Ev ready for Sunday combat

New lime-flavoured gum-guard.  Who would have thought?  Really should be yellow green.  He tried a smile, but they are not really smiley things.  So you got the flanker's stare.
Hope your move plans are going well and you are feeling excited about it. :-)

The joys of getting dug - dig Kowloon

Saturday morning was a beaut. Crystal clear day.  The guy with the digger working for the contractor working for the district council dug up a number of things along with the parking lot (which is being redone), on Friday.  Firstly the water, then the electricity and finally our fibre-optic cable - which is the unhappy looking white conduit and little black snake you can see.  Though the wooden bridge is nice.  Anyway - it was a big day; Ev was chosen as keeper, playing for one of the Kowloon schools teams, playing against the Island schools, for the ESF 50th anniversary celebrations. Kowloon won the football - but lost the netball.  So it goes.

From left, Ev's mates and Kowloon team mates, Orell, Max and Julian - with their medals.

A keeper's wounds - the stuff of clean-sheet dreams

Here is Evan's leg last night, showing the stud marks earned in the pursuit of his clean sheet on Saturday.

And here is the exact moment it happened, the opposing striker's boot crunching down on the outside of his leg in a goalmouth dogshow.  Also clearly on display is the yellow ball in Evan's grasp in the process. 

Big day with the round ball

Many satisfied smiles and now fast asleep boys here.  Aiden had, what is to him, an essentially perfect day; contriving somehow to play in three football matches for three different teams, along with a birthday party at a trampoline park in-between.  He got home at about 8.30pm (in victorious mood, scores being 3-0, 7-0 and 1-1) made a cup of tea, had a shower, and went straight to bed; this being a night on which six nations rugby is on offer late, and a Sunday in which he plays a rugby match at only 3pm (and therefore can sleep late and will argue bitterly for staying up until 2.30am).  Bye bye.

Waiting anxiously for warm-up to start with a visibly more relaxed looking Max

Evan, by contrast, had a grudge match, one fueled by some of the more lowly aspects of the 10 year old playground.  Some of his mates at school play for a somewhat bling club called the KCC.  A couple of them had earlier left the club that Evan plays for, and moved to KCC, because, they claimed, KCC had better coaches and was in any event a better club.  And to some extent there was some evidence of this in that KCC was near the top of the league.  In the days at school leading up to the game, words had been exchanged on the playground, Evan’s version of which is that two boys in particular had been crowing that they were, in effect, going to wipe the floor with Evan’s team.  His reaction to all this was to invest heavily emotionally, and wake up with a stomach ache from the intensity of it all.  Perfectly sensibly he assumed that it was going to be both a busy and pride-on-the-line sort of goalkeeping day.  And indeed it was. In the end he was on fire – defending his oft assaulted goal with his Evan philosophy of brave intensity.  And in the end they beat KCC 1-0.  He is all smiles, in a really big way, and now also asleep. 

In the thick of it, kung fu flying children, all murderously motivated.

Its in the goal mouth short range shot melee that the Evinator is most determined and abrasive. Laser focus.

Figure skating soccerlettes.

For my money his best save of the day - near post ball hit hard along the deck towards the bottom right of his goal, with lots of traffic in the box - full stretch dive and somehow got his right arm in the way and stopped it.

Sparkling Evan

Year of the Rooster

Lots of parties fit into a Chinese new year; which means pieces of afternoons on the couch. 

Carrie, utterly divine and slightly wild - her new year lunch cook-up is universally our favourite Chinese food.  

Superstar Dana, beautifully dressed - shiny person.