Guess what I'm making???

So ofter our recent vacay, I decided to make my new favourite cocktail.  No rocket science here and only minimal ingredients needed.
Gin being the main one and something we always have on hand.

After not having a G&T in donkeys years , the Gimlet was a nice comeback. Its sweet and fruity and something you can drinks 'sans faim' or should I say 'sans soif'?

Don't you just love my kids ice cubes for such a grown-up drink?

All that was added to the above ingredients was a reduced sugar syrup.

Note to self - if going to make this a regular habit, buy some cocktail glasses as the glass above is more of a pitcher.  But until then, you won't hear me complaining!

Guy Fawks

Its bonfire night tonight. Its been years since I've celebrated Guy Fawkes so I think its about time I introduce this English custom/celebration to my two little girls.

Remember, remember the 5th of November.
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
should ever be forgot.

I remember going down to the bonfire with my dad when I was a little girl. Wrapped up, to be snug as a bug. The thrill of having my own sparkler, with the fear that the sparks might burn me.

Throwing a few potatoes into the fire and then my dad scraping them out with a stick. Peeling back the burnt skin to reveal the hotter than hot floury potato.

Watching the 'guy' being set alight in the middle of the fire and then the fun and awe of watching the different coloured fireworks light up the dark and chilly night sky.

Happy 5th of November!

School photos

I remember my school photo days.

I remember my mom tucking the collar of my school shirt under  my cardigan and me pulling in out as soon as I left the house. I remember her telling us to keep our mouths closed as not to sport our toothless smiles and later on to not flash our gigantic teeth that looked out of place in our little mouths.

Of course all this went out the window and come photo time, teeth and gums were flashed, ties were crooked and hair was a mess.

So yesterday we received a reminder from Mathildes school that the school photos will be taken today. The e-mail read something like this....

Tomorrow will be school photos, please dress your kids smartly - me check.
And please remember to brush their hair - oops, i felt like this was directed at me because of my poor little girls mop of tangled curls.

I myself don't mind the gummy smiles or messy hair, after all they are my girls.

Exercise. Love it or loath it!!

After putting it off for way too long add to that our recent trip to Macau with all the overindulgences, excesses and seeing me in my bikini with my TUMMY...... Sunday morning I woke up and told Alex that I was going out for a run.
He rubbbed his eyes in disbelief as I think he thought he was still sleeping. What, Stacey actually wanting to do some form of exercise??

My hands scurried to the back of my cupboard and I pulled out my leggings and a t-shirt. Dusted off my trainers and I was ready to go.

I started, it felt good.  Ah it wasn't too bad after all. It was early about sevenish so not many people out. I ran down to the little park in front of our residence.  After about 10 minutes I was puffing and snorting and thinking to myself that  this is so not glamourous. How come when I see people jogging they make it look so effortless.
I on the other hand made it look everything but effortless. I had to stop running  to catch my breath and give my little legs a break.  I started a fast paced walk.
I was sure my face was going to be redder than red as my head felt like it wanted to just explode off my shoulders. All this while gasping for air.

Got home, jumped in the shower and this red head just didn't want to go. I felt the aches in my muscles I didn't know I had and I felt like crap. Where's the energy burst you feel after exercising? I felt more tired than when I started.

I lay on the bed, it felt good. I relaxed, it felt even better.

Alex came in and I told him how crappy and tired I felt. He asked ' but when last did you jog?' But in a way like you know you've never jogged, so this is normal.
Its been 18 years since I last jogged, I answered. I sat up, shocked. What 18 years, no that can't be right! Done a quick count in head and fingers,  I was right, 18 long years.
I went on explaining that I'm 33 and when I say I'm 33 years old, its ok, doesn't feel so bad (old). But now that I've said that I haven't run since 18 years, yikes, 18 frikken years is one hell of a long time!

The day went on and I was seriously aching from the stomach down to my ankles. I felt better and the feel good factor kicked in early afternoon.

Monday Olivia was still off , so I went to the gym in our residence and Olivia played in the games room. There was a guy on a stepper thingy and an old chinese lady on this pedal bike thingy. I opted for the old lady and the pedal bike next to her.
Now I'm no gym bunny and all of these machines intimidate the heck out of me. So I sat down, pressed on start, nothing.
Asked the old lady but of course she didn't understand.
I started frantically pressing all the buttons, nothing. She then calls me and makes a circular movement with her hands. Ah ok, pedal first et voila. Lights start flashing, I put it on cross country and we're off. The music is fast paced, so it helps. While pedalling away I was thinking why did I come to sit next to the old lady?? Maybe less intimidating next to an old lady or maybe she made it look easy??      

