Notes from a piano teacher

It’s been 2 months since we moved into Toa Payoh and we are absolutely enthralled with our new neighbourhood and its modest, unassuming character. Where I sit at the piano, I see the trees and occasionally, squirrels scurrying up and down, delicate butterflies, and oriole birds doing a pas de deux . Occasionally, I hear the muted sounds of the French horn coming from the adjacent block, someone practicing scales from the opposite block and it is heartwarming to hear music at random moments during the day. I remember one of our first journeys home where the notion of having a new home fully sank in: leaving Changi then driving on the PIE right to the heart of Singapore where we live, instead of the old familiar route passing East Coast Park and the Tanjong Pagar port, turning off the AYE onto Lower Delta road to my mother’s apartment at Redhill where we used to stay on previous trips back. Living in a mature HDB estate also means that there are staggering numbers of outst