The Flame trees aflame

This year's been great for flowers and the trees in flower.  Our Flame Tree (Poinciana) is out in full bloom.  See some more here, and the progression of one of our orchids.

Flame tree near our place.  Our own is too big to get photo of...

Old School Chums in touch again: David Edmunds and John Nicholas

Through the Canberra Grammar Class of '67 Blog, which Steve Padge and I set up in January last year, I've been put back in touch with a couple of old school mates that I haven't seen or heard of since we left school in the spring of 1967.
David Edmunds is Cycling Europe, with his partner Roz, and John Nicholas and family now live in London.
David's Blog is the link here, also linked on the LINKS list at the right.
Nick's news is at the Grammar Blog, here. Also at LINKS.  The Nicholas' are keen sailors, with son Ben a National and World Champion sailor...

The Nicholas Yacht, a Beneteau First 40.7 at "the Rock" in the 2007 Fastnet Race 

Emails to/from David:

Cape to Cairo: new Blog

I'm now writing about the Cape to Cairo trip here.

Cape to Cairo: Notes

David Hall in the 2010 Cape to Cairo.  Who's David Hall? What's the car??

Notes from the organiser, Roger Pearce "below the fold" (as we cool bloggers say).  ie, click on "Read More"....  I paid the entry fee today, so it's all go.  Here's the website for the event.

Cape Town to Cairo car rally

The route in the spreadsheet below follows the one above

I just committed last night to accompany Gordon Ketelby as his co-driver in a rally from Cape Town to Cairo, from 6 September to 21 October.  Not sure of details yet; Gordon will let me know when he's back in Oz.  He's sailing in some races in Europe at the moment.  We got to know Gordon at the King's Cup last year, where he was crew on Baby Tonga, one of our competitors.  We asked him to join us on Xena for the Hong Kong to San Fernando race in April and he flew up from Melbourne for that.  He's a guy about my age, retired having sold a business about the same time we sold Wall Street International, 4-5 years ago.
He loves sailing and cars.  Wise man....
Below jpeg you can print out (I had a link to pdf, but I think this works better...). Be sure to print in Landscape not Portrait:

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

The trees and flowers, they are a'bloomin'

A burst of mauve outside our front door, in Siena Park
As always: click to enlarge

Dylan in China, gets me to think of that line -- though he wasn't allowed by Chinese authorities to sing The times they are a' changin', causing many to say that he'd sold out.  He never said that he'd sold in, it happens, but now, now...  back to local flowers, for they really are a' bloomin....
We've had a riot of flowers in recent weeks, with the bougainvillia, the mauve one in particular out in a burst of vivid colour.  I think it's cause we've had a dry winter and they do like the dry -- see how well they do in the Med. Also out in profusion is our Aussie Bottle brush, callistemon viminalis.  Also, our Mango tree and the Lychee are both going to give us lots of fruit this year, after being barren for a few years.

John and Basil, by that same bush, on our walk today in the park.
Note that John is wearing my sailing shoes.

And the bottle brush in our back yard, lookin' good this year, weeping with brush....  It's also a favourite with our birds: Chinese and red-vented Bulbuls, Japanese White-eyes, Olive-backed Pipits, Magpie robins.  We also have our local Koel, singing out "Ko-el" in rising timbre, calling for a mate... but he's in the Flame tree just left of the bottle brush.

Callistemon Viminalis, prominent in Canberra region, in our backyard.
The bush below it is Powder Puff, a Brazilian native, which does well here
and has just finished flowering.
Click to enlarge and click again for even larger.

One of our kumquat bushes. The birds love them.
What they leave, I'll turn into kumquat marmalade and brandy.

And I thought I'd just toss in this one below. It's Arlene showing the dogs a salmon puff that they're going to get later on.  She'd cooked it for Jing, who didn't eat it and it couldn't be kept, so doggies in for a treat..... Check Marcus' look especially...

Arlene shows the dogs some very special "scraps": Nikki, Marcus, Basil

John and I took the dogs for a walk today: it was raining, so we put on their raincoats.  They look so cute.  (forgot to take photo, though....)

Earthquakes, of politics and geology. Waves, of unrest and destruction....

Cyrenaica: "an epicenter of anti-American Jihad"

Pre-script: I accidentally posted this here; I meant to post it to my other blog, but since it's here, I'll leave it....

My goodness what a year....
We almost forget that it started with monster floods in Queensland.  Worst in recorded history.  Then the earthquake in Queenstown.  Queens and Queens, enough to make one a republican.
Roiling away in the foreground: the Arabian revolutions -- "jasmine" for some reason I haven't noted and am too lazy to google; perhaps we've run out of colours, though I seem to recall that some of the early East European ones were "velvet".
Then the crunch in Japan, the triple whammy, biggest earthquake recorded, 15 metre tsunami and the melt-down of nuclear power stations.
A few random items:

Kumquats and Superstition

This year's kumquat bushes "retired" to our back yard.  (see below...)

Are you superstitious?  I bet you are.  Most people are, even Richard Dawkins.  I make sure that I follow Chinese superstitions, like loving the numbers 8 or 9 and hating the number 4.  "Eight" is especially auspicious because it's a homonym for "wealth".  "Nine" is a homonym for "long life".  "Four" is no good cause it also sounds like "death".  [Click on "Read more" below for rest of Post]

Singapore and Taiwan

Singapore skyline from 54/F of Marina Bay Sands.  Click to enlarge. Taken with my iPhone.

Cross posted from Xena blog.  (because it's cut and pasted, it's got some funny formatting. To see in original form, go here).  Click "Read more" below to see more photos.

We go out for a Valentine Dinner

The Mandarin Grill, with its lovely confy chairs, big separation, fabulous service.

