A tiring weekend for the Bunkmeister

The weekend is almost over, and it was a busy one for Bunky.  Yesterday he had a bit of a Saturday morning swing session, before an afternoon with Daddy (while Mummy went shopping and doing errands).  Not really much photowise, but here is a shot from the swing time:

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We had a quiet night - I watched the rugby with Cam while Rachel and George shot downstairs for the building's Halloween Party (George went as "a small child trying not to wear a shark-shaped hat").

Today we had brunch at Cam and Carolin's - had a great time, and George was in full "show off" mode when it came to his crawling. He also ate like a waste disposal unit, and managed to polish off a few baby-sized muffins after his lunch.  Little piglet.

Finally, today we went down to the monthly Pokfulam Market with Alice, Harry and little Michael (the only child in Hong Kong with hair more awesome than George's).  If the weather isn't too hot, then the Market presents a nice chance to lie on the grass and enjoy a bit of food and drink under the sun.  There were loads of people there this afternoon (certainly more than usual - the slightly milder weather might have pushed the numbers up), and I managed to take quite a few photos of our little group:

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Harry, Michael, and some delicious sunflare

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Clockwise: Harry with the boys, George with "Sophie La Giraffe", Alice with Michael and Harry

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George the Phrenologist examining his friend Mikey (a different Michael with far less hair)

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Clockwise from top left: Alice, Harry and Michael, Rachel with George, Michael looking angry

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That's all from the weekend. It certainly was nice to be taking photos outside for a change.  Unfortunately the weather is still pretty warm despite it being November (it's usually perfect weather around now, but it's still rather hot under the sun at the moment), but still - it was nice to be outside all afternoon.

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A little better

The little tyrant is getting better - still a bit raspy and has a pretty rotten cough, but he seems a lot happier this morning, and has a bit of an appetite again (although I'm sure his cheeks and thighs would have provided fat reserves for several weeks if needed).  He's got an afternoon date with one of his UK girlfriends (Keira) up at The Peak this afternoon, which his mummy is very much looking forward to. Anyway, a few photos:

Posing for me this morning.  Clearly feeling a little bit better.

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A photo of his room (he had just finished a bit of a jumping session in the doorway)

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Sick Bunky is still sick

Poor little mite is still a bit sick - he has bronchiolitis, so has a bit of a cough and a snotty nose.  Despite being a bit restless and losing his appetite, he's actually in pretty good spirits. He's on some pretty mild medicine, and his doctor says that it's a 7 to 10 day thing. Hopefully he'll be right by the weekend. Rachel took yesterday off to take him to the doctor and to keep an eye on him, and I came home at lunch to give May a break from taking care of sick little child. As I said, he's actually in a pretty good mood, but isn't quite himself - he gets very restless sitting in the same place for more than a minute or two, and isn't really interested in crawling anywhere.

Oh yeah - did I mention he's commando crawling?  He just drags himself around, but I think it passes as a crude form of crawling...

No new photos, as he's not at his best - but here's one from a few days ago. He was watching a YouTube clip - it was a short video from a political news site. He's so clever.

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Fort Bunky, Fat Ben

A few photos from today - firstly Fort Bunky. A complicated arrangement of cushions and pillows designed to prevent him from falling off the bed while we get changed in the morning: .

Next, a little bit of Fat Ben - happily snoozing away in the lounge.  Seriously, this is how he sleeps:

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Also, I tweaked the website behind the scenes - now iPhone / iPod Touch / Google Android people will see a mobile-optimised version of the site. I don't think I needed to do it, but it was quick, easy and free. So I figured I may as well do it.  The website will look a bit like this - but at the bottom you'll have the option to view the site in its normal format:

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I've also tried to turn on comments for individual posts.  I'm still ironing out some kinks, but the comment boxes should be under all new posts from now on. Use them wisely (Note that the very first comment you leave on the site automatically goes into a moderation queue - after that first "approved" comment, your comments show up straight away).

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Feeling groovy

Someone had a much better sleep last night, and is back to his usual shoutypants self this morning. Still a tad raspy, but he had a good old chew on my hair just before, so he's obviously on the up. Mummy's day off today, so Bunky has a date with his playmates this afternoon. Daddy has a date with work.  Oh, the injustice.

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I love this last one.  He was engrossed with his makeshift cardboard trumpet, and was totally and utterly oblivious to me:

Sick little Bunky

The little fella had a bit of a rough night last night - he's got a teeny cold and combined with the (possible) after effects of his flu jab, his teeny weeny nostrils are a bit clogged up at the moment. As a result, the poor mite didn't sleep too well overnight. He was pretty chipper this morning though, and apparently slept pretty well during the day. I took this one about an hour ago, just before bathtime. It was pretty crappy lighting, but he stayed pretty still for me while I poked the camera in his face (again). Finger in the mouth generally equals "I'm tired now".

