ben's remarkable aim

our apartment has about 1800 square foot of space we have three main bedrooms, a "half" bedroom and bathroom out the back, and two main bathrooms.

the lounge is large and joins onto the dining room.

for two cats, it's practically a luxury penthouse - there is sooo much space for them to run around in and play.

so, when ben decided that after breakfast he needed a little bit of gut purging, where in this vast expanse of apartment did he choose to vomit?

in rachel's handbag.

i love that cat so much.

the belcher

. .

i currently live in a culture where blowing one's nose is considered to be gross - but chewing loudly, chewing with your mouth open, sniffing 40 times in 2 minutes and burping are absolutely fine.

i of course struggle with this weirdness, but am particularly struggling someone burping outside my door at work.

every three minutes for the last week or so, this colleague of mine (let's called her belchy wang) lets out a loud and proud burp.  no apparent reason, she just does it. ALL DAY LONG. she doesn't even look vaguely embarrassed. just sits at her desk and burps. and burps. and burps.

i am at a loss as to what to do.  my current strategy is to close my door, gently rock myself to sleep in fetal position, whilst praying that belchy wang's little spasms will soon come to a halt. i am not a violent person, but i'd consider throwing furniture at her if it stopped the burping.

EDIT: in the time it took to type this, she burped three more times.  i kid you not.

some random photos

top photo was taken last night (rachel scratching poppy's tummy) and the other three were taken on saturday night when I wandered down to sandy bay at dusk to take photos after day 1 of the social cricket tournament.

brrrrrrrrrrrrr

the temperature dipped below 20 degress celsius today, and the wind has picked up to around 8km/h, so i fully expect the local folks to be wrapped up in layer upon layer of wool, down clothing, fluffy pom-pom hats and - strangely - shorts accompanied by long velvet boots with all manner of dangly things wobbling off them. i also predict that the Hello Kitty store will completely sell out of their nose-warmers by the end of the day.

a few photos from saturday in the sun at discovery bay

today we're on a mission to go and get me some new sneakers (i'm going for some chucks this winter) and we have a few things to get from stanley market - it's a nice day, so it should be ok out there. had a great day yesterday in the sun at discovery bay. saw some of lisa's awesome jewellery, and then hung with the DB clan (sue, steve, calvin, rachel, helen and pete) and their respective sproglings.  here are some photos from the afternoon / evening of the little people (hermione, kiri, che, sue & che, sue & hermione):

saturday morning

nothing quite as nice as waking up to find a kitten purring softly under the duvet next to you... went to a japanese restaurant with cam and carolin last night, then hit the bond movie. japanese was umami @ cyberport (cyberport being a soul and charisma-free fake neighbourhood around the corner from where we live - and it's where i work).  food was really rather good and after i busted out several pages of vouchers (oh the benefits of working in the middle of nowhere) it was pretty good value too.

the bond movie was awesome (new bond girl might be entering the narly-top-5) even though i really didn't know what was going on for most of it.  action sequences were brilliant, although at times the product placement could have been perhaps a little more subtle - range rover and virgin atlantic certainly got their moeny's worth.

wandering out to discovery bay today to see lisa's jewellery exhibition and to catch up with sue, steve, helen and pete for a spot of afternoon tea (very civilised, i say old chap).  then back to central to catch mark and emma for a bit of dinner somewhere and then i'll park myself in front of the television to watch the nz v england rugby game.  miracle of miracles, it's being shown in hong kong.

here's popstar this morning in our bed: