Couch potato collective

This photo doesn't need a caption.  

And so it begins again

The next installment of the sporting life kicked off yesterday.  A resounding success it was not.  Ev was playing at Kellet school where the pitch is on the roof.  He managed around 10 minutes, five of which were in the dry (and during which he made this save) before the pitch was closed with lightning and thunder.  Game over, head home.

Aiden played at King's Park at a different time (hence my getting to both) and the pitch blissfully stayed open.  He played well, though there was plenty of evidence of a long holiday with big couch time with electronics.

On the right here he taps the ball in after rounding the keeper.

Sundays are rugby days.  The stadium pitch is closed for Ev's practice because the field which is a rare turf pitch is waterlogged.  Now we are playing the waiting game to see whether an alternative pitch is arranged for Aiden's practice at 1pm.  Think about it, 1pm on a Sunday for a rugby practice. Mmm.

It's rained relentlessly in the past month or so.  Strangely, its hard to get rainfall figures - as if no one really cares because there is always enough?  I managed to find that it rained 570mm in August here, a little less than the P-town annual average of 680mm.

Finding little treasures on the phone

One cool thing about phones with cameras is that when you remember to take a look there can be such cool little treasures tucked behind its aluminium skin:

Interior chamber of a hotel I stayed in in Shanghai.  My room was on the 79th floor.  Massive.

Evan and Holly enjoy a morning game.

Definitely one of the quietly stranger photos on my phone.

Chris the morning after a night on the couch.  Sometimes you find it's too late to sensibly go home;
better to rest up a bit first

Evan and Holly in the morning before school.

Ponti in the alleys in Hang Hau village

Helping Jordan with her design project

Jordan had a design project to build a scale model of  a practical solution to a social problem with various design references.  Aiden and I joined in, and helped her build a borehole pump that was designed as a school see-saw.  It was pretty cool fun.  The hidden design parameter was that it had to be built so that it could be quickly dismantled (for the trip back to SA\) and then reassembled again.

Hang Hau, looking for bits an pieces needed for her model.

Getting the building off to a start - in the lounge, as you do in Hong Kong.  What I would give for a proper shed.

Jordan at work with the hole saw.

Ze Fat Tat (Holly's Chinese name) got involved too.

Here is the final product, with grass for the playground and water to pump (the bucket being the borehole).  This is the final test at 8.45pm; Jordan and Simon were leaving for the airport at 9.15:

Tracy (Fiona and Robyn) turn 50

We had a lovely beach party on Mils to celebrate Tracy, Robyn and Fiona's joint birthday.  It was a delightful day and evening, and Kevin had built a little burning man horse, for their year of the horse arrival.

Loading boats for the trip out.  Best part of it all was a DJ had been arranged who had already set up there
with a generator and some big beach party speakers.  

Michael Abbot and Tory wade out to the boats.  They used to live here, but moved back to Western Australia
13 years ago, and it was a delightful surprise to see them.  Tory after a decade and some has changed quite a bit.

Ange and Jordan enjoy the trip out - and it was a fabulous day, high level cloud to keep the lash of the sun's whip at bay.

Fiona, Robyn and Tracy in front of Kevin's bonfire horse.

Nicolas' beard is looking fantastic; its perfectly balanced blend of dark and grey.  Always divine to see him.

By dusk the party was happening in the sea, which was perfectly languid and warm.

Later on, getting down on the beach around the bonfire, Giles in expansive mood

Ev's party - super surreal - bubble soccer

Science-fiction like it was; gravity-less and completely surreal.  And rough, rough. rough.

Next generation beauty

Some time ago we had to cut down a rubber tree that was growing into and destroying the wall, at the neighbour's request.  But it couldn't be removed, because it literally had grown into the structure. So a guy came and cut it down, and painted some creosote sort of stuff on the top of the stump, but then it sprouted again, so he cut the shoots back and painted it again.  Then among the bushes I saw now that it had presumably died, because it was covered everywhere by these little lampshade shaped mushrooms.  Anywhere along the wall that it's visible, its covered by them - long trails of little mushrooms along the wall.  Super beautiful, and somehow sinister.