Reed in Asia - Asian diary - Asia13 Married life in the Orient

Reed in Asia

Married life in the Orient

The next day at work, I realised that I needed some extra money for the weekend, we had planned to go shopping that weekend and I needed some more Singapore dollars, so I would have to change some pounds sterling soon. One of the guys in the crewroom said that I could change money at the General Office on camp, so I quickly went round there to change some. When I arrived at the office, I asked around and someone showed me where I could change the money so I took £80 out of my wallet and gave it to the girl there, she then gave me £30 back and said that they had a limit of £50 per day, so she exchanged £50 for me and gave me 367.5 Singapore dollars and a receipt. I was very surprised at the exchange rate because it was 7.35 Singapore dollars for just one pound sterling, so I asked the girl if the exchange rate had changed recently and she just smiled and said that it never changes it is what they call 'Fixed Forces Rate' (FFR), my mind was working overtime then, but I just thanked her and went back to VASS.

It was very quiet at work that day, we just had the usual VC10, a Hercules and another Canberra PR9, no flight systems problems for me, so just routine groundcrew work for me that day. Later as per usual now, after work we went for our keema paratha and a couple of beers, I took a carry-out again and then jumped in the taxi and Singh took me home. At home I gave Myra the keema carry-out, dropped my bag on a chair, got a beer out of the fridge and went to sit at the front. When John came out after dinner, I started talking to him about changing money and the FFR and we had a long discussion about this, because I had spotted a loophole that could help us here. Myra and Pauline came to join us and all four of us just sat there talking about Singapore, UK, families and whatever else, just general chat. A little later the girls went to watch TV and John and I moved to the back garden and put some music on.

We just sat there listening to music, drinking beer and generally chatting again, I told him that Myra and I were going into town shopping to buy some things for the house at the weekend and they could join us if they wanted to. We stayed with John and Pauline all evening again and then Myra and I left to go home when we became tired. Once back in the house we sat down and started talking about what we were going to buy at the weekend and we sat up quite late that night making plans.

Starting married life in Singapore