August portraits - Evan at four; Aiden at six

Aiden in the woods

Beautiful Thailand

We went to Thailand for a 10 day holiday - it was heavenly - a place of considerable beauty.  This is taken in the late afternoon on a little  beach near Surin where we were staying - don't be fooled by the (beautiful) overcast sky - 30 degrees and the water about 28.

Sondowners on the top part of another beach - I was very lazy with the camera on this trip - but got it out for "the golden hour" when the light is just that - golden.

We went for dinner to a beach hut on Layan beach - lovely little places - the beachside equivalent of a Hong Kong daipaidong, this one run by a Rasta and pumping out some irie tunes - but the surf was pounding - Durban north coast style - very steep beach with big tippers dropping right onto the sand.  We were there with the Overtons - whose kids are mid teens - they were swimming - but it was just way out of the league of Aiden and Ev - but none the less they put on a nice little sulk.  It made me laugh (because they would have been completely destroyed by the surf) and because I got to photograph Aiden's attempt to keep it going:

It starts off here - the sulk - but with such a lovely little curl of blonde hair, hard to take seriously...

Already the resolve is starting to fade, and this just a few seconds later...

Now focussing on not breaking into a full on grin - forgotten the reason for the grumps ....

Fail.  All dental chaos and joy -  back to being in good cheer.

Evan doesnt really let external factors dictate - so he was happy to give me a big sandy cheesy anyway.

Dai Long Wan Sunday

The snorting, clear, fabulous monster weather continues - Southerly winds - blowing Guandong's factory smog somewhere else and leaving us roasting and smiling under cornflower skies.  It's 10.15am - thirty degrees - and we zoom out of Clearwater Bay marina heading for Dai Long Wan - a piece of Hong Kong paradise.

This is Jan-Eric - he's from Hamburg - and lives in Sheung Sze Wan - he was at our house for dinner last night, Iris and their boys (Fynn is Aiden's big mate) are in Germany at the moment,  and invited us out - bliss - a lovely treat.

I have to pin Ev in a grip and zap with the other hand to get him into a boat pic - he's smiling for the first time today - woke up grumpy, got some trashy behavior going - and narrowly avoided being sentenced to a morning at home.  Smiling now though - thinking of that big hole he's going to dig on the beach - and loving being out on the water at speed.

It's a day of staggering beauty - water is not-yet-summer-sickly-warm, cool enough, perfect.  Tide's heading out.  Jan has to move the anchor - Ange contemplates a swim.

 Ev explains where the hole needs to appear

Ange emerges, Blue Lagoon.

Across the beach there's a Daipaidong - early afternoon munch for hungry lads - Ange translates the options into will and won't eat (Ev, what would you like for lunch?  Hotdogs.  Mmm - not the right place - OK, I'll surprise you) - Ev keeps an eye - Aiden makes sure we've not forgotten that he's really a ninja.

Chopsticks blur in anticipation - but the batteries are already showing fade - sun and swimming drained.

Home by 3pm - the day stunning but now dangerously hot - naked bums rehydrate on iced apple juice and aircon - outside the sea swelters and the jungle zings with cicadas.

Boat season - summertime

The Dark City

I took this in 2004, was thinking about it after posting the pic of Ev's kindergarten building below which is in the same area - and went back to take a look - I really like it - it's as I imagine soviet era architecture to be - superstark; razor-blue sky - incredibly intimidating I think.

Faceplant and colours

Ev started off the weekend with a late Friday afternoon face-plant on the beach.  I wasn't there, but she tells me that he was pushing his yellow truck at high speed, crashed it into a crest on the beach, went flying over and didn't manage to get his landing gear out.  Ouch.  What you can't see is that he's also missing skin on his forehead.   I hope you got my message yesterday, lovely person, we were thinking of you.

These are the buildings that Evan's nursery school is at the bottom of.  They are housing estates - mega blocks of flats in Hang Hau - the dark city as we call it - quite intimidating looking (particularly collectively), but very friendly up close.

This is Sasha - my dear friend Jacques and Michelle's daughter.  She's my god-daughter, and four, a few months older than Ev.  In Hong Kong terms we live far apart - perhaps another way to look at it would be three types of transport apart - a bus, a train, and a ferry.  Ev is dead keen to have her come to his party - a looong journey for a couple of hours though. 

This is Lara, friends of our's daughter - she is very groovy - though much smileyer than this photo - which I love because of it's colours - her amazing firey hair, fantastic brown eyes.  She's quite a cracker is Lara.  When she was a little girl she ruled with a high volume, high octane temper - but she's mellowed into a really cool kid.









Finally, I like the one of Aiden below too, also for it's colours - though the photo itself has him looking slightly apprehensive.

Aiden in June