Summer shooter - new hands on deck

So here comes the next generation.  I now have other hands producing photos for your blog, in the form of Aiden with his phone.  No big weighty kit - but always around - surreal filtered stuff, all of it very cool. Here's the first of what I hope will be many - off a junk anchored off one of the island beaches.  Looks like some kind of a cross-processed filter, lots of blue in the shadows, very cool picture actually.  Below this, I've built a sequence that he took of Evan jumping off the roof - delightful.  Below that a self portrait taken on the way back to the harbour.

Missing you at Po Toi O

Hello my angel.  How cool is this new uber-sophisticated blog design?  Feeling most pleased with my newly designed logo. Missed you at lunch today at Po Toi O; Ange's mum and dad are visiting - wish you and GR were too.

How does one construct a narrative - upside down? Part 3 of 3

And then there was the beauty and the personal little milestones in-between.  The summer. Hot, heavy-humid, languid long days. A pleasure cruiser anchored in Sheung Sze Wan bay; as usual, monster surf thunders ashore.

On a Thursday afternoon, a Typhoon warning shut the city down, at about the same time as it kindly turned sharply right and headed up towards Japan.  Jacques and his whole family came round for an early dinner, including Hisako and her two girls Miki and Maya, Jaques mum - aged 78 and an absolute delight - remembers the occupation of Paris by the Nazis when she was a young girl - always amazing that something so seeming so far away in time is so close - Jacques' two kids, Chad and Sasha, and his nephew Antoine.  It was so utterly lovely spending time with them.

It's in the low 30's at night, so the evening dip is always a delight - here is Aiden in Trevor and Lexie's pool.

The major milestone has been his finishing Primary School - in August he's off to the mighty KGV - 2200 students on a get-lost easily campus - no doubt awash with all the perils of teenagehood.  We hold thumbs.  I was traveling, so Courtney and Jordan kindly attended his last assembly, which he was delighted about, Jordan standing on tippie-toes expressly for the purpose of making herself taller than Courtney.

No-one was more delighted than Ev though - only one thing he likes more than having his older cousins pay him a visit at school (Courtney not caught napping with the tippie-toes this time :-)

Enjoying Dylan, at a Thai food guzzling session

And a super-cool new hairstyle (delivered by dad no less) to start working on that whole high-school thing.

How does one construct a narrative - upside down? Part 2 of 3

It's also been one of those intense periods of work where you fail to get the stuff that you really need to get done, done, because you are doing all the stuff that has to be done, but doesn't really relate to what you are trying to achieve.  Like writing this exam - blissfully passed as I mentioned to you - and, dare I say, I actually learned a heap.  Here's a thumbs up outside the examination centre.

Then there was the drone of travel, with all it's beauty (like the skies over the Philippines) bizarreness (like the buildings in Singapore) and brutality (in the new town sense - Beijing architecture on the way in from the airport.

How does one construct a narrative - upside down? Part 1 of 3

It's the problem with a blog - and the latest post rising to the top.  It's been a (place suitable row of expletives here) intense month, of milestones, droning ordinariness, hallucinogenic weirdness, and those perfect moments of calm delight that keep you afloat amidst it all - if you can get out of your own head long enough to notice them .  How to lay that out, upside down?  My solution - ignore the timeline, and go for the compartments.  So to get it out of the way - I'll start with the bad acid-trip first. I will have to describe this to you over the phone, but here is a clue to remind you to remind me when we next talk:  Here is Ange at the police station, taking strain, in defense of her ...

... eight year old goalkeeper.  (If you can guess the missing bits, I will be seriously worried)

Dylan and Danica

So nice to have the cuzzies home.  It was really nice to meet Danica - heard her name so many times, and she is as lovely as I was led to believe.  Below that, an update on the bridge.

Beijing

Loved being in Beijing - which is high praise given it was a Friday night and Saturday, and included missing the Super Rugby finals.  The main purpose of the trip was to interview a guy for a senior position we are trying to fill in our China office - and he was FANTASTIC.  I've not got it right to employ him yet - so hopefully I'm not speaking too soon - but we have been looking for around 5 months.  Good bilingual people are super-expensive in Beijing and Shanghai.  Hopefully the search is over.  Then there was the fact that it was summer - loooooong perfect days - and I was invited out for dinner by Anita and Pat, who were visiting Anita's family.  It was such fun.  I speak around 5 words of putonghua, about the same as Pat, and roughly the same amount of english as Anita's family speak - so as invariably happens in these situations, those old enough drink far too much and everyone suddenly understands each other just perfectly.  Saturday morning felt rough.  The flight home that night was due to leave at 6.30pm, but the plane sat on the taxiway for 3 hours, was home in bed by 2am - but I really felt that I took a proper bite out of life for a couple of days - which always feels good.  Here's a fitting sequence:

What BJ looks like on the way to dinner...

Anita's lovely family (you might remember her sister, she took us to that shopping centre when we were in BJ together) - a long way into the dinner - photo appropriately slightly fuzzy...

What BJ feels like on the way home from dinner.  

Unrelated to China travels - a super-cool urban bike hey?  Triple butted aluminium frame, box crown fork, hydraulic stoppers, carbon belt drive with an Alfine 8-speed gearbox.  First saw one in Sydney, though the manufacturer is German.

Soccer squad - great excitement

Great excitement, Aiden and Ev have made the squad for the Asia Pacific Schools soccer team - they are terribly chuffed.  Gran wanted a picture, so I took one for her, here it is (I've just been admonished by Ev, pointing out that this is not the new squad kit, which looks different).  Ev has been chosen as a goalkeeper; he points out that he has a special orange jersey with a number 1 on it.  They have both become alarmingly more skilled - thanks to endless hours of one form of football or another (and I exclude Fifa15 from that - though they somehow manage to link it too).