Although things are hotting up for the show i.e. rehearsals done and dusted (and very nicely so), and next week is the bump-in (get-in) I’m at the same time getting myself ready to leave. It all feels very quick and yet that I’ve been here for ages, it’s quite a nice little lifestyle to settle in to. Very much looking forward to getting back home to Dan and Bertie and oddly enough some rain and cooler weather, and starting on something new getting some meetings going and seeing what is next.

Tomorrow, Sunday, is my last tourist day so wondering how best to spend it. Beach? Forest? Shops? China town? I quite fancy the idea of the beach, despite its inevitable rammed-ness.

The nearest, and better beaches by all accounts, are those on Sentosa. This is an island slap bang next to the docks which has been turned into a massive theme park, beaches and exclusive accommodation. You get it by driving or taking the monorail from the obligatory shopping centre on the mainland. I did this last night to got to Pete’s birthday do down at Sentosa cove on the west of the island.

The crossing is quite high up with big drops, I realised as we monorailed across, by which time it was too late for me to get out, but I was a bit stunned by the views of the rows and rows of huge transporter cranes on the docks, the cruise ships moored up and the waterfall running down the side of the man made cliff that was the entrance to Sentosa itself.

I may not be the best judge here as theme parts are my idea of hell so I won’t go on about it, but it does seem very tacky. But then I don’t necessarily do this kind of fun so Universal Studios et al is of no use to me anyway. It felt like a step too far for me and once the monorail got to the beach station I boarded a bus and headed to the west of the island and the tapas restaurant where we were meeting Pete and Ali.

Sentosa cove is impressive in immensely startlingly wealthy way, if you like tower blocks, yachts, and all the accompanying bars etc. One of those exclusive sprawls of apartments overlooking marinas with yachts and boats you could never dream of owning (and fortunately don’t want to), a large ex-pat enclave it seemed of bars and restaurants. It was lovely to see Pete and Ali and meet up with a load of their friends and felt a million miles away from the Singapore I had been seeing for the previous few weeks. Having said that, I may well get the monorail back tomorrow and go for a paddle. Odd going to the beach by myself, I feel Prufrock moment coming on.

I also discovered Fort Canning park this week, sadly a bit too late. I’ve been up a few times in the mornings just to sit on the benches and do some writing and planning, really enjoyed it. It is the hill in the centre of the city and was once the palaces of the Malayan rulers, then a colonial fort now a pleasure park and it is very lovely and an unusually quiet and mediative part of Singapore.

People keep wanting to be my friend. Another stranger wanted to shake my hand whilst up there yesterday and another fella told me I had a lucky face, last one who told me that conned $4 dollars out of me, but he was very kind.

This morning I had an animal eating in the tree above me and kept dropping stuff on me, we had a stand off and he moved.