The AFL grand final has become the zenith of the football season here in Taipei for the expat community in Tienmu at least. While my heart still pulses with red and blue liquid pride and passion for the Knights (who were vanquished later that day), this one-off event certainly resonates with our small crew of die-hard supporters.

At the old Green Bar before the sun crosses the yardarm, drinking specially-imported-for-the-day Toohey's Dry beer stubbies and chowing down on pies and hamburgers....wait, were we still actually in Taipei? The half time prizes and brickbats were served up with their usual dose of pomp and ceremony by yours truly and the also-rans mewed excuses while some of the winners humbly accepted their envelopes while others crowed their credentials for all and sundry to hear. I raced through the speeches in order to hear "Hunters and Collectors" pump out some tunes, including my favourite, "Do You see What I See". Crazy shouts were entered into that became far too unwieldy to manage later into the evening, tall tales were told and there was even a reprise of a push-up challenge from last year when I had to again stave off the effects of far too many beers to flick aside the precocious challenges of a much younger colleague...no problem!

Cass has continued her remarkable recovery form her bone breaking exploits of 5 weeks back. After luxuriating in the physical and mental holiday from the horrors of Grade 8 camp at the provincial and spartan Fulong camp grounds, Cassy has travelled to work today on the back of the scooter, her trusty and flashy red walking stick just taking a little extra weight off her injured leg. I'll be interested to hear how she fared today: it's a hard ask after a solid 9 days off to return with all guns blazing. We met for lunch and she was OK, so fingers crossed.

We did some marathon watching of Breaking Bad over the weekend and we're ready for the big finale that screened in the US overnight (this morning our time). It's not often that there is so much hype around a TV show, but the quality of this series makes it a standout: it's vicious, mind-blowing, pulls zero punches and makes no nods to "Hollywood" story lines, yet because of this, it has become a must watch show. We're looking forward to gorging on the double episode finale tonight as soon as I (ahem!) "retrieve it" from cyberspace upon our return home.

Well, the much discussed "hiatus" has floated its dreaded cast over our still-warm football season corpses, and we'll be awaiting the start of the cricket season in November before we can throw off this awful shroud once again. Hopefully the time will fly. I might have to actually get out and have a surf or few! Now my darling is well on the road to recovery, we'll be able to resume our Taipei adventures with a bit more gusto I suspect!

I'm still reading "The Bat" (Nesbo) as well as the next chapter in the Braggett antecedents great Hunter adventure, this time the swashbuckling raconteur, pub-owner, horse trainer and colourful racing identity, Thomas Braggett, eldest son of the convict made good, William Braggett. Cass is reading something on Kristin's Kindle, but I've been unable to keep up with her insatiable hunger for the written word this past week. Photo: my shopping has improved, but taking a photo of the old rice packet was a better way of finding another one! Cass with rakish stick this afternoon and the latest addition to park furniture, poop scoopin' bags!

Cass is much improved this week and is managing to get around the house with a walking stick I bought for her last weekend. Although she needed the crutches and wheeelchair at school this past week, she can negotiate the short distances in our unit with greater ease. This week she's luxuriating at home while her friends, colleagues and students are dealing with the privations of the annual Grade 8 camp at Fulong camp grounds:hopefully another full week of recovery will make all the difference.

We had an interesting Friday. I drove Cass over to the local hospital for her regular bloodwork/checks. We used the "Easy-card" to get into the carpark and then wheelchaired between the buildings necessary for her check-in with Dr. Hsu, then some blood taking in another building, before heading over to the cashier and pharmacy. The press of humanity in Taiwan is never more evident than in the public hospital system. In saying that, however, our "priority pass" to medical access means that we don't have to wait in line for long, if at all. The specialists are all delightful and highly skilled....we really are spoiled. I have a funny feeling that it might be a touch better service than we'd get back home (!)

We had a frustrating incident when we returned to the carpark when the backdoor of the car wouldn't shut after putting the wheelchair in. The mechanism had broken. The car is starting to crack up a little but I hope I can nurse it along for a little bit yet. We got that sorted then headed back to school for more "PD". In the afternoon we drove over to yet another doctor's rooms, this time the private clinic of the orthopedic specialist looking after Cassy's broken bone. He seemed pretty happy with her progress, and wants to see her again in a couple of weeks while advising her to start some gentle walking when she feels she can.

Football finals are in their most exciting stage at the moment and we had a crew down at the Patio 84 to watch Geelong bow out of the finals race and miss next week's grand final. In the NRL, Cass and I leaped around the lounge-room (well, I did!), bit our fingernails (that was also me) and sweated on the result (again, me) as the Knights held off a fast finishing Melbourne Storm. Wow, imagine if the Knights win next week? Even though it's a huge ask to beat the awesome Sydney Roosters, if they do the unthinkable and win, I know two people who'll be booking some tickets home for the grand final weekend!

