Review of the last few weeks in UK & the first few weeks in HK

Pressure was mounting hourly ....

It had been building up for 4 months, and stress had got to crazy levels .... leaving my work in the UK; finding work in HK; tidying the house up to put it on the rental market (with everything emotional that entails); sorting out a home for the Lotus (sorting out bodywork repairs for the Lotus in fact ... idiot next door crashed into it couple of weeks before we were scheduled to leave the UK); sorting out somewhere to live in HK; telling everyone we were leaving ... our parents; our friends; my cousin "you're ****ing not!!?!"; our great friends who we nanny-shared with; neighbours ... one of the worst was having to tell kirsty, our wonderful new nanny - she'd given up a good job to work with us. i did not particularly enjoy that conversation at all

Then joss was in HK on her own for a few weeks - was hard for her living out here on her own in an empty flat ... hard for us in the UK too ... loads of things to sort out in the UK. but we filled the weekends by seeing friends etc.

The two days immediately prior to leaving were difficult .... despite being reasonably organised, there was a tremendous amount of work to do -- stupidly, I agreed to do a couple of days freelancing which was a mistake in retrospect (but money was nice)!

The day of departure started @ c. 05:00 ... after 4 hours sleep ... removal men had been there the day before, so the bulk of the packing was done, but still loads to do. And, as usual when we move, record breaking temperatures. Vicky & Kevin (sister & bro-in-law) were stars and helped out.

About 16:00, I put the BBQ on for the last time ... we had to leave the house @ 18:30 to check in on time ... though we'd have plenty of time to spare. Also @ 16:00 we popped round to the garage to handover the Citroen. Naively, I thought this would take about 20 mins ... paperwork; sunny-summer-weekend Friday afternoon Chiswick traffic and 1.25 hours later we got home. £25 worth of Farmer Tim's beef joint had yet to be put on the BBQ. Aaaaaagh. Needs 1.5 hours to cook - thought we'd just squeek it. Joss took the boys to the neighbours' houses to say goodbye. Meanwhile I popped next door (knackered; tired and sweaty - me not them, well not all of them) to drop some keys off.

Need-less-to-say I ended up there with a beer in hand -- knowing I had to shower; pack (for 2 years!!!); finish cleaning the house; change; and do BBQ/supper ... all in <40 mins. Nutz.

Crazy ... I tell you @ that stage, I nearly stayed in the UK!!!!

GOD that was a knackering few days .... I really don't want to go thru that again in a hurry .... overall, it was a much harder experience than moving out totally ... having to decide what stays; what gets thrown; what gets shipped and what gets stored & selling the car on the last day & packing for the 13 hour flight. Also knowing what we'd need in the 6 weeks between arriving in HK and the time a majority of our possesions would arrive (78 boxes!!!).

GAWD just how did we get thru that?

So time had finally come to leave Chiswick. It was great that loads of our neighbours turned out to say goodbye .... John & Julie came over with a bottle of Cloudy Bay & four glasses which went down v. well. I gave my uneaten joint of beef to John next door. Forgot to give the BBQ to Mark across the road as I promised.

In taxi & waved goodbye to all.

Joss shed a few tears on the way to the airport. And Billy needed a wee of course. So there we were having said goodbye ... belting down the M4 & Billy announces he's about to wet himself - we're hard pushed for time so Billy pees into an empty lucozade bottle (which we left in the taxi - hope the driver did not mind too much!).

Flight check in was a mare initially .... seemed like half of bloody nairobi was checking in @ the virgin desk with us .... joss pushed in .... my those nigerian ladies are BIG ... BIG I say ... would not want to mess with them ... i pulled the
"embarrassed husband" act and walked off ... i managed to sweet talk the first class blonde bird (aren't they all on virgin atlantic?) check in desk to check us in there and went a bit sweeter after that.

Flight was fine .... archie slept all the way apart from last 3 hours.

Billy was kept amused by some entry-level war movie in-flight. he did however manage to tip his cold scrambled egg breakfast all down my lap/legs/in between my un-shoed/socked toes YUK

Stepped out of HK airport (HKIA = BEST airport in the world BTW) to be met with a wall of 40 degree/90% humidity heat ... never thought i'd be able to live in that heat. Amazing how one acclimatises though ... some days in the summer temp climbed to late 30's degrees .. and i went in to work wearing moleskin trousers and walking shoes ... the air con is FANTASTIC everywhere including the tube; buses; some pavements even have AC coming up the vents and overhead in the pedestrianised walkways (mid level escalators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central-Mid-levels_escalator .. more about that another time). London could learn a thing or two.

Next day we spent on the beach in front of our flat ... it was sunday & gets very busy, but boys had fun .... water was OK
(warm) ..... about as clean as the Solent .... but I had the runs something AWFUL 3 days later ... for about a week ... been nervous about going into the sea since!

The first week ... spent time finding furniture; schools; live-in helper; ID card etc ... but also took a day out to a theme park
(Ocean Park) which the boys loved .... real pandas ... massive cable car etc

Customer service here is the exact opposite of the UK ... took 20 mins to open a bank account ... nothing is too much trouble ... restaurant service is outstanding

And it's very reasonable to eat/drink out .... transport is v.v.v.v cheap ... i get an airconditioned bus from outside the flat to work every morning ... 12 mins door to door .... 36pence .... taxi home costs £3.60 .... brilliant.

As I've said before, the boys have settled in really well ... they spend all day outside in the pool ... billy's swimming really well. we put sun protection factor 13000 + on them - despite that, they have both got brown faces/arms and archie has
developed loads or freckles. archie, he confesses, has made LOADS of girlfriends ... 1/2 a dozen girls follow him everywhere in the pool answering to his every beck & call. (apart from the time he had a number two accident poolside with me on parent duty -- i was not amused i can tell you!).

We took archie to disneyland HK for his 3rd birthday.

Nearly everyone who lives in HK thinks disneyland is rubbish/beneath them (just like the parisians) .... (whereas i love disneylands!) .... disneyland HK is stuffed FULL of mainland chinese folk who arrive after sitting in an eastern european coach for 24 hours ... a few days earlier they were tending the fields ... people who for the most part have not seen a westerner
before ... let alone blonde westerners ... let alone two small blue eyed sun-bleached blonde westerners with brown faces so their hair looks EVEN whiter. blonde hair is meant to be lucky (they're v. superstitious) ... meant to bring good financial fortune as blonde = GOLD in their eyes ... consequently, the boys get their hair ruffled continuously. anyway, every few steps in disneyland, people were asking to have their photos taken with the boys .... amusing @ first but wears off after an hour/10 photos.

Right it's Saturday night and a curry beckons ... more later.

M x