Typhoon morning

The HK Observatory called a Typhoon 8 last night, which meant that we got to come home early (to play with George), and since it's still in force, we go to work late.  It'll be lifted in another 40 minutes, but then everyone gets about two hours to get to work (it takes a while for buses and taxis to get going again).  Although I walk to work, I might take a sneaky extra half hour with George... Here are a few photos from this morning:

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A few other photos from around and about. Firstly, the cats find safety in numbers. And Ben's fat tummy provides ample warmth for Poppy:

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This one from the real estate agency next to the supermarket.  I think they're trying to say that the market is hot at the moment, but they probably should have avoided using an online translator:

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And finally this one from our pool area. There was a gale force wind blowing when I took it, plus I was laughing at the time:

Weekend playtime

George's buddy Hugo popped in yesterday for a playdate and a swim, good times for all. I don't think there was a great deal of interaction going on, but they stared at each other a bit, and appeared to be happy with a spot of toy sharing. Here's George earlier in the day as he was watching the Canterbury v Otago game:

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And here's one of his little mate Hugo (who is a month or two older than George):

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As the playdate toddled along, the All Blacks were busy showing us that it wasn't just the Black Caps who couldn't catch a ball.  The lineouts - which I swear have sucked since 2000 - were abysmal, we dropped the ball in open play more times than I care to remember, and with almost 20 minutes to go and 10 points down, we chose to go for a try (instead of an easy penalty which would have put us within one score of the Boks).

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The simple way to fix the lineout problem would be to tell the lineout chaps that their match fee is paid according to the following formula:

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Match fee = (Number of own line outs won ÷ Number of own lineouts taken) x Normal Match fee

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So, if they take five lineouts in a game and lose three of them, then they would get 40% of their usual match fee. I suspect the stats would get much better if this was the case.

Still, traitorous beggar that I am, my emotional hedge came through - the Boks were paying $2.65 for the win, so my TAB account balance is looking ok this week.

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Finally, after coming to their collective senses and electing a President who can actually pronounce the word 'nuclear' (it's not "NOO-KEY-LURR", dude), a large section of sub-par-IQ Americans are panicking about the Nazi / Socialist / Muslim / Marxist / Baby killing / Grandma killing president in charge and have lost their collective minds.  These from the "We're not really sure what we're protesting" Protests in Washington DC yesterday:

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And my favourite one:

Mmmm. Delicious injection-molded plastic.

. In other news, my camera is with the Nikon service people for a while - I had a very random problem (very random = 5 out of about 2000 photos) where some vertical banding would appear on some photos.  Although it didn't happen often, I figured I'd get it checked out while the camera was under warranty - so no D700 for me for a few weeks.  The service man muttered something about replacing the Compression Board (whatever that is), and then my baby was whisked away to get in the queue for surgery.

Faced with the prospect of being cameraless for a few weeks, Philip (my neighbour at work) has very kindly loaned me his back up camera until mine comes back. It's a D90 - similar to my D700 but a little bit smaller.  Works beautifully, although some of the controls are in different places - but I'll get used to it (today's photo was taken with the D90).

A collection of weekend photos

Bunky's just gearing up to go and meet the Fabio parentals (aka Gavin and Diane Bornholdt) this afternoon, but his personal paparazzo took a few photos of him yesterday. He was sitting on his mother's knee for this one, and looked ludicrously happy to be there:

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Then a few from the morning playtime with daddy - one of them demonstrating why extreme closeups are not a good idea with Mr "If I can reach it, then it goes in my mouth" Bunkypants:

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And finally one of him and his mummy showing off his new duds. His Wednesday baby group meetup was in Stanley, where you can get great bargains on factory seconds.  In the following photo, his lordship is modelling a GAP shirt, and some stripey shorts (I am ashamed to admit that I don't know which label produced them, but I'm sure Rachel will let me know as soon as she reads this):

Blueberries by osmosis | A lovely sunset

The clear weather has led to some lovely sunsets this week - we had another tonight, this time featuring superweirdcloud: .

