Picasso's bicycle bull - Sheung Sze Wan version

 

A lovely week so far

 It's been a lovely week of leave.  To have that break, and rediscover oneself is fantastic.  All the things that are so easy and lovely to do, but too time-consuming to tackle outside the weekends, at which point the roads and beautiful places are very quickly peopled.

On Monday

I achieved very little - enjoyed my birthday with the homies, and speaking to you...

...after a decent stint of lazying about and reading in bed with the cat.

On Tuesday, I tackled a circuit of exercises and then went for a longer than anticipated run.  No pictures of that of course.  On Wednesday however...

...we hit the hills with Robyn, Pieter and hound Hugo, and walked the newly opened mountain bike trail.

Really lovely view from the contour part of the trail, water crystal clear at the beach that I swim at, bottom left of the picture.  It's amazing.  You can see the coastal reef and the sand bottom thereafter; you can also see how the waves coming into the bay fold around the point and into the bay.

On Thursday I decided it was time to break away from Clearwater Bay.  I resolved to brave the grey and chilly windy weather (11C, wtf?), got up well before sunrise and cycled through Sai Kung to the country park on the other side.  I arrived there as the dawn was breaking, went through the booms, and onto the road that runs up through the hills...

...and comes out at the High Island Reservoir, which is a massive piece of fresh water.

Staying on the road, eventually you climb all the way up to a saddle, and can look back over the reservoir (the first photo above is taken from in the trees behind and to the left of the pump-station tower, top left, to give you an idea of scale)...

...before you descend the other side which has really lovely views.

At the very end of the road is the start of the UNESCO Global Geopark's walking trail, with the reservoir on one side and the...

... run-over dam with the sea on the other side of that on the other.  As it happens there is a South African connection, because the sea wall itself is constructed of Dolosse, those perpendicularly ended concrete bollards the design of which I understand to have originated in East London of all places. A harbour engineer, Eric Merrifield, invented them in 1963 to rebuild a part of East London harbour which had been trashed by a storm (in case you've ever wondered, they weigh 80 tons each).

I had no idea what a UNESCO Geopark was, so looked it up; quite interesting for those who have budding geological urges to fulfill.  There are apparently 161 UNESCO Geoparks globally.  What they have in common is that each one has a unique geological feature.  The HK Geopark unique feature is that it has hexagonally shaped volcanic rocks that violently pushed up out of the ground.  They look like they came out of some sort of giant grater.  Here is the website for the HK Geopark, and a few pics taken from there and a website called Culture Trip - thanks to them for these.

Massive cliffs made out of the hexagonal columns.

Love how some super-extreme force shaped and bent them.

One of the cliff faces into the Reservoir really shows the column's through their decay.

Just to confirm that you can take Covid precautions whilst staying committed to disgusting-I-watch-too-much-of-the-TDF-neon lycra for cycling.

...and yup, Big Blue outside the Sai Kung post office, just in case you'd forgotten; it's an ironic statement ... to wear neon lycra to and then ride a dik-wiel with mudguards ;-)

From birthday to birthday

 It's been a shocker of a year, blog-wise, sorry.  Not sure what it was. Too much time staring at a screen?  Running out of creative inclination... is that one of the things that happens to a person as you get older?  Maybe one of the things we surrender?  Maybe it was a turned in on oneself pandemic response.  The physical isolation becoming a mental thing?  Its a monochrome time.

It was a highlight of the day, speaking to you.  Love what you are doing with your life and talents - super-engaged and putting out: ideas, work, leadership, physical assets, yourself ... amazing.

Claire and Anita came to say happy birthday; Claire, Aiden and Evan from the parking lot.

From back when the world was open - Ponti, OG,  in Hang Hau - modified phone pic

Evan at fourteen

 

The long summer of home living

Breakfast for a late-night football game crew

Holly imagines leaping, tiger-like

Evan builds his Minecraft world with Ange reading on the patio

The many faces of Fifa one evening - Aiden and Dylan in action together - Daisy mournfully excluded

 

Lockdown lazybones and the departing

In the brief window before Hong Kong's latest spike, Aiden's mates came round for a sleep-over.  Piles of bodies strewn about.  Holly fast asleep on the tiny space where the spiral stairs go up.

If there has been one tiny upside amidst all the viral pandemonium, it has been getting to see Dylan, Courtney and Jordan - though I'm sure the interruption to their lives has been a massive drag for them.  Jordan's T-Shirt is quite funny, she's so cool.  She left last night to fly back to SA (via Doha); Courtney leaves tonight to go back to London, and Dylan next week.

Your great+ grandfathers

Was looking through some old photos and found this, which is a photo of your great grandfathers (all George McGillivrays, so we don't have to bother getting names right - at last I work out why this might be a good idea ;-)

Standing on the left, Grandpa George's father, born in Alice in the Eastern Cape in 1895, standing next to him your great great grandfather, born in 1860, and sitting down your great great great grandfather, born in 1831.  It's pretty cool.

I remember my grandfather pretty well, he was big and gruff and pretty intimidating - but at that stage I was the last in a very long line of grandchildren, my dad being the youngest in his family - so he'd probably run out of the little patience that he had with wild children. 

I can remember his house in Alice a bit.  We called him Grandpa Train (if everyone is George then alternatives have to be found) because there was a railway line passing the bottom of the garden and seeing the steam train come puffing past was a considerable delight.  I went with Grandpa George to visit Alice a month before we moved to Hong Kong, a sort of farewell tour.  I remember going to find the house, which was called Tozama - and being delighted to find it still standing, and remarkably with the sign still on the gate.  The next time I went back, maybe a couple of years back, on the way to Kenton, the house was gone.