We started of 2024 with Storm Henk dumping more than 150% of the usual rainfall and lashing the British isles with gale force winds. Winter was bleak and cold. Not the best start to the year having many unwritten essays AND the dissertation waiting to be written. Worse still, the landlord also dropped the bomb on us by informing us that we had to look for a new home by summer. Though he did promise he wouldn't evict us before my graduation, it was still a hard pill to swallow. Life had to go on and birthdays have to be celebrated because the kids will be sad if you don't. Those who are parents and/or with my birthdate will know. We devoured Colin the Caterpillar and drank bubbly pretend champagne! ​

Note: Because this post is really just highlighting the year's events, I won't go into the details because there are dedicated blog and social media posts about all our travels this year. They are free to access!

Januarys always feel a little sad for me because, December. You have all the wonderful gatherings, decorations, holiday seasons and celebrations in December and then it's back to the grind very abruptly. And this explains why I didn't sound excited describing my own birthday. I've never associated my birthday as something celebratory because it always falls on the first couple of days of the new school year. Though we follow a very different routine now, it is still hard to shake those feelings accumulated over 16 years as a student and 5 years as a school teacher.  

But part of us moving to the UK was about healing and exercising our freedom to choose how we should live. Therefore we chose to make homeschooling flexible, rigorous and interest driven at the same time. Despite all the challenges, it was a good year for homeschooling. 

We've got two very motivated students who have chosen a skill on their own accord and practice so that they could excel. We've also got two students who breezed their UK SATs that we just decided to administer on a random day. I feel that we are definitely on the right track in terms of ensuring our kids do not go through the same educational traumas we encountered. These traumas shape you as a person and it is very hard to undo them. 

So while Debra very valiantly held the fort for homeschooling and cooking, I was imprisoned to my chair and laptop for most of January till May. Most of the 19,000 words required that semester was penned in the bleak mid-winter. Gwyn became so accustomed to seeing me type on Microsoft word that she would sternly question me about the word count that barely moved. 

My chair imprisonment was only punctuated by a terrible flu and a surprise visit from the kid's favourite aunt. 

It was a really nice time together and we thought she'll probably visit again in a couple of years for another holiday. There were lots of tears while we travelled home from Heathrow that evening. 

All the travelling around gave us the momentum of seeing more places in February. In between trying to work on the major research paper, I fell into an absolute rabbit hole of wanting to see Scotland. We did try and visit Shakespeare's hometown to make up for it. That just made us want to see what the land of unicorns, whiskey, bagpipes and deep history had to offer. 

Still can't believe we drove a total of 12-13 hours for the return trip. It was a good couple of days in Edinburgh we are so glad we said yes to the adventure. 

Spring was a little disappointing because yeah the chair imprisonment! It was getting all consuming and anxiety inducing because the dateline was drawing close. Despite cracking my head over the ethics approvals and data analysis, we found time to walk off our anxieties along the seaside town of Skegness. We also managed to pop by an amazing brand new cafe in our community, watch the squirrels, enjoy the blooms, bring the kids for their first live concert.

I think it is worth highlighting that when went for the unveiling of the late Queen Elizabeth II's new statue, the kids told the reporters there were okay to be interviewed (and made it on the actual BBC News) with their friends. I don't know how they turned out so audacious and confident. I don't think Debra and I are good examples haha! 

At this point, the birth pangs of the dissertation baby was getting unbelievably unbearable. But I'm happy to announce that the dissertation baby was born successfully and I was released from my chair. Just in time, t-shirt weather and sunshine was upon us! So we made use of all the long sunshine hours and saw Cambridge as well as Hafren forest. It felt so freeing to be behind the steering wheel and not the laptop, on the camera trigger and not the word counter. 

We also got to yell the whole building down because Man United beat Man City to win the FA cup in the finals. To be honest, I completely lost faith by half time. The kids made the trophy that morning in faith and I was absolutely ashamed for feeling a fair bit of doubt. 

With summer in full swing and a window of good dry weather in sight, we were once again beset with the question "to go or not to go". I sprung the question on the family at an emergency meeting around our bed and the council voted 3-1 to do CORNWALL! We packed our luggage that afternoon and headed down for the ridiculously picturesque south west coast. 

