rent.One of the reason for rents going up is supply and demand, and this being affected by greedy landlords taking huge cash lump sums to get together the rest of their neighbours to sell "en-block". This means they knock down big old places and build tall small places, so now you either live in the middle of a construction zone facing a 70% rent hike for the privlidge like us or end up moving to shoe box in middle of road in less desirable areas.
As well as talking real estate I have been learning to be a dad, people ask me what it is like adjusting to being a dad. The two biggest problems have been a temporary lack of control over my sideburns and my pants fall down when I push the pram. A haircut and a belt have fixed these issues, so it is going well now.We have also discovered Phoebe is quite useful when one of us farts in a lift like one of us did, quite badly or well dependig how you rate farts, on the weekend. It's funny, people smile when you tell them the burning sensation around the eyes and nostrils was due to your baby. They would probably not smile if I told them where the noxious gas really came from, nor would Reidy.
I should have been surprised when I came out of the train station at Tampines and saw a tank. But it comig up for 2 years here and I am now not surprised to see a tank parked outside a suburbn shopping mall.