So, as Cass continues her recovery, we were again pretty much housebound. We watched a lot of TV shows on disc while the super typhoon swirled and smacked things around outside. I continued my home-making duties of shopping and washing etc, and I must admit I've started getting used to it!

Not many photos: a homage to Breaking Bad, Cass at her desk, me with the tiniest beer can ever, some flowers I got for a colleague's birthday and a bunch of local "older" revelers on the patio at Patio 84! Cass is reading books voraciously both hard copy and electronically...I can't keep up!

A rather curious thing we discovered when we were in Berlin at Christmas time was their love and devotion to the electronic symbols on their pedestrian crossings. In fact, they have a whole shop devoted to the 'Ampelmann", the hatted green electronic walk symbol which came to fame in the divided Berlin "beyond the wall'. We bought a postcard and a magnet of this glowing hero as well as a beanie for me!

We've both always thought that the "Taipei Running Man" had it all over his rather static and staid German cousin, so as I was stopped at a traffic light this week, I took a photo, then a short video of the verdant and energetic helper. As the time starts to run out, the walking man starts to jog then run, before stopping and transforming to red. Much better than an East German relic: Taipei should promote this little guy! Link to video

My resident disabled citizen continues to make slow but steady progress from her fractured pelvis. She took a couple of baby steps unaided by crutch or support yesterday, but it hurt. She is able to fluff around in the kitchen (much to my great relief!) if I am able to transport goods around for her, such as crockery and glass and she is becoming my chief " folder" of the washing brought in. I'm even managing to find my way around the supermarket much better now after a few weeks of "total experience": I've been the assistant on hundreds of occasions, but until I was ultimately in charge of the finding and selecting, I have to admit that I took very little notice of exactly where everything was! After some major frustration, not helped by the complete disappearance of some items week to week, I am a lot better now!

Our system of transport with car, wheelchair and crutches is getting smoother and perhaps Cass will be able to move to a walking stick for some very minor excursions within a week or two. Subsequently, we spent a very quiet weekend indoors again, although I did venture out to get the shopping, some takeaway food and some hard wall fasteners for a little project I undertook on Sunday afternoon.

The walls in our dining room have been decorated by some exemplary shots of Newcastle taken by my sister Sue about ten years ago. Although we'll display them again, probably in the study, and the larger shots are still in pride-of-place on the lounge room walls, I felt it was time for a long overdue update. I've had lots of photos , signatures and memorabilia framed lately, so instead of them languishing in brown paper stacked against the study walls, I thought I'd do a "salon hang" on the two dining room walls. I've bought a bit of this stuff in bargain buys in online auctions, but some stuff was given to me, like the Kiss backstage passes from a colleague at school (her father's a rock promoter), while others we designed ourselves, like a collection of tickets to get into temples and shrines in Kyoto all framed up together. There are also dolls from a craft bazaar in Delhi along with various photos and autographs. It's an eclectic mix but defined by frame and colour similarities, it all worked pretty well in the end, as well as covering all the old holes, which was quite a trick!

So, we've had a minor decor facelift and my darling is beginning to gel together again, albeit very slowly. Life is good in the chicken roaster that is Taipei at the moment: another 34 degree day today! I'm reading the entertaining Jo Nesbo's The Bat, while Cass is re-reading Susan Cain's triumph, Quiet, in preparation for her first excursion out to Book Club this upcoming Friday. Photos: the "chair", some of my kiddies, the car getting its electronic window mechanism replaced and fitted (for $80!), Taipei's "ampelmann" and the new salon hang in the dining room.

The smiling girl with the ski poles in the opening photo visited the doctor on Thursday and he advised that he would delay the rehabilitation exercises and manipulations for another fortnight. Cass was like a fish out of water as she struggled to lie on her stomach for the examination and the doctor's minor manipulations of her pelvis and surrounding muscles was very painful, from which she only fully recovered about a day later!

However, in reporting this, I need to also advise that her daily condition seems much on the improve. Each day she is able to put just a touch more weight on her left side and for longer. Cassy is also insisting ( to my very weak protests only!) on getting into the kitchen and cooking and heating meals with my assistance. It's so much better than my shambolic efforts over the past fortnight have been!

She is a very stubborn human, a trait which I have noticed becomes more pronounced in direct correlation to her frustration level and "stir craziness"! She is very insistent on doing as much as she can within the great confines of her injury, so I've let her "push the pace" a little.

I did, however, spend what I considered an inordinate amount of time in washing, cleaning, preparing, shopping, transporting etc. again this weekend. It wasn't all drudgery though, and I quite enjoy the stripping, washing and replacing of bedsheets, transforming toweling into crisp clean versions and all those little triumphs associated with finding all the right foods in the supermarket doing the weekly shop!

