Burning Barbecue

We ended last week with a barbecue at The Minton. The Minton is a condominium, much like d'Leedon where we live. John's colleague Elson lived there and had invited a bunch of friends to a long lived feast.

The official time was between four and onward. At first we thought we could be a bit fancy late, arrive around five or half past, but we ended up meeting Elson and some others at Serangoon. The condominium lay not far from there and we had no idea how to get there. At Nex, the mall above the Serangoon MRT station, we met a bunch of them up at the top floor inside a grocery store. It is customary to bring something to the BBQ in Singapore, so we were going to buy something there, but the gang already had a cart full of stuff. The rest of them had a deal to chip in some money for the cart and we decided to do the same.

Then we split up and took two taxis to The Minton. The driver was a woman, which is the second female driver I have ever had. She was very nice, though perhaps a bit racist. When we arrived and left the car she said enjoy Singapore to John and me, like we were tourists! There was no time to tell her we had been here for a year and a half, but retelling what she had said to the group sparked laughs.

At condominiums there are several barbecue places one can rent. There are seven at d'Leedon and I guess there are around the same amount at The Minton. The one booked for us were in a pavilion in a small jungle with a small pond outside and the path lined with trees and bushed. It was cosy, but I felt uncomfortable. Small ants crawled over the counters and mosquitoes flew around attacking my legs. The host had bought burning coils that would repel the mosquitoes, but one fell into the water and the other did not seem to do much.

It took a while before cooking started. I am not very good at cooking, so I never offered to help. Besides, there were too many by the grills either way. The chefs put sausages, chicken, beef, bacon, etc on the grills and when ready in the emptied containers they arrived in. It was just to walk over and take something. At one point the grill started burning for real and someone said to bring water. John was the one smart enough to loudly say no to water, it would only enforce it. No one knew what to do; luckily the fire stopped by it self after a few minutes.

At one point John walked away to talk with a friend and I came back from the restrooms not finding him. I did not know where he was and I barely knew anyone there. Instead of asking I went looking. Without any success in finding them I instead found a nice place to sit and relax by my self. The people in the pavilion were getting drunk and loud and it was nice to be away from it for a while. I had a view of the area (see picture below) and saw when John came back. I tried calling for him, but he did not hear me. He walked away, looking for me since I was not there. I sat where I was, hoping he would either see me or walk around until he found me.

He did not. I saw him go back to the pavilion, talk with friends and two more came with him to look for me. This time I decided to just go and get them. I took them to my spot and we sat down for a while. John said he had thought I had tripped and hurt myself, unable to move and dying somewhere. He had a wild imagination. It did not help that my phone had died so he could not reach me. At least we found each other, or well... I appeared from my not-so-great-hiding-place across from the pavilion. Anyone who looked up from the grill would have seen me. No one even saw me waving!

Back at the pavilion two cakes were taken out, lightened and everyone burst into a happy birthday song. Three people had recently turned or was about to turn, I have no idea who they were. Cake was handed out but both John and myself declined, being on a no-sugar-diet-month. After that we wanted to leave and got three more people to come with us. During the evening I had met John's favourite person in the office and he was kind enough to drive us all home.

It was a long day. I thank the host Elson for inviting us. It was fun to be there, but if I am being honest... the best part was sitting by myself, listening to people, watching the fish and enjoy my own thoughts. I am too introverted to stay long on these kind of gatherings.