20% done, 30% done, 50% done. My legs are seriously burning but I'm no way getting off this bike before that little old lady, hell no!! The song 'I will survive' comes on, how appropriate, so I pedal faster, she stops. I breath a sigh of relief.  But can't stop just after her so I pedal.
She gets up and.....takes her walking stick and goes for a drink. What the hell, I couldn't believe it and I had to chuckle to myself.
Got to 80% done then I got off, just prayed that my legs wouldn't cave in. They didn't but I did feel a little wobbly on them. The little old lady was still going strong. Pumping iron, well one little bar of iron, but she was still pumping it.

Tuesday , I went out jogging. Olivia took her scooter and she thought it would be good to be the trainer. After reminding me that its been a long time since she's seen me wear my trainers and that I looked kind of funny - nothing like the truth from the mouths of babes to motivate!!
More people were out today, it was sunny and too hot. When I slowed down, Olivia would shout 'mama jog' so I'd up the pace.

So far so good. I'm feeling better and motivated. I haven't attacked the halloween stash of the girls and to be honest, I don't want to.

Today is Wednesday and Olivia is back to school, so I guess I'll hit the gym and see what happens.

Ghouls and Goblins!

Happy Halloween!!

This year the goodie bags have been filled to the brim. The girls had fun trick or treatin' in the residence where we live.
It was good fun and everyone we went to had made an extra effort to decorate the outside of their doors.
The kids were thrilled and lets just say there wasn't any tricking!!

They've been on 'sugar overload ' since Saturday, so I been pumping fruit and veg into them whenever I can.

After an hour and a half of treating, we headed down to the halloween party. We spotted zombies, pirates, witches and ghouls of every sort.

Mathilde was a little scared and said she'd had enough of Halloween and wanted Santa to come now!! Now thats my girl!!

Birthdays

From the month of September, our family is in birthday mode with a birthday each month ending in a big bang for christmas.

October is my husbands birthday and this year its a big one......40!!!!

I still can't believe it! I think I'm taking it harder than him. Luckily we both still feel years younger than what we are.
Its just creeped up on us.

I look at him and I'm ever so grateful for all this time we've shared and been together. We have two gorgeous little girls. And are just plain happy.

Sure I have my days where I've taken all I can take and I erupt like mount Etna. Holding nothing back! But  all couples go through this. We just have to stay true to ourselves and our partners. And I think after all the years spent together, we have to take and make the time for each other. With kids, life and work all getting in the way its so easy to just say I'm tired and not even bother, but it doesn't take much and it does the world of good for the two of you.

I planned a few days away to Macau for the family. Some well deserved family time.

We took the Cotai jet from Hong Kong which is a comfortable one hour ride.

 Stayed at a lavish 5 star hotel.  I had planned to visit quite  a few of the sites but gave in after a brief visit to the ruins of St Pauls as no one was interested.  The only thing that kept them quiet was a Hagen Das ice-cream and even that done more harm than good after five minutes under the Macau sun.  Sweet , sticky drops were dripping all down Mathildes arm and face. They were hot , tired and just wanted to sample the hotel pool that we'd been speaking about since a few weeks.

These almond cookies are found all over Macau. On the Street that leads to St Pauls, shops are packed with dried meats and these cookies. All you hear as you walk is the clicking of the tongs.

Again I was reminded about how your vacations are different when you have small kids. Luckily, mine are, most of the time , happy go lucky little girls. But then again, sometimes not!


Macau was a Portuguese colony and reminders of this past are scattered all over the city. It was beautiful to see the old, colonial style buildings - makes a refreshing change from all the Hong Kong sky scrapers.

Macau is known as the Las Vegas of the East. Gambling is allowed as the portuguese government at the time legalised it.  There's no shortage of casinos and because Chinese people like to gamble and its not authorised in China, there's no shortage of Chinese people. The hotels are packed!!

Here in Hong Kong, I have the occasional stare and question about my little Mathildes hair ' Is it natural  the curls and colour?'  They go completely gaga over her and her hair.
And it started in the ferry, one women was completely besides herself. She couldn't walk past Mathilde without telling her how beautiful she was. And that was just the beginning.
At our hotel, she was an attraction in herself. At first she was all shy but in the end she was posing , looking slightly fed up and even doing the odd 'peace' with her two fingers  just like them.
There was a jester doing magic tricks, who in turn also succumbed to Mathildes charm. Not only was she bringing him a crowd, the people were asking her to pose with them and the jester.
The so called jester who in turn finally couldn't help himself and took out his phone and posed for photo with Mathilde.

