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.

The build - France

Things are on the move again. If any of you have been to France during the months of July/August, you'll know that almost everywhere and everyone goes away for their summer holidays.
Already its a mission to get things done 'en temps normal' ( ouch, sorry Frenchies, but its so true and its not just the british side of me rearing its ugly face!)

Doing a build is by no ways an easy thing to do. Add to that being situated on the other side of the world and I think you'll get the picture.  My problem is.... I can't decide what I want, but I'm by hells SURE of what I don't want!!!!

We returned to France in July and I saw our house for the first time - Crazy, I know!! The girls were super excited and it was a time filled with emotion for Hubby and myself. I love the house, I love the land where its situated and I love my little family. I'm sure we'll be so happy here. The land is full of evergreen oak trees and little crickets are abuzz, all you hear is crik,crik,crik. The ground is cushioned with miniture wild thyme and each step wakes up the senses. I feel like I'm in Provence when I'm there. Thats what we fell in love with, its wild, charming beauty.

The house is a beast, a beautiful beast. After living in Hong Kong in our cramped apartment it feels enormous. But hey, space is good.

This is the view from our kitchen leading to the terrace and into 'provence'.

While we were there we chose the tiles for the girls bathroom, bathroom fixtures and tiles for the upstairs landing. We wanted something rustic for the landing so we went with these 'terre cuite'

They'll be oiled and because its not a high traffic area, I think these little babies will do just fine. The bedrooms will have wooden floors.
Down stairs all of the flooring is large 60cm x 90cm slabs of travertine.

Since 2 weeks the artisans are back on site. Last week the one artisan started to smother the red,earthy bricks with our chosen crepi.  Now, choosing the crepi is definately not easy. The samples they show you in shops are tiny 2cm x 2cm squares - call it mission impossible. So after lots of umming and ahhing, the decision had to be made and now the balls are rolling so fingers crossed!!

More updates to follow.

Oh my Coconut

If ever you happen to have a young fresh coconut lying around and wonder, how the heck do I get into this? This post is for you.

We love these fresh, ivory, cone-shaped beauties. You can find them in almost any supermarket or wet market here in Hong Kong and are especially welcome in the sweltering heat.

Not only are they refreshing but they are actually good for us. Rich in lauric acid which is known for being antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal and boosts the immunity. The water inside is full electrolytes and natural sodium so great for dehydration.

In other words its any mothers miracle food.

Take your young, fresh coconut, lie it on its side and with a sharp knife cut off the top of the husk on the cone shaped part to remove all the fibres until you see the hard coconut shell. Once the shell is exposed, take your knife and with the bottom part of the blade tap it to break through the hard shell and once cracked, slide your knife around to make a hole.

Its easy peasy . Olivia loves opening them and sipping out the sweet, cold coconut water - she calls it her cocktail.
Once emptied you can scrape out the flesh and use in smoothies.
Waste not, want not!

Gingerbread boys or girls.

Hands up if you like gingerbread men .

I don't know any kids that don't like them. I know for certain that my girls love them.

When we lived in South Africa every week-end we'd take the 5 minute drive to Fournos bakery in Fourways. We'd stock up on croissants and Olivia would take 2 gingerbread men.
The smartie buttons were always the first to go along with the sickly sweet icing.

Here in Hong Kong, its a little different. We make our own. OK, there's also a great bakery in Stanley  called Saffron, that make little gingerbread boys or girls. They also have my girls stamp of approval.

We made a batch last week and as always, they didn't disappoint. The girls helped with the fragrant cookie dough. Mathilde stuck her finger in the ground ginger pot and licked it. Shrieks filled the whole of our apartment  - but she won't be doing that again any time soon! They were both a sticky mess from spooning spoonfuls of honey and depleting my stash.

The dough was disappearing fast from tiny hands sneaking bits here and there.
But finely I cooked and cooled a whole lot of these little rascals.

Morning shopping in Aberdeen

This morning Mathilde and myself jumped on the bus to Aberdeen. I love the fruit and vegetable stalls here. Its always bustling with people shopping for their fruit and vegetables and restaurants are bursting at the seams with locals eating local delicacies like dim sum.

This is what we picked up for about 50 HKD.....

Midnight escapades, well almost!!

This week-end my little Olivia turned 7.

I can't believe I actually have a seven year old daughter. Anyway the shock has worn off. I have a few more wrinkles, a lot less patience  than I did seven years back, but hey I've learnt that you can't have everything!!

So we decided to make it a week-end of celebrations.

After waking up to find this outside

..... we headed to Ocean Park.  Looking at the temperature in the car while driving there and seeing a mere 35 degrees we started regretting it, but the girls not, they were rearing to go.

Fun was had by all, especially the little ones. Added bonus .... a little bit of a tan for me.

Saturday night we all went to Chung Hom Kok beach for a bbq. I really like this beach, each time we go, its clean and more importantly its never too crowded. Mathilde started to get sleepy in the car so a quick jump to Dancing Queen on the CD player and she's ready to take on the world.

I so love hearing them singing a long to Abba in the back of the car, I really have a good chuckle with some of the things they come out with.

They played on the beach and watched a couple who were having their wedding photographs taken.  We searched for shells and built sandcastles while the Hong Kong sun set.
Once again they were really excited to stay up after dark. With the sosaties cooked, we all sat down and enjoyed the evening. The girls had fun with their glow in the dark sticks. We had shrieks of joy, laughter and of course a few tears.

I thought they would have passed out in the car, but they made it home. So into a warm shower to rinse the sandy bodies and lights out! They were asleep within 2 minutes. Now thats when you know they've had a fun filled, jam packed day.

Mid-autumn festival

Mid autumn festival or moon festival is known to be one of the most charming and colourful celebrations here in Hong Kong. Its a family celebration of harvest time with the added bonus of the biggest and brightest moon of the year, hence the name Moon festival.

Mooncakes are given and received as gifts. We received some from the Peninsula hotel from a supplier that my husband works with.
They are small, round, delicate, sweet little pastries that are filled with ground lotus and sesame seed paste. In the middle of this mixture you find an egg-yolk, quite often salted duck egg-yolk. This yolk symbolises the full moon. All this sweetness is wrapped up in a thin layer of pastry.
Eaten in small wedges as they are very sweet and very rich therefore not so kind on the ever expanding waistline.

Luckily for me, I don't really care for them or any other kind of eggy delicacies - but shhhh, don't tell anyone!

Buildings and gardens are decorated with lanterns and when night falls they are lit up in all their splendour. Shops and markets are bursting with colourful lanterns that range from the traditional kind to spongebob squarepants and hello kitty.

Public parks put on beautiful colourful lantern displays but one word of warning....If you're afraid of crowds and lots of people, this is definately not for you.
We took the girls to Victoria Park on 13 September which was the last night, so it wasn't so crowed. They enjoyed it, had space to run wild, look at all the pretty colours and stay up way past their bedtime.