JD crawled out of bed at 5 and went back to KL to pick up our passports from the hotel. He returned at around 9.20; hit some traffic in the city, he said. The kids and I were up at 9 and immediately the Disney Channel came on. Then we got dressed and went to the cafe for breakfast. The swallows had all left except for the babies in one corner. The courtyard is lovely. I stayed on to read my book after we had eaten, while the others went on up.

Isabel came down shortly afterwards and I agreed to go out for a walk. Alexis also wanted to come along, so we went down Jln Tun Tan Cheng Lock, which was difficult because there is no sidewalk and a steady stream of traffic along the road. Poked in a few shops and turned the corner to go down Jonkers but eventually they clamoured to come back so we returned to the hotel after about 45 mins. It was time to check out anyway so we woke JD from his sleep, threw all our things together and vamoosed. I'd come back if we ever returned to Melaka. It's a charming little hotel.

No one seemed to be hungry so Nancy's Kitchen and the chicken rice balls flew by outside the window, and then as we headed into Ayer Keroh, the children announced they were famished after all. We stopped at a suburban mall for Macdees and KFC, when we could have had Peranakan popiah! Arrrgh.

It was close to 2 when we left and we abandoned the idea of stopping at Riders Lodge since the children had to be at Danielle Charmian's sleepover at 4.30. Arrived in Singapore at 4, unpacked and packed again for the party. We arrived at Danielle's at about 5.20. They have a full night ahead of them with the Night safari and camping in D's living room!

JD appears to have some kind of food poisoning -- perhaps a bad oyster at Teo Soon Loong's -- so I ate dinner alone. Panfried cod, spinach and miso soup with meatballs. Then got on the phone with Serene and yakked for three hours while JD, suffering, went to bed.