Its slowly appearing

Its odd how just seeing some tiles being cemented onto a bare wall can start to pull a project together. This week we hope to have the bathroom and the kitchen both tiled and ready for the fixtures and fittings. We have all ready had one calamity when the well meaning workers cut a hole through the tiles and the wall to accept the shower pipe. What was not accounted for was the fact we need two pipes, one for hot water and one for cold water. So off with the rather expensive tile, etc. etc. No complaints though. These things happen.

Picture on left is the bathroom, the area on the floor not tiled is where the shower stall will be placed. If you look closely you can see the offending hole in the tiles j(three tiles up) from floor level. The other hole (one tile up on right side) is correct and will be used for the sink fittings.

The other picture is of the kitchen space. The kitchen will be open plan and open directly onto the covered living space. The tiling is correct but looks a little odd. We have used cheaper and smaller tiles to cover the walls in areas that will be hidden by the kitchen cabinets and cupboards. Once all the kitchen fittings are installed only the larger, oblong shaped tiles will be left in view.

The unfinished brickwork corner will be continued up to provide some shelter and screen off where the fridge will stand within the kitchen area. Its hard to imagine I know.

The roof structure is basically a canopy roof that will later be lifted up a further two feet to allow greater height for air circulation by ceiling fans inside and will be decorated / covered over on the underside with tongue and groove wood slats to hide from view the iron support beams and the electrical wiring that will need to be thrown over.

Keeping the labour costs low

It has to be said that you get what you pay for. Obviously we have tried to keep out renovation labour costs to the minimum and we may have cut some corners but one thing is for sure we NEVER once complained when the workers were caught sleeping on the job!

What's the House look like now?

It's getting there. Rain has severely stopped play on several occasions though. Nuch spends nearly every day down at the builders' yard making sure the bags of cement and grouting and whatever else the workers call for are loaded onto the sampan each morning.

Obviously, we just cannot go there as often as we would like and during the week must rely on telephone reports of progress etc.

Another Snake to add to the collection

A common water snake. Harmless to man but quite an angry little snake that will try and bite you. Rarely seen on land and nearly always found in water. This poor fellah was discovered munching on tadpoles that were in a water barrel. We hooked it out of the water on a stick to take the photos. Although a water snake it does not have the paddle shaped tail like the marine versions.

The dreaded back wall

Thanks to some very kind gents from the CEDD (govt department that looks after slopes) we are now much much closer to getting the slope back into shape again. For the last couple of weeks a team of workers, ( I cannot say workmen as there are men and women involved) are gradually digging it all back so that you can walk around behind the house. You can see how much it had encroached over the years as before they started the ground level was at the height of the window in the last two photos.

Ps check out Arthur's new two in one welding goggles / sunglasses and of equal import, the partial installation of one of the new windows. Wow.

Home Delivery - Lantau Style

Getting things delivered to Lantau is troublesome enough as there is only one road and to use it every vehicle must have a special permit. To get a permit your business or home must be on Lantau. In other words, everything has to come via a Lantau carrier or by boat. Believe it or not boat delivery is cheaper and often times quicker!

Once landed, the next problem of course is getting your shopping home. Not so hard if your home is near the dock side but if like us you choose to live on the end of a remote peninsula, at the endd of a rather narrow and steep path, it's more of a head scratcher.

Luckily we have the pier at Man Kok Tsui so we re load everything onto a sampan (or as much as will fit onboard) and off we go again. Its true we have to time everything to the tides and then hand carry everything from the pier across the beach to the house and walking on soft sand carrying bags of cement is no fun but it will soon all be worth it.

Pat Ngan Heung Annual Dinner & Lion Dance

Every year, Pat Ngan Heung village celebrates with a huge dinner and lion dance.   All the local villages and even lion dancers from other islands come together to show off their skills.   The photos below were taken with an Iphone so are a bit shaky but the effects are quite good.

House Updates

Things are really coming along now.   The government has agreed to do what they can to dig back the slope behind the house which is a real relief as without their help the chances of sorting out the damp was virtually nil.   As I write there a re workers there all ready and literally tons of earth is being dug from the slope.