This year we have been very fortunate to be visited by my entire family. They flew into the UK for more than 2 weeks to be with us and visit the place. We are also really fortunate to be given the right to vote in UK's General Election this year. These are things we don't take for granted at all. And to top it off our children have decided they would like to make their commitments to following Jesus. 

It was great showing the family the land we call home now. We traversed beautiful parks, museums and enjoyed meals and rode steam trains. It almost felt like the two weeks happened in a flash!

At no point of pursing this I dared expect to be conferred a Master's degree with distinction. Not even in my wildest dreams I would conceive the idea of topping my course. The majority of my Singaporean education has taught me that I'm never good enough. So I did doubt myself. Moreover, it was hard going back to school more than 10 years after undergraduate/post-grad teacher training. These are positive memories will help me say no to negativity for the years ahead.

With this chapter closed, we focused on enjoying the rest of summer and then addressing the elephant in the room. But first we decided to take the kids to the cinema for the first time in their lives. Yes tell me these kids grew up during Covid without telling me so. We throughly enjoyed The Minions but it made them talk gibberish for the next few days about bottoms. haha!

The rest of our summer was dominated by going for property viewings and hosting viewings for our landlord. We were anxious to move while there's sunshine and long daylight hours. This was punctuated by our little trips to Sheffield for the Monopoly Trail, the Black Country Museum as well as the seaside town of Skegness. 

When you know that the Earth is going to do its tilt in a couple months time and you won't get this much sunshine, we were naturally very motivated to make the best of summer. Our second Balloon Festival (even better than last year!), numerous meet ups with friends to enjoy the countryside, more Welsh mountains and the Royal Mint where we realised what could make our boy smile the widest....GOLD! 

As summer drew to a close, that also meant that it was Birthday season! Yummy cakes, family time and presents. Love their big smiles whenever there's cake ❤️

What made the kids smile even more was that their favourite aunt was going to be in the UK from Autumn semester for her studies!

But it was also around the beginning of Autumn that we received the 2 month notice to vacate our home. A lot of end September and October was a complete blur. We searched every major town in the county for a home because we didn't want to give up the community we've grown with for the past two years. I still call it our miracle because it is! One day, Debra suddenly received a call from a friend who just landed in Spain for her holiday, we were a little confused as to why she would call us while on a nice holiday! By the end of the call, our search for a home was ended. We were offered a property in the very village most of our community and friends live. 

So while the leaves were falling and storm season began again, we were now suddenly thrusted into a new direction. We had two months to pack all our belongings, plan and purchase all the furniture/appliances we needed for a partly furnished house and move in November. Before that we had to sell our beloved car and get a bigger car to do the moving ourselves and also accommodate anyone who visited us. 

​It was a month of madness.

I don't know how but we even managed to squeeze in an entire day at Legoland Windsor to surprise the kids. They really enjoyed the spooky theme for Halloween! As if we didn't have enough excitement in our lives, we took Gwyn on her first legit roller coaster ride and I was genuinely scared as an adult. ​

We were rewarded with one of the most beautiful displays of the Aurora Borealis right from our study's window. It's like the skies threw us a farewell lights show before the endless packing went on. Eventually, we did get there after 4 full car loads and many trips up and down the stairs of our old apartment. My watch recorded me climbing 61 floors on one of the days. 

We made it!!! After an entire week of unpacking, building numerous Ikea furniture, slogging it out in the garden, extracting carpets, my laptop no longer recognised my fingerprint. And we were absolutely shattered. Just in time, the kids got to enjoy this winter's first snow! (Yes, Gwyn scored a headshot 😂)

We visited Christmas markets, put up the Christmas tree and did our best to settle into the new home, surroundings and our new routines. We've been truly blessed considering how precarious it was just 2.5 months ago.

We were so excited to enjoy all the Christmas festivities in the village church and actually did manage to attend a few. We managed the yearly Christingle service, Carols by Candlelight, Kids Christmas party and trail with all the good people and friends! In the midst of all these, we were also acutely aware that my dad would be so happy to be part of this. 

We squeezed in a trip to Cambridge and before we knew it, it was Christmas Day! 
Opening presents was the first order of business before the best lunch of pigs in blanket and mouth-watering goose fat roast potatoes. As per our family tradition, we watched the King's Christmas speech (it was the Queen for many years). 

