Typhoon Nuri

Typhoon Nuri came to town yesterday, and it was pretty WOW. The big rubber tree in the driveway came down and closed it emphatically. I had parked one car next to Brett's house to hedge the damage statistics, so we were still mobile. When we went out to the shops in the mid morning there was botanical chaos all round - I've never seen so many trees uprooted, snapped off at the trunks, and generally deprived of branches. Every car is covered with a layer of little bits of leaves, not whole ones, chewed up ones. Amazing fury.

Ev's birthday boogy - woohooooooooo

We go to the Olympics and Ev has his second birthday bash

On Friday night we got tickets to go to one of the Olympic events being held in Hong Kong (and here, dutifully, is the Olympic flame that burns at each venue - all six odd stories high of it) which meant going to see showjumping - not my first choice of sporting event of course, but the only really accessible option - the other HK events are sailing. That being said, it was a lovely thing to go to. For a start, the crowd was frankly huge. My guess is that the majority of people, yours truly included, had never been to a showjumping thing before - so there were a lot of officials with signs telling people how to behave - which basically meant keeping quiet (with a big crowd that's quite an achievement) while the riders took their turns - a very mind your manners (Manors) and cucumber sandwich sort of thing. However, beneath the veneer it remains a really tense affair, with people dressed up in all sorts of national colours, jumping up and cheering and waving flags when their riders had completed their rounds. It gave the whole event a football match with a mute-button feel - though the mute failed each time when a pole went down (or someone fell off, as did a Kiwi rider, who was as unceremoniously dumped onto one of the fences as our rugby team has just been at Newlands) because plenty thousand people would let out an involuntary and simultaneous "ai-yaaah" - expressed with a falling tone, which is the cantonese equivalent to oh no, but with a lot more dramatic effect. I'm not terribly wowed by horses, but these were excquisite - just desperately beautiful animals, and the riders very elegant and composed on the outside. The tension of it all was very much on display when one of the two Hong Kong riders completed a perfect round at top speed to get himself into first place. The crowd went wild, as did Patrick Lam, the rider. When he cleared the last jump and crossed the line in 86 odd seconds, he leapt up in the saddle, punched the air wildly as he galoped around, and then took off his riding helmet and flung it into the crowd. It was much more of a motor-cycle grand prix head-space than a polite cough into the picnick blanket in the shade of the Range Rover. I thought it greatly contributed to the atmosphere. Here he is on the left above, galoping around without his helmet on while the crowd roars its approval. You'll have to click on the small horse pic on the right above to see the detail, but I took it to give you an idea of how beautiful and beautifully groomed the horses were. I also liked the dragon hedge which formed part of the arena - cool touch that. On the way out I took this cool picture over the Sha Tin river at the back of the stadium which I thought was very Hong Kong - a Jumbo floating seafood restaurant with lit pagodas, a wall of Sha Tin housing estates in the background, and the Olympic slogan in the front. All in all it was a heap of fun - must be a hell of a (brief) rush to see a big track and field final.

EVAN'S SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY - EVAN'S SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY - EVAN'S SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY

Ev's birthday is only on Monday - but I'll be out of town next weekend so we had the party today. It was super-hot and the usual humid, so lots of sweating from running around, and pink faces to go with it. Ev had a ball, discovered he was in a dancing mood, but insisted on the same song being played again and again while he cavorted around beaming away. Ange made him a cool cake, a racetrack two, in keeping with his committment to things automotive, which Aiden very nearly trashed just before the party by slipping and falling, and getting his elbow stuck in the corner in the process. I think I might have been a bit abrupt with him at that point, but it was very repairable as it turned out. I've shot a little .mpeg clip which I'll post here when I've worked it out, in case you fancy some boogying lessons from your littlest brother. He's now 97cm tall, and a very solid and cheerful two year old. I'm looking forward to his birthday proper on Monday, and it's been really great to have Ange's folks here, taken a lot of the bite out of the distance. I hope you're having a cool weekend - hope to chat to you tommorrow.

Island outing on Sunday

We had a lovely day on Sunday, were lucky enough to get a boat ride out to Loi Lams for a seafood lunch and then on to Mils beach with Tracy and Simon, their kids, and Ange's parents

Wendy and Ian. It was a beaut of a day - h

ot and clear, and the water was ultra refreshing. The boys dammed up a little stream that ran down the

island to the beach, it was freezing compared to the ocean. Ange discovered this by trying to sit down in it, much to her mirth. The boys swam in their life-jackets, I floated around like a dugong. It was great - home by 7 and a knock-out kip. Hope you had a great weekend too.

Ocean Park error of jugement

Two weeks no post - not great; apologies. In truth not a lot reportable or photographable happening. The exception to this is that Aiden has learned to ride a bike without trainer wheels. No photos of this though - me too busy playing the neurotic parent running alongside, to get it together. Learning to ride a bike, as you will know, is also about learning to fall off one. Aiden has not disappointed. At the tender age of four he has chalked up one Lexus SUV already - THANKFULLY it was completely unmarked in any way.

I've been preparing for an interview I have in Geneva on the 25th of August. I'll tell you more about it if I get it - hold thumbs though, I think it's worth having. Ange's folks are here to visit, which is great. Having people here closes the distance, and Aiden and Ev are having a ball. The pic on the right here features Ange's dad Ian and Ev. If you look closely you might be able to see that that Ev has recently landed on the side of his nose whilst running - across nice rough concrete of course. Now he is Ev "Scabnose" McG. I've also been able to watch a bit of the cricket, which has been a nice treat. Not sure that I think the English have been too sporting - I thought the whole issue with the site-screen was not quite cricket.

I go back to work next week, which will be interesting. I was supposed to work yesterday morning, but we had a typhoon near-miss and the city was closed. I saw the signal was up at 6.15am, and just rolled over and kept going. Great timing, and a pleasure because there was not much damage. Tracy and Simon's canoe and sailing dinghy broke free of their mooring, and went walkabout in the storm. We had to go looking for them, thought it was worthwhile because the worst of the wind had been onshore. We eventually found both, one just in the bay and one around the corner towards DS beach. Very wierd really, because you're looking for something on the rocks at water level, and they had both been carried way way up by the storm surge. It was almost as if they were behind and above where we were looking. Both are miraculously in one piece.

The boys had a bit of cabin-fever by today, and Aiden asked to go to Ocean Park, a theme park on the coast near Aberdeen harbour. In a blistering error of judgement I agreed to this, not very smart. Chinese schools here and on the mainland are on holiday. It was like going to a huge scrum. The water-rides that Aiden specifically wanted to go on were closed for maintenance too - adding insult to injury. In the end we collectively got to ride on the cable-car, and Aiden had a b-grade (in my experience) ride on a very mini abyss thing called the Frogger - pictured above. I think I have more empathy with the feelings of the two guys on either side of him; that was about it. The views were fabulous, but even the cable-way was conjested - as illustrated on the right. Rush hour recreating. Better analysis next time I promise you. The Olympics begin tomorrow - not sure if that is a big thing there, but it's huge here, given where it is. I have a ticket to go to a horse cross-country event on Monday morning - but it's not really the men's 100m, is it now? And, I have to work...