Round about the silly season

 A woeful patch of two plus months - doing a very quick bit of catching up here - and then the new year stuff will flow:

December was a fantastic month - no travel means breakfast in bed with Ev (Aiden likes to get up and have breakfast whilst illicitly accessing some or other screen media).

Weekends hanging out with friends at the short bar.

Not everyone bothered by the cooler weather - Malcolm coming in on his sharky boat (seriously quick rib this one) making the girls smile with some substantial bronzed pec.

Aiden was playing some great rugby at flyhalf for the Stingray's second team, running well, passing well, kicking well...

... and tackling well.  So well in fact that he was rewarded with a promotion to the first team, whereafter he had a really horrible time being a sub and playing in the course of one tournament, lock, centre and wing.  (Much to his delight he has now returned to the second team where he is again enjoying being the flyhalf).

Great excitement - Granny Rose arrived, a delight.  We did a lot of stuff - I failed to take pictures of the very vast bulk of all of it - seemed like a distraction from having her.

Evan, having discovered that he is something of  a tackle missile on the rugby pitch, announced that he was going to buy a pair of goal-keeping gloves with a gift voucher he received.  This he duly did.  So when the annual soccer tournament came around, and he arrived at the game with his new gloves, the coach had no trouble deciding to put him on as the keeper.  Ev rewarded that decision by keeping a clean sheet throughout the four games - and he made plenty of saves - some bone crunching ones - including a penalty save.  His team ended up winning the tournament,  in no small part thanks to his efforts, downing the favourites in the final.  Rose and I were terribly chuffed - Ev was quietly much more so.  Here a ball comes whizzing towards him from a close range shot, through the traffic...

...but it too gets stopped (despite eyes being closed in both frames - must have been open at some point).

The APAC schools team with their winners' medals and some big smiles (Ev, characteristically pigeon-toed, but no birdie that - he'll knock you down). 

Then it was Christmas - that great delight of prezzies, double bonus that granny was visiting ...

...and that Santa had managed to squeeze a table-tennis table into the haul of loot.  Dad, it should be noted, is king of the blue-top, and not looking in danger of being toppled any time soon.

Being at home

Means being normal - and it is so utterly lovely.  On Sunday night, after a pretty lazy day, we went to Hang Hau for dinner at the Italian restaurant - you can say that, "the" Italian, because there really only is one.  The food was fantastically mediocre - just what was expected - and we got to check out all the beautiful bicycles on the way in.

Monday morning, great excitement - year 4 and year 6 camp - which means that both the boys will be away this week.  Frustratingly for me, I'm in HK - though it was cool to be part of dropping them off.

Modern kids, wheelie bags ffs - what happened to lugging your rucksack?  Aiden and Ev ready to go - just stopping to pick up Liam whose folks are traveling this week. 

The wheelie brigade... I was thinking to my self, what is this for - ah, training for modern life - pulling your wheelie over rough terrain - like you might find outside the Airport in Lombok (certainly no longer in Manila or Hyderabad or some such, all of which now have the ultra mod bling bling internationals.  Weather could not be better; crystal clear - 22 degrees.

Looking for Aiden to say goodbye.  Where is the child?  Of course, on the roof of the school having a quick game of tennis ball soccer.

Sunday black and whites of the boys

Vidhu Shekhar - CFA Institute's first India Country Head

CFA has opened an office in India for the first time in it's 50 something years - Vidhu has been appointed country head.  Lovely human being who you would enjoy; software engineer, IIM Graduate; wildly interested in everything.  He was here for lunch, and I grabbed a quick patio portrait; Ev as assistant. I changed the original to this one - befitting of smiling and full-of-humour person. 

Saturday morning - Mustangs (Aiden's team) vs Hong Kong Cricket Club.

Could not have been a more perfect Saturday morning - bright, cool, pleasant breeze.  Aiden with my old bat - my tenth birthday present - sanded, new handle.  Makes me smile.

Aiden steaming in.  The opposition was not up to it; a very one-sided affair.  In case you are wondering about the massive no-ball - they bowl from a shortened bowling crease until under 13.  Now under 11, so it can be pretty lively for the batsmen.  No pads needed; the ball is a slightly squidgy shiny plastic with a pronounced seam - swings like mad - but delivers a stinger at worst.