I took the car around to a colleague's house on Sunday afternoon to pick up a wheelchair and with that ensconced in the back seat, I parked it round the corner from our place in another colleague's carpark. This morning we did the whole get the car, bring the car, load the car, get the cripple downstairs, drive to school, then unload and wheelchair to the classroom routine. We got up at 5.30 a.m. and only just made it to work on time! I'm sure we'll be a little better at it tomorrow after our initial experience.

I snuck out in blazing 36 degree noon heat on Sunday to do the "thousand steps" and the landscape was in sharp relief. The sun hammered and sapped throughout, but the overhanging branches did dapple its intensity in many parts. The critical incline in sections made my calves howl in protest after a bit of a layoff, and they're protesting a dull ache under the desk as I write this now. I have a strap that supports my kneecap on my right leg, a legacy of my medial ligament problems, but I was pleased that it seemed to hold up alright. I ran into neither colleagues nor monkeys on the big hike and I was able to meditate a little on the beauty of nature while pondering my lack of aerobic fitness!

It will be interesting to see how Cass survives her first day back...she seemed pretty exhausted when I did a quick check-in at 9 o'clock! She has a relatively easy day tomorrow, so hopefully it won't be so bad. She'll have to wait around for me for a while this afternoon: I have a team meeting which I'm sure will be filled with waffle and prove to me yet again that any meeting over 10 minutes in duration seems to be gratuitous, or at the very least, too long-winded.

Photos: crutch girl!, street sculpture, various shots of the stairs and the path at the top.

Skies have been a dribbling grey mess this week and the incessant rain has mirrored our mood somewhat! After my writing last week, Cassy's condition didn't really improve, so we bit the bullet and decided to get ourselves over to the dangerously titled Dr. Hang (!) for a proper othopaedic assessment of Cassy's pelvis/hip. Highly regarded and almost impossible to get in to see, said doctor is also a parent of TAS students, so we got a golden ticket on Thursday afternoon, which in turn began the major operation to get Cass over there to see him.

We had a few lessons for that most difficult of crutch techniques, the downhill stair walk, and Cass handled it with aplomb. Water sheeted down as I got the car from school and got it positioned near our door. The subsequent in and out then in and out of the car was negotiated and Dr. Hang was quickly able to identify a crack 2/3 of the way through her inferior pubis bone. An associated pulled muscle is providing much of the discomfort for her, as the fracture is in a non-weight bearing part of the pelvis. We're due back this Thursday to Hang so he can run through a few rehabilitation exercises.
Cass has wisely decided to give herself a couple more days to try to recover before she heads back to school, so she'll be Wednesday at the very earliest.

While I was cognizant of all the domestic work that Cassy does, it was not till she was incapable of it that the full immensity of the task dawned upon me! I've been flat out this week! For years, I've been on at Cass to get some domestic assistance as we are both full time workers and it makes sense (in my opinion). She has been quite resistant, partly because she sets very high standards (!) and partly because she finds the shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing etc etc very therapeutic after the academic demands of work. Suffice to say that I don't! In saying that, however, I've been pretty pleased with my ability to do all these tasks successfully if not, perhaps, to the exacting standards to which Madame has become accustomed (ahem). 

Due to the interminable, mindless, stultifying list of domestic drudgery with which I was tasked, I am unable to report anything of note from this weekend, other than work, work, work and dreary, endless cascades of heavy rain. This same rain caused a few sensations up in the mountains near Keelung, an area we have traveled frequently when searching for surf on the north coast. Much like the time we avoided the landslide on the freeway, this time, a landslide and giant boulder came crashing down a mountain onto the very heavily used road. It has to be seen to be believed how lucky these people are!

So, the spoiled petulant brat writing this entry also must report how proud he is of his brave wife putting up with an extremely frustrating and painful injury. It was a terrible shock to one who has never broken a bone or sustained a wound worth stitching! She has however, now ruined an enviable record. Perhaps this break doesn't really count because it can't receive a cast? We're now thinking how we can negotiate the vast interiors and shotgun corridors of the school when she gets back. Probably a combination of car ferrying, wheelchair pushing and crutch wielding should do the trick until such time that she feels able to walk independently again. Baby steps...

Photos: my new team (notice the male representation!), Blackie, some new tomato products, offerings to the gods on the footpath outside a local business. The "moop" returned and I snapped a fuzzy shot in the teeming rain (this thing is like the Yeti!). Also a busy Friday night "tent restaurant", kids on scooters and our fearless lawmen.

Cassy reading Lionel Shriver's Big Brother  and Dave reading Andrew Vachss's Terminal