Before and After

Although not taken from exactly the same spot, these pictures show how much effort has been put into clearing back the grounds and getting rid of all the mosquito breeding holes etc. To clear back this one piece of slope to its current state took a full day. Unfortunately the people who must have lived in the house at the top of the slope, (its completely abandoned now) must have literally just thrown all their garbage out of the window onto the slope as it was strewn with broken glass and debris. There must be about two or three sacks of broken glass still to be picked up. Stilll never mind it will all be worth it in the end.

The renovations speed up

Over the last two or three weeks we have made some vast progress in getting our little house sorted out.

• The ground to the front has been completely cleared as far out as the river and all the scrub and weeds removed. Naturally that entailed Nuch's skills in buring large quantities of leaves and dead wood.
• The ground to the side of the path was dug out which led to the rather disappointing dicovery that what we thought was just a pile of dead leaves to clear away turned out to be a pile of dead leaves to clear away AND about twenty years worth of trash from outboard engine covers, to chairs to polythene sheeting to clothes, to flip flops, you name it, it was there.
• The ground behind the house has been cleared back to bare earth and we have discovered another broken down house as well as some steps!
• The house windows are ready to be removed and new ones have been measured and ordered.
• The internal doors have been enlarged to a more modern height, they were less than 5 foot eight high before. New doors are on order.
• A new front door is on the way
• The inside of the house has been stripped back to barre walls and all the cracks and hoels refilled and patched up ready for plastering.
• An order is in for the new wiring
• An order is on the way for a new internal roof (tongue and groove wood planking)
• A cost is underway for a new floor to be laid, this time using wood rather than concrete.
• The concrete guttering to the front has been hacked back and all the old weakened struts removed.
• All the cement has been lugged up the beach as has about two hundred weight of sand.
• Hopefully within the month it will all be finished!!!!!!!!! Well at least the main house will be

Fishy Business

Check out this fellah. One of several caught off the rocks at Man Kok Tsui during the last full moon and high tides. Adnittedly not by us though!

What is it? I think it is a spot tailed bass but I am not sure.

Is it edible? Yep, Nuch ate the lot and is still alive! with some ginger and chillis

How big was it? Exactly 2 kilos

Not bad considering we are only a few miles away from one of the world's busiest ports.

Snakes alive Again! & more little creatures

The first of May is Labour Day over here in Hong Kong and noone works. Its a family day whihc for us means spending time outside. Well we did just that, back down to MKT to continue with renovations. Although it is now quite hot, the humidity is not too unbearable yet so we have been busy clearing back the scrub and bushes in front of the house. We never knew so many creatures enjoyed our little garden. Perhpas creatures celebrate Labour Day as well? In one day we discovered:
Praying Mantis - everywhere

Stink bugs - These a funny bugs that have what looks like a brightly painted shield on their backs, trouble is if they get scared they wee on you and not only does it smell but it is quite caustic and can bring you out in a deep red , firey rash for a few days.
Cicadas - Thes fellahs, live in the ground for up to seven years, then dig themselves out, climb up into a tree, sing, attract a mate, do the do and then die, all in a matter of days.
House Geckos - I like these little geckos, they eat mosquitos
Pale Geckos - These too
Skink - this too
Changeable Lizards - one was about a foot or more long and was clearly non plussed when the bush he was sat on was chopped down. We know it was a male as he had a bright red colouration to the underside of his throat.
Malayan Bull frogs, one of which had magnificent orange side patterns. These big fat frogs are also called Cow frogs as when they call they really do sound like a cow. They live in damp soil and a re big, six or seven centimetres or more. when calling normally they find a drain or a culvert to sit in which really helps their calls resonate.
Common toads - well common but wortth seeing
And
Two bamboo pit vipers - Neither were very big, perhaps 16 inches but a beautiful vivid green on top and a yellow underside and a pale orange tail. Not big but venomous so one was sent into the woods to the side and the other slithered away. People can confuse these snakes with another green snake that is a little less common but harmless. So if it is bright green and has an orange coloured tail then avoid it, if it is solid green then it should be harmless. However, noone should be picking up any snakes. We also saw the following birds:
Drongo - Must be building a nest nearby as they flit past every two minutes heading for the trees behind
Mynah birds - lots (but not the Hill Mynahs you see in pet shops)
Kite - cruising
Buzzard - cruising
Sanderling - three of them down on the beach
Little Egret - about sixty or more in a large slow flock flapping lazily off somewhere