England-Scotland-England

Find someone in life who looks at you the way Pips looks at an ice cream. Pictures from the slow southern drive back- Roro protecting her waffles from Pip’s guilty face and folded hands. Making roasted char siew soup noodles for breakfast. It’s gratifying just to learn their patterns, and for them to learn each other, and to have time for morning cuddles. Pips is the worst sleeper and rises earliest, usually followed by Roro or Wes.

It still surprises me how much Pips and Pezzy are alike, not just the same expressions and frustrated grunt noise, but down to their competitiveness and propensity to collect sticks as they walk. She spontaneously breaks into a run everywhere and looks back to declare, “I win!” exactly as he used to do. Both Rowan and Wes will mulch about instead of coming on a morning walk but they hurry to be involved in cooking breakfast while the other two are greedy but lacksadaical and indifferent in the kitchen. The best thing I’ve done is teach Wes to execute french toast all by himself.

As we drive past the aged industrial belt of Britain, the structures of the architectural landscape change from windmills and rigs to 1930s smokestacks. Am reminded how behind we are in Asia, every home has had compost, recycling commitments and compartment bins, I bought summer sales items online and all the packaging was recyclable and at least part recycled.

Scotland driving is beautiful and relaxing as you would expect for a place that has the same population as Singapore spread across 109x the space, and their road infrastructure is very well maintained and smooth, but English driving is more congested. I’m told more than half the population of Scotland is employed by the state.