Meeting Mrs Blair

We're back. It was an amazing trip. We did the usual shopping rounds, went to a winery, the chocolate factory (just a nibble), the ice cream factory (just a lick), and got attacked by a mob of hungry swans, seagulls and ducks which we were trying to feed at a rather large pond.

Nothing else eventful happened, save for one thing. On the first day of Chinese New Year, we stepped out of our hotel lobby, only to see the main entrance lined out as if a VIP was arriving. We asked who it was. My mother said, maybe it's Sting! I said, maybe it's Kylie (both were due to perform in or near Perth)! The boy cousins perked up considerably at the mention of the name, 'Kylie'.

However, it was neither singer - the doorman told us it was Cherie Blair. Not too bad either (though the boys were disappointed)! She emerged, walking rapidly, with a few aides around her. A couple of us whipped out cameras, at which point she turned away from her car, and walked towards us!

We didn't expect the wife of the British PM to be so friendly and unassuming. She shook our hands, one by one, and did most of the chatting with my mum ("Oh, you're from Singapore! Good duty free shopping there!" - that's all the time she had during the stopover), while the youngsters were too shy to say anything. When I decided to break the silence by saying, "Nice to meet you, Mrs Blair!" as she shook my hand, she looked pleasantly surprised and chirped back, "Nice to meet you too!" and looked like she really meant it.

Of course she didn't hang around for long, so I never got to say the pretentious 'Ooh I studied law too in England' shite I had in mind should there be any more awkward silences. Thank God for that.

Now it's time for a good shower, and hopefully a little bash in the music room because now I'm really inspired to get something completed. Yeah.