Jing says I'm an old "stick in the mud" and she's right.  It's hard to drag me out of the house, let alone out of Discovery Bay.

But she shamed me into a trip to "the Island" (Hong Kong, that is; ours is Lantau...).  Click on "Read more" to see the rest of this riveting report....

Chinese New Year in Hong Kong

Marcus by the rockpools, in his new coat. Jing's iPhone

So we enter the Year of the Rabbit, hopping that it'll bring the luck of the rabbit's foot....   Click on "Read more" to see more photos....

Wall Street Institute celebrates 10th birthday in Hong Kong

Celebrating 10th Anniversary of Wall Street Institute in Hong Kong. We set the company up in 2000 and sold it at the end of 2006. Below is the video from the current 10th Anniversary promo, for a 10th Birthday Party they're holding on 27th November. It looks pretty good!
The video direct on YouTube is here.  And the link to the party invite is here.

UK Trip in August

This is all out of order, but what the heck.  I just want to put here, so I know where it is, a couple of photos of our trip to the UK in Aug/Sep and the itinerary.  There are more photos at Picasa here.

This is early morning in Snowdonia, on a walk to the top of the hill, from where we can see -- but don't climb -- Mt Snowdon

Walking from our "Hut" at Pen-y-Gwyrd, which sounds nothing like that in Welsh.  I can't even say it now, even after a lot of practice....

And this is a Basil-like creature, helping the groundkeeper at Blair Castle. 

"Over here, boss, you've missed a bit!"

This is us on September 7th, at School House, with the Housemaster, Mr Thornby and John first time in his uniform

And this one has nothing to do with the above, just that I came across it.  It's Bill Tweddell -- then the Australian Consul General in Hong Kong and an old mate of mine -- we were both in the same Foreign Affairs intake.  And that's Elmer, just about to start our new Honda mower for the first time (4/3/04).  I ought to take a photo to show what the hedge is like now.  Elmer was not too keen on the mower at the beginning, before he tried it, thinking that it would be fine to cut the lawn with hand shears or whipper-snipper.  But once he used it -- and it has power to the wheels! -- he was a convert.  It's still going strong.  

Bill went off to be Australian Ambassador to Vietnam and is now FAS in the NEAsia Division of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.

And that's Nikkie's butt.  Looks much the same today....

The first postcard from Anne & Bub

This is actually the first postcard received from Anne & Bub, on their latest European sojourn (sent 6 Oct, received here 21 Oct...), the second one received is in the Post below.
This one's from Alhambra in Spain and seat of Islamic power (Moorish Spain) as Anne points out.

Click on the images to enlarge them.....

Postscript note for Anne: 

you don't need that long address.  All you need is:

9 Siena One

Discovery Bay

Hong Kong

Another postcard in from Anne

Here it is front and back!  Received today in Hong Kong:

Click to enlarge

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Anne!

A couple of photos for yez:

19 May 2003, Mt Ainslie Walk

Graduation 09

Marcus in full "mooching" mode.... well, it's a Vizla, really, but close enough!

Have a great day.  Still to see some post from you?!!

Yabuli Ski Resort in Northeast China, February 2010

John and Jing in Yabuli, February 2010

I've added this photo as part of process of writing up for Anne what to do to post photos and comments.  It's a rather nice one, taken in Yabuli ski resort in Heilongjiang, north-east China, over Chinese New Year this year, mid February.  The temperatures were around minus 20-27 all the time.... Snow was great, crisp and soft, but runs rather limited.

This was taken on a day we had "off" from skiing and we went for a walk to a neighbouring resort, up hill and down dale, a pretty and fun walk.

Photo again, with iPhone.
I wrote about the trip on my other blog (Battle of Tours), here.
I also took advantage of the visit to post some pro-nuclear propaganda here. (comparing the clear air we saw with the mucky air of 30 years ago).

Flowers & Butterflies

Just wanted to post a few photos of flowers round our park, and some lovely butterflies.  We don't get many "nasties" here -- flies or poisonous spiders -- just lots of tropical life, birds galore, wonderful butterflies and flowers, gorgeous dragonflies over the fishpond.  I'm sorry I don't know the names of the most of the flowers, thought Mutti probably does....  All the photos taken by my iPhone at home or in the Park

Canna Lily

A rose from our garden in the "music room"

Butterfly in "Central Park", Siena One

The "Hei Pak" butterfly (I don't know the English...)

Re-starting at the "Family Blog"

I hear today from Anne that they'd like to post some entries on this, the "family blog".  Hurrah!

That reminds me that this blog exists, and that I ought to do some update.

The first bit is copy of letter that we received from King's School in Canterbury back in February, offering John a place at Year 9, what they call "Shell" in English Public Schools (Year 10 is called "Remove").  Reason for the name "Shell"?    I could tell you, but I'm in a bit of a rush.  I assume Google would enlighten if one's interested....

Here's the letter.  We heard separately from the Registrar, Rory Reilly -- a lovely tall elegant fellow, with just a touch of Irish in the cultured voice -- that he got 100% in the maths section: praise to Jing and John for the hard prep work they put in here in Hong Kong -- finding, btw, that the maths for this test was more advanced than the maths being done here at Discovery College which is following the International Baccalaureate curriculum.

Click on the image to enlarge it

Also, BTW, John got acceptances from Abingdon Boys' School, near Oxford, and Lancing College West Sussex.  Both were lovely schools that we'd visited in November 09 as part of the research and which impressed us a lot with their academic, sporting, music and drama courses.  Much better than here in Hong Kong, we thought, and better even than Canberra Grammar, a school I'd enjoyed a lot.  Time will tell, though.  John is due back for his first half-term holiday this coming Sunday 17th October.