In fact strictly speaking, a walk next to the sea. We met up with a friend K and his little boy to take the walk around from Repulse Bay to Deepwater Bay. The boys were on their bikes, V. was in her pram and the sun was in the sky. An excellent afternoon which included lunch at Cafe Uno at Deepwater Bay basking in the sunshine. K's wife was in Bangkok with some girlfriends so I met up with him and the two Cs (whose wives were also on the same trip) for a few beers and the Cup football at Main Street last night - good evening but we needed the walk today to blow away the cobwebs. Played tennis yesterday immediatley after I had finished the all day training session at work so a pretty hectic Saturday (my tennis partner and his wife were also down for the football so we had a very convivial evening). Managed a nap this afternoon which was defintely needed after a late night on Friday with the work visitors from London.
Still battling to get the holiday booked - flight availabilty to Phuket is causing problems so now looking further afield. Also aggravation being caused by the re-mortgaging of the bouse in London - 3 rate rises since we first started trying to organise this and still trying to overcome the issues relating to establishing personal ID etc. for E. Really need to sort this out.
Just a quick post to keep uptodate. A. has been at home all week with tonsilitis (sp.?) so is going a little stir-crazy. However, a food parcel in the form of a big box of chocolates has arived from my sister in UK has helped the situation (I am desperately trying to eat them all before Lent starts).
We are also trying to book a holiday with some friends after CNY. Trying to find a gap in the diary is a nightmare but (fingers crossed) we are getting closer to a confirmed booking.
Had an interesting night out last Saturday at a Dinner with Geoff Miller (v. average England cricketer) and Martin Bayfield (v. large former England and British Lion rugby player) were the speakers. Very amusing and even had a beer bought for me by Mr Bayfield afterwards.
Also managed a game of tennis on Saturday - first for about 10 years - and hope to do it again this weekend (like a new year's resolution - not sure how long this will all last).
We are now back to the Big Lychee and unfortunately I am back to work after a packed trip back home. In fact we nearly did not make it back to UK as V. developed a high temperature on the day we were due to travel. Fortunately were were able to swop the tickets (at some cost) and there was availability for the identical flight two days later. Even then, Heathrow was closed to domestic flights due to fog and we must have been among the first flights to touch down that day (at 5.45am).Flight was not too bad with V. in a bassinet (sp?) and A. managing to get some sleep.
Picked up the hire car OK and arrived at my parents house at around 9.30am. Nobody home so called around to my sister's and introduced the two new arrivals J and V. for the first time. Finally caught up with my parents and showed them V. and reintroduced them to A. who had grown very considerably since they had last seen him nearly a year ago (by around 3 inches according to the marks on the door at his other grandparents house).
The next few days passed in a whirl including a lovely Christening for Verity at the church at my old primary school at which many of our friends and relatives managed to attend even though it was Christmas Eve and an excellent party at my Sister's house afterwards for which we will always be grateful to my parents and sister and B her husband for organising. It was a truly magical day.
Christmas Day was spent in a haze of present opening and Dinner at my Cousin's house where his wife A. cooked a fabulous Turkey dinner for 12. We left in the early hours and were up shortly afterwards (at least E. was) when V. (still on Hong Kong time as she was for much of the trip) decided that it was time to wake and see what the day had to offer.
The next few days were spent with my Sister and her family and A. and his Cousin N played (reasonably) well together. We managed to find time to visit a rare-breeds farm and spent a couple of very pleasant hours looking at various farm animals and their young (and the rest of the holiday smelling vaguely of pig poo - at least they were pedigree pigs!).
We then travelled down to E's parents in the West Country where we had a very relaxing time meeting up with E.s brother D (who we had recently seen in HK) and her Aunt. We also managed a couple of shopping trips to Bristol and also my first proper trip to Bath - very genteel - very much the Tunbridge Wells of the West Country. All to soon we were making our way back to Heathrow (although we had tacked on 2 days to the original holiday becasue of losing the two days at the beginning).
Notwithstanding the very lenghty security checks we had an incident-free flight back to HK. V. was admitted as a visitor to HK as I had neglected to add her to my work visa - must sort that out as it would be most unfortunate if she ended up being classed as an illegal immigrant.
