Journal
Two turtle doves
Turtle doves, due to the strong pair bond they form, have been seen since ancient times as a symbol of devoted love as, indeed were dogs, of which we have two. (Do you see how this works yet?) Oscar and Raffles have had a bit of mixed year. On arriving in Hong Kong...
A partridge in a pear tree
I thought I'd try and blog the twelve days of Christmas as a way of reviewing my year. I was going to try and do links according to the song but the ones I have are tenuous. Forgive. I have neither partridge nor pear tree to offer you but here instead is a picture of...
Simbang Gabi
We considered ourselves deeply privileged to attend Simbang Gabi, the series of nine masses that is an essential part of a Filipino Christmas. Our lovely MsJ invited us and so we popped along to the theatre in our local international school that had been set up for...
The comfort of Christmas carols
I wrote about my Christmas carolling memories some years ago here when we all still lived at home in Beckenham, and we had no idea how our complacent life of relative peace and harmony would be shattered into tiny, stinging shards. (Yes, that's a huge exaggeration but...
Quality migrant
Annoyingly, I lost my card holder last week on the way to dress rehearsal in Stanley. Despite asking around everywhere I'd been (including paying HKD 1650 (about £150) for the privilege of ONE late night despatcher's announcement to the HK Taxi Cooperative - I'm sure...
Chilling
This is the first of no doubt many posts about the UK's catastrophic election result from last week. I'm still grieving, bereft, mortified. I've found this picture a horrifying portent. This is a photo of the staff in Conservative Party HQ taken at the end of 2019 in...
MsE’s guide to student life – 1
I'm proud to share Ms Eliza's slightly passive/aggressive guide to student life. I expect that this is the first of a series. I'm possibly not the only one to see the irony. Sound on.
A place for everything…
... and everything in its place. I've just returned from four weeks at home in Beckenham, a trip arranged mainly to sing in three concerts but also to make more progress with sorting out my house, doing the sort of maintenance tasks that frequently elude people with...