The dogs in their raincoats

Arlene gets the dogs in order: Basil, Marcus, Nikki, ready in their raincoats.
Click to enlarge.  But caution!  See warning below....

My apologies to those of delicate sensibilities: I didn't notice quite how excited Basil was to wear his new raincoat, till I saw this photo in full size (click it to enlarge).  So: "parental guidance" warning when you do enlarge it...
This was just yesterday, front yard of our place, Siena One, Discovery Bay.
The dogs love their coats! Put their heads straight in.  Basil didn't have one for a while -- I thought he didn't need one as he's a Labrador who loves water, and wouldn't notice that he didn't have one.  But no, he kicked up a fuss, clearly jealous of Marcus', and when I got him one too, he was delighted.  (You can see just how priapically happy he is...)

The flowers and trees are glorious this year: the bougainvillia everywhere out in bright bloom, the mango tree heavy with fruit, our new passionfruit is bearing its first fruit, and the orchids I dotted about in the crooks of trees, in the shade, are now flowering here and there:

Orchid in the crook of the Frangipani tree. 

Same Orchid as above, one day later (15th May). And now there were three....

And then there were four. (25th May)

I'm doing more on our Xena blog these days, so hop over there to see what our gorgeous boat's up to.  Click here.  She's currently on her way to Koh Samui in Thailand, for the Samui Regatta, in the fist week of June.  It'll take her around 9 days to get there.  She's in the care of delivery skipper, Grant Dalton, of NZ, Noel (our full-time boat manager) and Mike from the Philippines.

We won this Regatta last year, in a close fought tussle which went to the wire, so we're defending our crown this year. It'll be tough, as there's some new competition from Australia, including an Aussie sailing legend Pete Sorenson ("Soro").
After the Regatta, we're going to cruise for a few days a bit north of Samui, then back home while Grant and "the Boyz" bring her back to Hong Kong.
We did some cruising around Phuket in January this year, after King's Cup, and it was great.  There's some photos and news on the Xena blog, here.  Everywhere you stop, there's good food, friendly people and massage.... (every beach has a massage station!).  And clear, clean, warm waters.  And some coral reefs, still....
Ok, let's finish off with some more colour: the park outside our back door:

Multi-hued bougainvillia

And some of our greeeeen organic passionfruit...

We planted this around February, if I recall. This photo taken on 15th May