Sadly by late Christmas afternoon, Debra and I were completely down with high fever. Things ground to a halt. Over the next few days, the kids too developed high fever. A trip to the supermarket medicine aisle confirms that there's a massive spread of this horrible flu. 

We are all on the mend now and hope we can enjoy the last day of 2024 before we welcome 2025. This is how our year went. Huge challenges, more than sufficient grace. Time and time again, we have been reminded that miracles do happen! From all of us at Hiro & Jack, we pray that you'll experience that too and have a very joyful 2025! 

I spent the whole of summer mulling over visiting Scotland. First I waited for the hotel prices to fall because summer prices were crazy. Then I waited for the weather to settle but we have had 10 named storms since September. Living in the midlands also gives us very good access to most places in England and Wales. Naturally, we chose the 1-2 hour drives over an almost 6 hour one. But Scotland never left my mind. In fact, I continued looking up hotel prices and weather so often that Debra got a little annoyed.  Before we knew it, it was 2024. 

​Last week, we had a clear break in the weather when most of the UK was dry. I thought it was an amazing time to make the 676 mile (1088km) round trip. It was after lunch and I got a little distracted from writing. I scoured the internet for reasonably price family rooms in Scotland. This time the stars all aligned. 

KIDS!!! COME UPSTAIRS FOR A FAMILY MEETING! Our parliamentary vote went 3 against 1. The kids were totally on board with heading to Scotland. Within 30 minutes, a tiny luggage was packed and we got into François (our tiny car is lovingly named that because it is a French make haha!) for our super impromptu trip to Edinburgh, Scotland! 

ENGLAND ENGLAND ENGLAND......SCOTLANDDDDDD!!!!
We got into Scotland a little past bed time and immediately settled into our hotel room. To be very honest, the night didn't go as planned. You see, since the kids were born, we've NEVER shared a bed or room with them. In all our travels, we've always given them separate connecting rooms/rooms next door. Believe it or not, it was the first time in almost 10 years we shared the room with them. You combine that with the "first night syndrome" when you get used to sleeping in another bed, we barely got any sleep. I salute all the parents who co-sleep with their children. HOW DO YOU GET ANY SLEEP?!

The next morning, we enjoyed our own gluten free PB&J and each got a nice soak in the bath before heading into Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is absolutely GORGEOUS! It feels so much more intact than London. The old buildings seem to go on forever, seemingly unaffected by modernity. The charm of the cobbled stones and sand coloured stone buildings instantly stole our hearts. Not surprisingly, the person who voted against the trip had her heart stolen as well. 

I must add that I have nothing but respect for these men in kilts because it was absolutely freezing cold. If you ever visit Scotland dress EXTRA WARM. We had the same temperature in the Midlands but it felt WAY colder in Scotland. I think COLD is always spelt with bold letters in Scotland. Just to give you an idea how cold it always is....they simply leave ice cube deliveries outside. 

All warmed up, we were back admiring the stunning streets, buildings and views from the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle. 

It is quite expensive to visit the insides of the castle so we decided to spend our time at the National Museum of Scotland instead. Completely free of charge and so much to see you'll need an entire day to see everything. On our way to the Museum, we saw many souvenir shops along the Royal Mile. They are mostly chain tourist traps owned by the same people selling the same cheap factory made souvenirs. The prices were tempting but as craftspeople who ran a handcraft business, it didn't sit right with us. It is the local people, businesses and crafts people that need the most support. In fact, they are the custodians of the local culture and traditions. In the end, we shopped at the National Museum of Scotland's museum shop on items made by Scottish craftspeople (and wool from Scottish sheep). The profits also go towards the upkeep of the museum. 

Apart from the shop, we had a pretty fun time learning about magnificent animals, space, transport and fashion before calling it a day. That was as far as our feet could take us. 

We really didn't manage to do very much for this short trip. We are longing to return to Scotland again because there is just so much of the country that we've not seen. This was a very short and brief introduction but it was an impactful one. So impactful that on the way back south, Gwyn asked us if there were churches and ballet classes in Scotland. (her current priorities in life haha!) We told her there is and her immediate response was "WE CAN MOVE TO SCOTLAND THEN!" + a big smile on her face. 

P.S...dont' worry we are not considering that! We are fine where it's a little less rainy and cold in the Midlands.