Well, the blog is about to have its annual holiday after this week’s installment. We’ll be flying back home on Thursday night and have a very long break of 9 weeks this year as the school does a little bit of calendar realignment as there is a bit of creep every five years or so. Therefore, this will be the last entry till well into August when we get back.Saturday, we had a great time out at the coast and even though it was extremely hot, we both enjoyed a swim at a little sandy beach just this side of Jinshan harbour and I even went back to the car to retrieve my board after initially judging the surf to be too small. The water was clear and just vaguely refreshing as it has warmed up a lot in the past month. We really enjoyed a leisurely trip over the mountains both ways and on the way over stopped at a lookout of sorts to eat the sandwiches we’d bought. It was a little sad actually as we sat looking over those beautiful lush mountains, down, down to the coast far below: we’ll miss our little island home over the next couple of months. We reflected how much we’d changed over these years here: there was one point where we couldn’t wait to get home, now it will be good, but the major excitement is just being able to have a breather from work, which has been very hectic.
When we got home we showered and then whizzed off again out to dinner at Aubergine then on to the cinema, where we finally caught the quite brilliant film, “Zodiac”. It was very long but the time just seemed to fly, a good sign of an engrossing movie. On our way out, we were quite amazed at the number of people out and about in Tienmu on a Saturday night. It was abuzz with life everywhere we turned, and all at 10 pm! Cass found a beautiful Italian bag on special and I loaded up again on another 50 blank DVDs…I don’t know where these things go!
After lunch on Sunday, we patted ourselves on the back, and Mum in absentia, as we finished off the last pack of Herald clippings from Mum. Mum has become quite expert at cutting off the supply near to when we come home and we like to time things so that we run out just in time! Another great years worth of weekend breakfast reading, although my later arrival at school over the past few months is somewhat due to having a peek or two at some clippings through the week, I must admit! Then it was off to school to meet up with Josh and go round to Kathy’s place to pick up her bed. She had very kindly offered it to us as she packs up ready to go to Doha, so we thought we might do a juggle around and get a decent bed in two rooms. No sooner had the scooter reached the end of the street than a tropical downpour began. We somehow, an hour or so later managed to get the bed down 5 flights of stairs, wrapped in a tarp I borrowed from Aaron, tied to the roof of the car and driven to our place a few blocks away. Then unloaded and up to ours and safely installed. Phew! I had to do a few running repairs on the girls big shelf as well, as one screw had come out, but managed to bodgy up some repair which will do the trick for a good while I think.
Anyway, photos from the beach Saturday, Cass checking out the reading material at FNAC on Saturday night and vibrant green fields of rice ready for pickin'! See you soon.