We ate , way too much, played , had cocktails and just enjoyed the time together as a family. The girls didn't want to leave and to be honest, neither did I.

Hubby and myself have now decided to do a little break like this atleast once a month. No more putting things off.  Life is way to short so we should take advantage and live life to the fullest!!

School holidays

Yes, once again school holidays are upon us. Last week, Mathilde was off for a whole week and this week its Olivias turn.
Its good having them on holiday at different times, that way I get a bit of one on one with each of them and they don't drive me up the wall!!
This week they get to play, nag and bug each other in the mornings as Mathilde goes to school in the afternoon and the afternoons, I get to spend with my little, big girl Olivia.

Last week, we made some play dough and its still keeping the two of them busy. Amazing what a bit of flour, oil, salt, cream of tartar and food colouring can do - peace for a good half an hour!
This is the same recipe I've been using since Olivia was 2 years old. Its foolproof and ever so easy. The hardest part is keeping them patient while it cools.

Foolproof play dough


1 cup flour
2 tbsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup of salt
tsp food colouring
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup water


Mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar in a medium pan.
Add water, food colouring and oil. Cook on medium heat , add food colouring and keep stirring until mixture comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball - just like a choux pastry. Don't worry if its a lumpy mess, it will tun out fine, just keep mixing. All this happens really quick. 

Remove from pan, knead until smooth and place in a zip lock bag and in the fridge to cool.

Busy hands = quiet mouths!!!

Shek O

Wednesday was public holiday so like any good parents we hauled the brood off to the beach. We decided to take a ride to Shek O which is a seaside village on the south eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Shek O literally means 'rocky bay'.

Its quite a drive to get there but its because of this that the tiny village has a quaint and traditional feel to it. But you need to get there early to find parking. 

Getting there takes you past Tai Tam Reservoir. Here you feel like you've been transported to another country. No buildings. No noise.  Beautiful bridges that you can see were built many moons ago and just green open spaces. 

We spent a relaxing afternoon on the beach. Grandma and granddad joined us. They spotted crabs in rock pools, jumped in the waves, played naughts and crosses in the sand, looked for shells and of course built a few sand castles. 

 It was a bit chilly, so I let Mathilde keep her dress on for a while and I stayed fully dressed. Thats one good thing about the people here, they don't look at you as if you're some kind of weirdo if you stay fully dressed on the beach. They do it all the time and when we lived in China and went on holidays, we were quite often the only ones in swim suites and they would be in with their clothes on. So no qualms there about being fully dressed and maybe even sporting a jumper because temperature falls below 26 degrees. I know, heaven help us when we go back to Europe and live with real autumn and winter temperatures.  

The time came to go home, so it was wash off in the shower and thats when Olivia remembered why she didn't like the beach..... because there's too much sand!! Got to love that girl!

Her and her sister went on to say that it would be better if the beach was made of sweeties oh, Mathilde seconded that and added that she wished the sand was tiny M & M's.  Ah, a girl can dream no??

  

T8

Yesterday typhoon Nesat swept past Hong Kong. It brought with it torrential downpours and howling wind storms.

Typhoon 8 was declared at about 4:30 am on Thursday morning - I know this because hubby had phone calls non-stop for him to shut down his site.
When T8 is in force, there is no school or work for anyone. It was going to be a long day. Being confined to our little flat you have to  occupy these little monsters. Mathilde was happy colouring and she coloured quite nicely, normally she has no patience and just ends up scribbling all over the page.

Olivia made some courgette cornbread with me.

We read lots of books and played eye spy with my little eye.  Mathilde was the best.... 'eye spy with my little eye something beginning with H' after we whipped out all our words with H, she replied 'no, sunflower'.

T1 - warnings but you can still venture out.
T3 - windy. Olivia can still go to school but preschoolers like Mathilde can't. People still go to work.
T8 - no school, no work and you are advised to stay indoors as not to receive any falling objects on the head.

Early Thursday morning the winds were howling and whistling through every crack and gap in our apartment. I always hope that these apartment blocks don't blow over - heaven only knows how these things were built.

Back to normal for everyone on Friday and a wee break to recover for me just before we tackle yet another week-end.