Photos that phones don't take - Sheung Sze Wan at night

Light trail left by a phone torch in Evan's pocket as he zig-zags down the hill on his scooter.

The bay, translucent feeling night-cool water.  

Village roofs, with the Sawfish of the TV-aerial in front of High Junk Peak

The photos of beauty

I don’t think I’m an aspiring sports photographer. More a binary life leaving limited options.  These are the photos from today that I like, but of course they don’t tell the sports story:

Evan, Maxime and Teo, cool colours and soft sky with the city in the background.  Below that, signing a shirt for Ollie who is leaving Hong Kong; transience; below that, blurred action of Ev against DEA Tigers.  This is more what rugby feels like to me visually.

Happy Valley tournament

Before the game, waiting to run on, butterflies zooming

On the break from the back of the maul against Valley Fort...

...and into the traffic.  The bummer about playing in the forwards is that there's never much room around.

Ev's big thing is physical courage, he's just undaunted by anything.  Here's his m.o. played out against Sandy Bay, bigger boy coming hard at him, lines up, gets low, and hangs on irrespective of the distortion the rest of him is put through.  Not the best day at the office for the Stingrays, played four, lost two, won and drew one.

Cherry Park grudge match

Ev off his line taking a big box ball at Cherry Park against the old nemesis KCC.  His team played well, he kept a clean sheet and the final score was 4-0.

Thanksgiving night, on the roof, birthday boy

Happy days, I've just got back from my last trip of the year, went well, Dylan's just finished exams and feeling good about how they went, boys are having a shower and we are all off to Roy and Debbie's for Thanksgiving dinner.  Chatting to Dylan, who's birthday it is, on the Cox's roof before heading off :-)

RIB - mainstay beach boat

The Crustacean Cup

After Aiden's rugby on Sunday it was time for the Crustacean Cup - the annual volleyball competition between the Sheung Sze Wan Crabs and the Lobster Bay Lobsters.  It was a cold afternoon - in HK terms - 18 degrees, patches of rain, wind etc.  All of this is coming from the north however, and Mils beach is South facing, so it just went roaring over the top and we had a super time all round.  The Crabs were victorious - in case you're wondering.

Smiling at the thought of a bit of RIB action; choppy sea, big smiles.

Sea was lovely, and despite absence in this picture, there was some surf.

Ev looking suitably sandy haired and chilly.

Warm up with mom.

Tournament underway.  Lobsters in Red, Crabs in blue on the far side.

Greg getting into the trophy award part of the day.  Yes, there is somewhere there a trophy, which Simon had pre-engraved with the Crabs victorious.  Sentient stuff.

Lara and Dana.  It was Lara's birthday - extra happiness...

...in the form of a cake handed over by Seb.  Love this pic.  Something about handing over a cheerful cake that is human beings at their best.

Dylan ran taxi off the beach to the Shrimp...

...here is the new version of the Kenton barge.  The same, but better.  Captain Cox at the helm.

Weekend sport

Ev in action, collecting a scorching worm-burner.  The astro pitch was wet, so the ball was skidding off it at an
alarming rate. He played really well, but the result was a frustrating draw.

Shot coming in from goalmouth melee; eyes wide, handled no problem.

High ball coming in.

Ev's place and out of hand kicking has got so much better, booming stuff.

On Sunday, Aiden's team went down in a last minute score, but an all-round thrilling game against a bigger team,
who ruthlessly turned ball over.  He converted 2 out of three kicks.

The byproduct of poor ball protection - spend the day tackling...

...and tackling.

With the occasional run through the traffic.  Check the size of the boy on the left.  WTF?!

Aiden just off highlands reservoir

Ev makes Stingray's first team as lock

Can't say that I was thrilled to hear that Ev was selected as lock, but he was chuffed to have made the first team, and said he thought it was cool, scrumming, lineout jumping, and tackling of course - so off we went for the season's first tournament at Happy Valley.  I discovered that there are real challenges taking pics of under 12 locks - they are always buried in a pile of bodies. 

Walking through the subway under the Happy Valley racetrack - headgear ready to go.

Packing down in the scrum, an early start to those cauliflower ears.

On the charge through the mid-field against Pirates - another reason for headgear - Ev fancies the head-first approach.

A chunk of the day was spent mauling and rucking - the life of a lock

About to crunch the HKFC flanker.

After the tournament, heading home with his mates in lengthening shadows

Ev and Aiden - November 2017

Challenge week

Living the dream.  The boys have Challenge Week at school, which means they get to choose off campus activities for a week, from a menu applicable to their year.  Ev has been doing an array of things, yesterday was hiking, the day before that dragon boating, tomorrow he goes to “A Play in a Day”, which is a drama and production workshop which produces just what it says.  Aiden chose to do a watersports week so has been out on the sea wake-boarding, wake-surfing etc etc. The weather has been astoundingly perfect; as I said, living the dream.

Ev heading out in divine morning light. Civvies. Hands in pockets.  Beautiful surroundings.

Jake took this very cool photo of Aiden with his phone from the boat. It's beautifully clear, still, air temp 25C, water 26C.  

Ev and mates after the dragon boating