Hyderabad Hotel Spaces

The Trident in Hyderabad - part of the new brutalist city; not India feeling, stark and clean; nice lines in the wrong place.

Subterranean reflections

Macy and Louisa on the Sunday before all the events kicked off on Monday; without going into it - lots of moving parts and risks and unknowns.  They could run a small country in their spare time it seems.  I slept intermittently the weeks before, thanks to them; would have been completely sleepless without.

Palpable relief; Macy and Vidhu on the train in the HK airport on the way home.  Well earned smiles.

Combat duck to water

So it turns out that Ev really liked his first rugby tournament.  For a dreamy kid, there was no holding back.  From the kick-off he chases really hard - way ahead of team mates - and just simply goes for the ball.  You can see old green shoes below calling out a warning, but grrr, too late, as the Evinator arrives... could not get a clear pic through all the traffic.

Each team got pretty much the same treatment; kick, chase, attack the ball. Literally.  Everyone sort of stands around a bit unsure of what to do.  What you cant really see from the pics below is that the group of red guys ends up traveling backwards - such is the ferocity of the terrible Evinator :-)

24 Hour Race - The Black Shripms back in action

The Nautilis

Evan gets into tackle

Ev played in his first proper rugby tournament on Sunday - and absolutely loved it.  He ran and passed nicely - though his ball attacking skills were definitely the stand out.  Look for a later post for some of those.  It is worth noting that by far the most impressive player in team was the (one and only) little girl, third from right in the picture above.  Maya.  Who I gather has a couple (if not a few) older brothers, one of whom had given her four stitches in the ear a couple of days before.  Nope, she was not missing this - hence the ear taped up with blue tape.  And man she gave it stick!  I think at the end I was seeing the perspective of the brother who did the damage to the ear.  Might well have been in self defense.

The Sunday morning that you'd rather not have

Which is the Sunday morning that has just happened...

Before I get into it though - I've been meaning to show you this pic of Ev - have you seen this cross-cut tree trunk in Knysna?  I think it is very cool:  it is aged from the rings, and the perspex thing is a timeline of events that were happening when the tree was growing, near Diepwalle in the forest.  The line at the height of Evan's nose is the burning of Joan of Arc at the stake in 1431.  The centre dates back to 1312.  The Renaissance started in the 1320's.  Enlightenment.  Or so we thought.

Back to the weekend.  What is happening here?  Well, smiling as I write this... this is Billy, a lion of Aiden's.  Billy looks like he does, because Aiden woke up early this morning, woke up way up there on his bunk, and threw up over the side.  Billy had been sitting on the floor, minding his own business.  But as is so often the case with innocent bystanders, that did not spare him .  The cascade sort of detonated when it hit the floor, got instantly disseminated. After a good old go, a bit of lav action, and a shower or two while the parents cleaned, Aiden hops into my spot, and falls fast asleep.  Angelic stuff.  Interesting trade-off: clean puke, or drive into Sai Kung for 3 hours of rugby practice? 

I tried hard not to be sympathetic.  Last night we had Terry and Angela and kids around for dinner.  I had cooked some boerrie (healthy stuff that it is) and Ange had chopped it up and popped some toothpicks in for a finger stack.  Aiden and Liam took one of the pieces, and pushed a whole, little red bird-eye chili into it (from the garden - the same bush that they routinely pee on, I very much doubt that their treachery included washing) and then brought it to me - disguised as an act of kindness.  I was on the phone at the time, so didn't take the appropriate precautions of close visual inspection. By the time old greedy-guts had realised, it was too late.  Nasty little buggers.

Later in the day - with the regular activities of beach and whatnot on vomit-hold, I went with Terry to take his dad Brian to visit Virendra, and talk engines.  This is the propulsion unit of Virendra's 360 (though for me, rather the 550 Maranello parked in front of it).  Brian is a rebuilder and restorer of motor-vehicles - in particular Jaguar XK120's.  Beautiful cars.  Winners at LeMans in their day.

Recent Travel - Brunei

I have most recently been to Brunei - which I'm pretty sure you will have to look at a map to find the location of (I did).  And this is where you'll find it - as in those two tiny pieces of pink on either side below the red dot:

To summarise, a very small kingdom (Sultinate, more accurately - basically the same thing) on the island of Borneo - which is the third largest island on earth (I think Australia is classed as a continent) - with a population of 400,000, living under newly introduced Islamic Sh aria law.  

