The raining season concluded earlier this week, leaving behind the bright sun and slightly balmy weather of the day with occasional cool breezes that arrive from mid-afternoon onwards.

One thing that the wet weather has not taken with it is the presence of a variety of creepy crawlies around our house.

Unlike the majority of concrete-constructed areas in Singapore, there is still plenty of abundant untouched land and nature in certain areas of Bali.

We have to discount Nusa Dua, Denpasar and Seminyak from this list. However, the area where we live on the Bukit (‘hill’ in Bahasa Malayu/Indonesia) in Jimbaran has been left ‘wild’, as have other areas on the Bukit and in some parts of Jimbaran.

Thus, our house receives daily visits from a variety of creatures: garden snails; toads (or ‘kodok’ in Bahasa Indonesia); spiders (from small brown ones to large thin legged ones); baby scorpions; grasshoppers; millipedes; centipedes; and small leeches.

Garden snails are harmless and I can personally live with the presence of toads if they do not jump on me, and spiders if they are not too large. However, all the creepy crawlies have to go!

Thus it is always the S.O. who has the unenviable task of removing these creatures from the house. The creepy crawlies are easy: most are gathered on a piece of paper and tossed back out in to the wild. The toads are given the same treatment, but using the dustpan so that they cannot surprise the S.O. with an unexpected leap upward!

Unfortunately, we cannot let the baby scorpion, leeches or huge spiders survive as even the S.O. is unsure whether they can be harmful or not. With Baby Capodieci arriving, we do not want to take chances.

I was reminded of this after we witnessed an interesting exchange that happened in the bathroom this morning, between one of those small brown spiders and a red-brown caterpillar with small thorns/spikes growing from its body, no longer than two centimetres.

As the caterpillar slowly made its way along one of the walls, the spider kept moving out of the caterpillar’s way. It seemed as if the spider was afraid of getting too close to the caterpillar, as if it knew that the caterpillar might be poisonous and a danger.

Now that is something that most urbanites will only see on the Discovery or National Geographic channels, and we get this in our own home! We were truly amazed! Nature, not even in our own backyard, but in our home!

Of course we left the two insects to settle their little journey. We only wished our little one was already here to witness this!

Two weeks in to 2008 and I have not managed to keep to my previous promise of posting on a weekly basis.

The S.O. and I are both well, as is the growing baby bump. Life in Bali is still lovely, especially now that our place has a lovely garden and a growing puppy that keeps us entertained.

Work seemed to unexpectedly jump in to our lives, making sure that the S.O. and myself are kept busy almost every waking moment when we are not eating; taking a dump; driving from point A to B/C/D/etc; or making a phone call.

We already have three current clients asking for this new service that his company is providing, and that I am in charge of doing. This was all confirmed during the last week. Work for one of the clients is already in progress, and this week, I have to begin work for another client.

The one thing I miss most about Singapore is the efficiency, initiative, and drive that Singapore workers possess. Not that it may be a good thing in the context of working and enjoying life in Singapore. But just a fraction of it present in the local culture would help both the S.O. and I in relieving most of the work we – more so him – have to do, as we are covering various aspects of work that we cannot delegate due to the different working mentality here. If we did try delegating, there will be a backlog, and unhappy clients chasing for the completion of projects.

The past two weekends have been spent on completing work. So much of our time is consumed with all the progress happening with the S.O.’s company that we have not had energy or time to began tidying up the nursery or head out to purchase the items required for baby’s arrival.

However, we have decided that this Saturday will be Clean the Nursery Day. On Sunday, I have a checkup with Ibu Robin, so we will also take the chance to get some shots of my expanding belly at some outdoor spot.

Updates will come when they come!