This morning Bunky had blueberries with his gourmet porridge - blueberries are kind of messy, meaning that George took every opportunity to smear it on his onesie, his cheeks, his forehead - pretty much everywhere except for his mouth.  Ok, a fair bit did actually get into his mouth, but looking at the photos, you'd be forgiven for wondering whether he actually managed to swallow any of it:

Baby Group Lunch

We had a lovely lunch with Rachel's baby group friends - this time with associated husbands. We had a great lunch out in Wan Chai at the Quarterdeck, and despite there being 6 children under 12 months old, there were no major meltdowns (George was close, with a little tearfest right at the start - but he chilled out and all was good after that).  I took a few photos of the afternoon, including a group one:

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... and one of everybody:

A morning at the beach

We had a lovely morning - we met the Binnington Clan at South Bay Beach for a spot of brunch and paddling in the water.  It's rather warm out there, and Bunky got nice and sweaty - and I believe he manage to sneak it a few rolls in the sand.  A great morning had by all, and I managed to get a few photos of our fun in the sun. Firstly, one of Bunky looking all pensive during breakfast:

Mark giving Sam some airtime in the water:

Emma at brunch:

And Eva with her daddy:

Just a few random photos of Bunky hanging out

He was in a great mood this morning, and happily sat up and played with various toys while our routine went on around him.  I suppose I'd be pretty content if someone stewed up some fresh apples and pears with vanilla pods, and then spoonfed them to me... He's got a busy weekend ahead of him - we're catching up with the Binningtons tomorrow for brunch / lunch (weather permitting it'll be at the beach), and then he's got lunch in Wan Chai with some of his baby group buddies.  Tomorrow we are dining at Chez Saunders / Williams, but the Bunkmeister is being left behind for that one.

I'm just experimenting with picture sizes on the larger website layout - please let me know via the contact page if the photos are wonky / too large / too small on your monitor.

Food on face v2.0, solicitors, H1N1 prevention

Another photo from the weekend - Bunky seems to quite enjoy smearing food on his face and saving it for later. I know it's similar to the one a few days ago, but I loved his little brow furrow in this one:

And this photo was definitely worth sharing - Jane and John found it in Leeds over the weekend:

And finally, some peculiar advice from a Malaysian government-approved healthcare provider (I'm loathe to call him a "doctor") that has been doing the rounds:

Avoiding pollution

It was a crackingly hazy day here in HK today - but we needed to get out of the house, or we'd suffer from cabin fever.  Solution was to head to one of the malls - which we kind of needed to do (grandparents arriving tomorrow, birthday presents to buy, coffee to drink, lunch to eat...) We had a really nice lunch at Isola and I managed to fire off a few photos while we were there:

If you're wondering what Bunky was eyeing up (and subsequently tried to grab), it's pizza...

Getting used to this sitting up thing

George seems to be adapting rather well to this sitting up malarky, although he does get a bit shirty if things remain out of his reach (don't we all?) Dinner with just-married-last-Saturday Vonce and Hannah tonight (both from NZ but living in London) at the always delicious Bistro Manchu (take THAT Jonathan). Tomorrow is a quiet one (I think), but on Sunday, George gets a brief morning visit from Paddy and Granny B. He is very excited and can't wait to show them how he can sit up, grab things, scream, and - with a little encouragement - throw up on them.

A few photos from this morning. One of George sitting up, one of his housemates lying down:

Sitting up, falling down, yelling

Kiddo is now sitting up by himself (although his little abs aren't quite strong enough to stabilise him for very long), and as long as he doesn't sway left, right, or backwards... he's quite happy sitting and playing by himself.  Swaying any way but forward will usually lead to him flopping onto his side or back - although he doesn't feel that bothered by it  :) He also seems to have discovered his voice and now yells randomly at things (e.g. his toys, one of us, the ground), which is quite funny really.  He's impressively loud for a little person.

Anyway - a few photos.  One of him about to head to bed (and giving Daddy the "Where is she taking me?" look) and one of him in the bath tonight:

Lineouts

For NZ$200,000+ per player per year you'd think that we might be able to scrape together a bunch of guys who could catch their own lineout throw (or at least throw the damned thing straight).  It would seem not. Hopefully the second half is better than the first half...

Find the cat

George gets into the nudey time this afternoon (look closely and you'll see Ben cruising around in the background):

Here's one of George hunting a pukeko (he's doing it naked - it's how they did it in the old days):

And for no other reason than I'm learning to use the camera on full manual mode (and I quite liked the light... and I'm trying to move away from posting nothing but photos of Bunky...), here's a completely irrelevant photo of a cup on our dining room table:

It's a lovely little Villeroy & Boch espresso cup (I got Rachel two of them for her birthday a few years ago).  I'd quite like to get the larger sizes for my morning coffee, but can't bear the thought of shopping in Causeway Bay in the summer heat...