The Bay

CWB now has the most expensive retail rental prices in the world - must be time to move.

The Hong Kong Football Club Christmas Fair

Dashed from the wedding registry to a gorgeous lunch at The Upper House to the Christmas Fair at the Footy Club. Here are some pics.

Interviews and Chrissy tree

In other news, the boys have got interviews at the ESF Hillside Kindergarten, which is great. The ESF schools provide English-language schooling for English-speaking children who can't access the local school system. Hillside Kindergarten got 770 applications for 176 places this year, mental isn't it?

They're interviewing 200 kids for those 176 places, so our chances are fairly good. On the one hand I would love them to go to ESF because it is easy to get to, relatively affordable, and gives them priority to get into the ESF primary and then secondary schools. On the other hand, they are starting City Kids 5 afternoons a week in January (they'll be Bumblebees!), and although it is ho ho ma fan to get to and from, I do love that place. It reminds me so much of being little. We went to a Christmas party there the other day and the boys made jingle bell bracelets, red and white hats, reindeer puppets and candy canes. They sang songs and Santa (Grandma Christmas, as J and F call him) gave all the kids a present. It was super cute, we had a great time.

This is Felix and Miss Radhiya 

Ross, enthralled by Grandma Christmas

Our tree!! at last

The time has come

It’s official people. We’re potty training. Watch this space for dry Buzz Lightyear pants.

The first few days have gone relatively well, with the exception of yesterday, when the boys chose to giggle for two hours instead of having a nap. The afternoon was characterized by a billion trips to the loo and lots of costume changes.

I spent a happy half hour last night (after I had recovered from the agony of having lost my beloved laptop) making a sparkly, spangly reward chart for the boys. They get a Thomas the Tank Engine sticker (let’s not discuss the fact that in these parts he’s called Thomas the Train) every time they use the potty or loo. Fascinating stuff huh? Bet you’re glad you came to the blog to see what we were up to.

Photos from the MOMs Christmas Party 2012

Thanks to Jasja, Han Willem and Jo for these

Ooh, young man!

Remember this from Harry Enfield and Chums?

The Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Ladies

A deliberate contrast, on Enfield's part, to show the opposite of The Old Gits : Two lecherous old ladies who do not care who approaches them so long as the newcomer is male, and youthful. Their catchphrase is "Ooh! Young man!", which they repeat in an attempt to pass themselves off as 'nice little old ladies', while comparing young men they encounter to male celebrities of their young adulthood ("You're the spitting image of a young Lester Piggott").

And so it begins...

The boys' dream come true

Lost property on hong kong bus

Just fyi, peeps. If you ever lose something on a New World First Bus, here's what you do.

First of all, call 2873 0818. You'll get several options, choose "speak to a customer service representative". We called this number about 11.30 one night, no answer. But about 7am the next morning, someone answered.

If they have found your lost property, they'll give you a reference number. If you are picking it up for someone else, take a letter written by that person to authorise you to pick it up. Include the ref number and the person's HKID.

The office is at NWFB's headquarters at 8 Chong Fu Road. It's about a ten minute walk from Heng Fa Chuen MTR station. I went there at 9 am, the day after the item was lost, and it hadn't been delivered yet, so I have to go back later. Grr.

They called me back from this number 3172 5400 to tell me when it had arrived, so that might be worth trying before you schlep to Heng Fa Chuen.

Super boring blog post I know, but might be useful to someone.

Terrible Twos

Found this article on Mumsnet about kids aged 2 1/2. F and J are now 2 years and 6.5 months, so it seems appropriate right now. There are some gems in there, like this:

It's hard to make her happy, although funnily enough there is a sense of humour lurking - due to emerge closer to three. You can feel that you are in a permanent state of war with your little two and a half year old - while she is trying to decide how to live her life (somewhat prematurely as it turns out) you are trying to fathom out just what on earth her problem is.
The trick is to be completely saintly yourself. Poor love, she doesn't like making herself or you unhappy; she's not really a manipulative, selfish little beast - so set aside enough time for her to try to dress herself, feed herself and bath herself without urging her to get a move on.

Sass has prepared a similar briefing sheet for her daughter, just in case she's finding this age tricky too.

Your mother will turn into a screaming banshee when you are two and a half. She will boss you around, make you do jobs, put you in a naughty corner. You may be force fed. The amount of books read at bed time will seriously diminish. She will develop a sigh. Thr black marks under her eyes will not diminish until your first year at school. She will have tantrums. She will yell a lot at daddy. She msy even give thr person who steals your taxi the finger. She will use lots of words beginning with s and f. She may appear thirsty snd refuse to drink out of a glass if it doesn't have a long stem.
Good luck little one!

Tights dudes

Currently baldies....but watch this space!

"Pencil yourself in everywhere"

An unusual way to welcome in Autumn, but OK Starbucks, you're the boss.

The other CWB

We had a fantastic afternoon yesterday at the Clearwater Bay Golf and Country Club. It was tremendously relaxing after an extremely stressful morning; bliss.

The fabulous Matahari, who kept Felix entertained during 2 loooong hours at the Happy Valley Sanatorium yesterday.

Wounded soldier

First hockey injury - not in a team yet, and the season hasn't started...

I'm trying to decide between mango blonde and carrot...what do you think?

Waking up