The Sultan of Brunei was for a long time (until Bill Gates) the richest man on earth. I was surprised at my reaction coming here - I had this really strong sense of distaste about the whole thing - I don't like the notion of Sha aria law as presented in a (why do I believe them?) Western media - stoning (as in to death) of adulterers, and the chopping off of hands of thieves.  I know this idea, at least, appeals to many crime-weary South Africans; but really, people's reasons for stealing are so diverse, and many of them do not relate to greed or malice - and inevitably the rich (who unquestionably steal much much more, globally, than the poor) are able to access protections of one sort or another while the poor bear the brunt, yet again, of odds stacked against them.  So I am not remotely for that sort of punishment. 

Just getting on the plane felt like an ordeal of some sort - you are oft reminded that the punishment for drug trafficking is death - and asked at check-in if you have copies of prescriptions for any medications that you are carrying - really?  Who has that?  So all in all it felt ominous and grim, and my natural gut reaction was along the lines of OK, then *-you, and your country, I'd rather go work somewhere that seems more open and welcoming.  

And then you arrive, and its completely different to that.  Super-peaceful, people are hugely relaxed and warm and friendly, into their families and quality time (the latter of which they appear to have ample quantities of.  I really battled to get from the airport to the hotel, because taxi drivers don't really feel like working on Sunday evening, and who can blame them - there being so many more appealing things to do.  In addition, several of the people I met mentioned to me that they went home for lunch each day, you know to see the kids and hang as a family - that sort of thing.

In lots of ways it felt like being in a time-warp, but with modern cars and trimmings.  Because it floats on oil - petrol is 30c a litre. 

  
This is not my picture above - but I thought it visually summarised exactly what I expected (which I suppose is the point about media) - whereas a much more accurate version of this would be a group of people talking about their families, cycling and scuba-diving.  It's simultaneously a warning of what you believe of what you read - and I suppose in honesty - equally what your first impressions are.  Mine were unreservedly positive.

Recent travel - Charlottesville and New York

Ange and I traveled together to the US - which was just great for me.  I've had the loneliness of the road in chunks (not about roads - but as an aside, an interesting article I saw about the modern condition):
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-loneliness-killing-us

So it was great to be together.  First stop was Charlottesville - viewed as the gateway to the South; suburban rural - sort of an American Stellenbosch sort of feel.  Here is the start of my mate Tom Sours garden, autumn leaves emerging, woodpiles ready for winter.

I also went to see one of my dad's closest friends Gus Gerrans, who in a bizarre alignment of fate lives in Charlottesville with his wife Sue.  Extremely cool people, it was lovely to see them; but also really emotional for me - managed to hold it together until I got back into the cab and then had to have a good old-fashioned weep.  I am really happy to have been able to see him - I am hugely grateful to him for a trip he took in April, all the way to Cape Town, and then a drive to Knysna to see him.  This on a recent double hip replacement.  55 years of friendship is something special.  I feel for his loss.

After a few days in the South, we drove to Washington and flew to New York.  I'll spare you the rave - you have to go some time - we all have to go some time, and then again.  It is an outstandingly fabulous place.  Full of delightful surprise.

Pancakes for breakfast in a New York diner.  Conceptually great - feel a bit foul afterwards.

Ange in Central Park - not really what you'd expect - fabulous, massive - a great resource for the people living there.

Sucking back a couple of beers next to the lake in the park (you can see how far away the edge of the city is here).  Man you can walk in that city.  On this day, we walked from our hotel, through a piece of the park, to a restaurant for dinner, and back to our hotel - which amounted to about five hours of walking time.

Which is why you need good shoes - and you know the whole think about Hong Kong shoes and me - so I could not resist buying a couple of pairs (these both Docs) - been wanting a pair of black and white brogues for 20 years (at least).  Now absolutely no one takes me seriously - unless it is to ask "why are you wearing golf shoes?" Which is when you know the world is finally fully perverted; imagine golf taking over style.  That's like saying if you have a lawn at home you must love golf.  And I have no beef with golf.  Its just that it is only a game, and these shoes are, well, extremely cool (I think).