HK Triathlon Association - The boys' first dabble in the realms of cyclists with pointy hats

No day of rest for the boys this Sunday.  Both Matthew and Arthur made their first forays into the murky secretive world of triathlon, albeit this was without the cycling part!    Wearing their cheap trainers, swimmers and an old school running the vest the boys were hob knowing with the skin suited kids who preferred to wear their race number on a special gadget belt and lace their swanky running shoes with toggles stolen from a a parka hood.   The boys did splendidly, both came out of the swimming pool in second place, pushed / wedged their feet into all ready tied trainers, threw on their vests and set off on the run.   Unused to running for anything other than a departing bus, they soon fell backwards but nevertheless they had fun.   

Next on the agenda was Arthur's 3000m open water swim in Deep Water Bay in preparation / selection for the 2014 Hong Kong Invitational, international fin swimming competition in December.     Despite the water looking clean and clear he swam the distance and came out with a fine coating of oil and slime.   Not ideal but his hair has a great shine!   Not sure when we find out if he has made the cut for the Hong Kong team but if not he will be swimming a parallel race in the local races anyhow.

Before that though he has the last pool race meet in December to contend with too.

Look out Mr. Bolt

Arthur (second from right) and his school pals celebrate their win in the Island District school athletics competitions.   Well done boys.

Neolithic stoneware fragments

How exciting, a few months ago the boys appeared with some pieces of broken pottery that they had found in the sand down on the beach.   We never gave them much thought except agreeing that they were quite unusual.   In fact we just let the boys play with them and then left them on a shelf.   Anyhow, curiosity got the better of me and after a little bit of research on the internet I discovered some archaeological reports of an archaeology  dig done in the 1960s by HK University and blow me, there are pictures of nearly identical pieces of pottery found in Man Kok Tsui that were dated back to the late Neolithic and Bronze ages.   That means the boys have stumbled across pottery that is some three or four thousand years old!!!   Any one know what we should do with the pieces we have found?

Matthew turns 7

   
A birthday celebrated with a party on the beach is always fun, especially when there is an home made cream cake involved.   How we managed to serve it up without sand in every mouthful is beyond me.   Succeed we did though.   The cake was gone in less than five minutes; his new bike we hope, will not be so quick to disappear!  It is hard to imagine that seven years ago, on 4th July, we (that is Nuch and I were getting a free helicopter ride to the hospital.)   

Lantau Buffalos - Mini Rugby

Their first training day with the new club strip.

Mini Rugby - Lantau Island Style

This weekend was the first training session ever of the Lantau Buffalos Mini Rugby Club. An official HKRFU club and one of the few in Hong Kong that can actually boast having its own playing field! Well to be fair, the field is a football pitch that had fallen into disuse and thanks to the tremendous efforts of some the grass was cut back to make it useable once more. (you can see the height it had grown too to the sides of the pitch!) Quite surprisingly some 35 children were signed up, boys and girls and a real mix of languages too. Any referee who tries to sort out this lot out will need to be pretty well educated. Despite several pitch invasions and a sit in by some sponsors, see pictures that follow, it was a great start.

Photo Update, Man Kok Tsui

Whats a normal day for us?

0830 Take kids to school by bicycle

0845 Collect two door frames from wood shop

0900 Collect 21 bags of cement from builders yard -about 1100 kgs in all

0915 Load all onto a very wobbly sampan then set off in very windy and rough seas

0930 Clear up dog sick from sampan (dog sea sick)

0931 Arrive at pier and unload all the stuff at the pier and cart across the beach to the house

1100 Collect 3 times the amount of cement in beach sand and cart to house by bucket loads

1400 Walk back to Mui Wo and collect bicycles

1500 Collect kids from school

1600 Start work in office answering UK emails

Is it worth it? We reckon it is. It's still a work in progress and it's not everyone's cup of tea. We are well aware of that fact but we really enjoy the place and its as unlike Hong Kong as you care to imagine. No cars, no buses, no noise, no people, no shops, no cinemas, no hassle.

Water is free, vegetables and fruit are grown free, (so far lemon grass, ginger, limes, papaya, aubergine, chilli, Thai basil, etc.)

We have a phone line, we have electricity, we have govt water if we connect to it, we have sewage, the bins are emptied weekly and the beach is cleaned weekly etc. etc.

During the week you can expect to have two or three hikers walk past the house (most of whom are lost) and of a weekend you may get a couple more on mountain bikes.

Post is left in Mui Wo, at one of many letter boxes nailed to a tree at the start of the footpath across the headland.

These photos are not in the best order but you can start to see the house taking shape at last.

Matthew's Birthday

On 4th July Matthew turned 4. However, as Nuch's brother was leaving to return to Thailand that same day we were unable to have a party. Instead we all had pizza. Here's Matthew smiling as ever. Despite his smiles, all was not ideal for the little thinker though. As there was no party on that day for him he annonced he would eat the pizza, open his "monster truck" present and eat any cake but have another birthday the next weekend when we were having a beach barbeque and here would be more people there. Not to be out-done, Arthur seized the opportunity to and promptly pulled out his first and admittedly very woobly front tooth.

Disney Graduation Day

As part of the end of Kindergarten celebrations Arthur and his classmates were taken to meet Mickey Mouse, be presented with a Disney Graduation certificate and be part of the Disneyland parade. Here he is looking most unimpreseed in a car at teh head of the parade.

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!

The boys in the tree house

The boys spent most of the Christmas holidays standing or sitting in this tree. Amazing what fun can be had from an old pallet and some rope. Not a bad view from up there though!

Disneyland - Hmmmmm

Today we took the boys to Disneyland Hong Kong. We must have been mad. 90 degrees plus and completely cloudless skies. The boys of course were oblivious to the heat and the crowds and just in awe at all the rides and toys and ice creams and rides and toys and ice creams and rides and toys and ice creams. Although children love it, hot and irritable parents are less forgiving when forced to stand in line for an hour and a half to go on a five minute ride of Winnie the Pooh's hunney pot.

You know, actually its not that child friendly a place. They make barriers at the ride queues that just scream to children "climb on me." And the poor attendants spend most of their time runnning up and down the line telling kids to stop climbing them. The answer is (in my synical world) to either make more rides so the kids do not have to queue so long or bring out some distractions, (TV screens with cartoons, actors dressed in character, etc.) and make the barriers less attractive to bored chidlren. Hey ho.

Oh and while I am busy slating Disneyland management I suppose I should add that its great to be able to get food quickly but its not much use when you find there are not enough tables and chairs to sit on. Try explaining to a three year old and a five year old why they cannot have their pizza shaped like Mickey Mouse for twenty minutes while you stalk around the between the diners, silently pressuring some other overheated parent to gobble down the food and vacate the tables. It got me all antsy but the kids still ate the pizza even if it was soggy and cold.

Anyhow, I still got to level 5 on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which is four levels higher than most of the other five year olds who were sitting around me. Who said military training was not useful!

I'm off to bed, I am obviously too tired to be positive about anything.

Night all