Goodbye to the Frog

It was a wet, dark evening when the end came to the Frog. And the end comes quickly in these parts: a perfectly functional car, in need of attention, but fundamentally sound, still with a quarter tank of petrol too. They arrived in a truck, cheerful, purposeful; here's two thousand, flipped a strap around it, and then up and on. Aiden was there to wave goodbye. The man in the truck waved too, and then it was gone.

Jens' Mira Gino

When I bought my new car I took it down to my mate Jens' place and told him "check this out, it's the best car ever built". He snorted, and made various mildly dirisory comments. Then he got over that, checked it out, gave it a big think, and promptly went out and bought one to replace his Lexus. Cheeky bugger. And he admits it's putting a big smile on his face. Its a beautiful car - a lovely metallic blue. And then last night he set up a fancy flash plan and took this pic - which is a beautiful pic. They are the best cars ever built, I think. Anyone who laughs had better have some cash on hand.

The fine city of Singapore

Our trip to Singapore was fun, though low key; it's not that easy to get big adventures together with your boeties being this age - they are very explicit about their needs, without hint of patience, and in Ev's case, need to eat, sleep and take a dump in the nappy somewhat more frequently than helpful. So you shlepp around a lot of stuff, do things in controllable bursts etc. The flat that Jeff and Gill lent us was great; it had a fab pool complex, gardens and a playground.

Big lawns are rare in HK - so the snappers sped around, Ev in particular - did a couple of serious face-plants, which would have cost yards of skin back home - but here didn't matter. We got some pool kit, balls for Ev, goggles for Aiden, and some squirting devices. Other kids took over the squirters, Aiden punted the ball out, and Ev took a shine to the goggles; though he can't swim, or even put his face in the water, so he just felt cool (and wanted to wear them as much as possible. It's a nice pic - see the green eyed monster in the pool behind, waiting. Duuuh dum, duuuh dum, duuuh dum....

We went to the Singapore Zoo which has this huge reputation; I thought the Pretoria Zoo was better, though it was a good zoo. The only pic I got was at the bus-stop - had my hands full making sure Ev didn't pat a Tiger, and stopping Mainland tourists from walking up to where we were sitting and then standing directly in front of Aiden when he was trying to watch the seal show. Grrr.

At night it was pretty straight forward. Get back, shower, give the kids a dose of Sesame Street, sleep; we all slept like logs after all the charging around.

The last night we stayed in a cool hotel on Sentosa Island so that we could clean the flat and still make it to the airport. Aiden and Ev went wild, gave the bed a good jumping on as soon as we arrived. I got Ange in for a pic too. Then later, surprise surprise, it turned into a bit of combat.

The hotel beach was very cool, though manufactured, as it turns out. So the sand was coarse, and not very deep - like if you dug down to build a decent moat for the castle, you hit other sorts of soil - huh?! I've had to travel a long way from my home to really get what is so special about it. Off the "beach" there was a lot of shipping - a LOT of shipping. I like shipping, so no problem, but it kind of clashed (along with Malaysia's petrochemical industry in the background) with the paradise beach look.

Ev pretty much thinks that everything is very cool. He likes "ja" - its his big word - he's up for anything, will try anything, so here's a big holiday smile from the little dude.

Overshadowed by Leony

Check out this super-nice photo of Evan with his dog - taken by Leony - putting me in the shade, unfortunately. Might find myself making beds and having to turn over the photographic role to her.

Sad,sad Dad?

I know that this is shameless, but I couldn't help myself posting two more car pics - I'm just so very super happy about the thing - it is THE COOLEST CAR ever built; of this I'm sure. So here goes, with the added bonus of a smily Evan and Ange, and Aiden's bum - in the Clearwater Bay parking lot after a beach burn. (Probably not the right term - the sea was cold - 18 degrees. Evan refused to get out of the water. Evan turned blue and shivvered. Evan doesn't mind. As you can see the car has been washed. In fact I've worked out that I've washed this car more times than I've washed all the other cars I've ever owned put together, and I've only had it for two weeks. Sad stuff indeed. In three and a bit years' time I think you might be begging me for the keys; and no problem sunshine when you're licensed to go (as long as the right foot stays light and the head clear and focussed).

Easter

Happy Easter, and I hope the cycling was great. I read your comments on the blog (posted in Jan - man I am a sleepy head) and went to check out your blog - super nice to see (and I think I cracked your car quiz by the way, you'll have to let me know); keep posting if you get a chance, and I'm going to RSS your blog so that I get a notification when you do.

Easter has been great so far; being able to spend time with the little guys is magic, and they got into the Easter egg hunt and chockie guzzling with gusto - action started at daybreak (Evan feels it's important to take a ball with you wherever you go - just in case) and the haul was obscene.

Further down the hill in the Cox's garden the hunt became much more competitive - there are currently six kids staying there - and of course while Ev was not lacking enthusiasm, he was a bit slower out of the blocks. What he was lacking in speed however, he more than made up for in committment; leopard crawling in mud under bushes is not in any way beneath him.

The only problem for Evan is that he doesn't like chocolate, so eating the eggs was not his big thing; he did discover that he liked squeezing them, and poking fingers throught the tinfoil and chocolate to leave nice little round holes in the bunny rabbit's tummy. Not good. Haul removed before senselessly destroyed. Aiden was born on a Good Friday - so in a sense he has a real connection to Easter - and he is of course willing to eat his body-weight in Easter eggs.

More of the "mini"

Dad's got a new car - or is it?

I'm a super-smiling guy today, because I found the car I was looking for at a price that I could pay, and so move aside the golden frog/jelly bean (now needing new tyres, battery, power steering unit, wipers, shocks and another aircon service, no thanks) and welcome to something much smaller - the pea. I don't think even a car aficionado like yourself will have seen one - though please put me right here if I'm wrong - but my new, superfantastic wheels are in the form of this, oficially called a Daihatsu Mira Gino Turbo Minilite Special (seems like the Japanese go for short punchy names) - all 659cc three screaming cylinders of it - that's right - a 0.6l car. However, before snorting into your chili cheese macmuffin - bear in mind the following: it's rated as one of the greenest cars you can get (114g/km of C02, if you're into those sorts of statistics) and sports a three cylinder multivalve, turbocharged, with a fat intercooler, red lines at 8,500rpm (proof here if you click the pic), and runs through to a mind boggling 10,000 rpm (it doesn't matter how small it is, something going round that fast has got to move you) ABS, dual airbags, deafness inducing sound system, and as you can see, mint condition – frankly my dream car. Here's the Jeremy Clarkson (younger with a very bushy hairstyle indeed) take on it as a driving experience –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptiMZTm4F34


though in his case the older, non retro model of my now exquisitely designed and finished little beauty. (Mine's predecessor is the red one in the clip, and frankly it's lacking aesthetically). The clip's quite good if you want a brief explanation of what exactly Kei cars are, and why I love them so much. Why you can't (or should I say couldn't when I was there) get them in SA is beyond me - it really is the way to go with oil at U$108 a barrel and climbing. You'll notice that it's good for a trip to the shops too.

Got to love Aiden’s expression. He might only be sub four – but he knows how to keep a bead on the monster, and my oath is he turning into one, your youngest brother is; Ange says it's the terrible twos come early - if she's wrong it's certainly going to be entertaining when they do arrive.