D-100, waterworks

OK, I definitely have a problem. I am at work, and I just burst out in violent tears while reading about David Cameron's poor son, Ivan.

Now I know sadness is a normal reaction to this tragic, moving story, but I have never experienced tears while reading the news. Ever. And NEVER EVER at work.

Now everyone at the gym and in the office thinks I am a freak. And I do too.

What is wrong with me?!

D-103 to D-101, On the edge

Today, for some inexplicable reason, in the middle of a boring workout on an awful machine of torture at the gym, I burst out crying. I really have no idea why. I wasn't thinking of anything in particular. But I was watching my heart rate, so maybe that has something to do with my father...

To answer all of your questions, Daddy Sucre (as I call him) is now well and recovering in a heart rehabilitation centre in France. He's lucky it happened there - he gets 5-star cuisine cooked for him every day, he goes swimming in the centre's pool, and then plays cards with his "inmates". He calls it practice for the retirement home...

He jokes but he is still very weak, and speaks very slowly. He was supposed to come out at the end of the week but they are keeping him for a while longer... And they say it will take even longer for him to recover completely...

In other news, the magazine is not going as well as it could - the content is great and I am enjoying it, but the whole thing is paid for by advertising, and unfortunately there are no advertisers at the moment. Something about a credit crunch. Boooo.

Anyway, I might not have a job in a couple of weeks, but then again it could all be OK. We'll see. I might have a chat with the powers that be to see what their thoughts are...

I'm off to talk to Daddy Sucre. He'll know what to do.

D-112 to D-104, the week in pictures

No time for words this week, so here are a few pictures instead.

First there was Valentine's Day, for which Krusty gave me a hilarious show rolling around in the artificial poppies we got for the wedding. Here he is smelling them...


Then there was mini-golf on the roof - boys can be creative!



On Thursday night I went to visit Baby Jayden, who is still in hospital for his little heart. Such a pleasure to see him strong and happy again. Krusty calls this my "I want one of these" eyebrow...



During the week I also took a day off from work (the credit crunch has dictated that I reduce my salary and as I am a freelancer I do that by just taking days off - everyone wins!) and was feeling a bit low so I went for a walk. In the streets of Sheung Wan, I saw a man taking his bird for a walk, and two old biddies having a gossip by the butcher's and I fell in love with Hong Kong all over again...

D-113, Friday 13th

Richard is here from Taiwan, so last night we went out for a meal down Rat Alley and a cider in Lan Kwai Fong. All this to say that we might have been a little giddy when we got home and spent an hour talking to a plastic rabbit.

Krusty bought this intrusive device, tentatively named Rufus, so that it could communicate with his computer from the lounge and therefore he wouldn't need to be continuously chained to his screens in the office. It's supposedly a "smart" device, with ears that swing around when it has something to say, and a button on its head that you can press to communicate with it.

For example, you can press the button and say "weather", and it will tell you what the weather is (although so far it has only done so in French), you can press the button and say "news" and it will tell you, well, the news.

But as I said, we were a little giddy, so Richard and I had the sole mission of "freaking the rabbit out". The findings from our experiments? When you say "mother" the rabbit goes quiet and then all of its lights flash out of control, and when you say "disco", well....... Let's just say the rabbit DOES NOT like disco... Even when we just spelt the letters out, the rabbit flashed four red light and made an eerie noise that made us feel we were in a Stephen King novel... Hilarious.

Meanwhile Krusty cradled his rabbit with a worried look, as if we had been torturing his child.

D-114, happy anniversary

Today marks a year since we first landed in Hong Kong together.

I can't believe how fast time has flown, and yet we have achieved so much! We have a great flat (despite recent and earlier leakage problems...), we got engaged, we got married!, we travelled to Tokyo, Cebu and Macau together, Krusty travelled to Tokyo, Seoul, Brisbane, London and Paris alone, we made lots of friends, we hiked, we went on junks, we have eaten in many, many restaurants, we have learnt to knit cuddly toys... It's amazing really.

Here's to another year to come. We said we were only moving out here for two years - so this is the last one? I wonder if Krusty (a HUGE advocate of the land of low tax rates and tropical weather) will accept to go back home...



19.28: I am just back from my anniversary day - for a story I am doing in the magazine, I had to go to the roof of the superb Peninsula Hotel, take a helicopter to the airport and examine a private jet. Life is soooo tough!

D-115, wait for me!

My experience of HK so far is that the harder you want to play, the harder you have to work, and no one seems too bothered by this. Everyone lives pretty intensely. But today was the epitome of HK life.

I woke up early to the sound of jackhammers (no surprise there) and dodged the dried seafood delivery carts to make my way to Tung Chung, near the airport. After talking private jets with the director of the aviation association, I managed to fit in some express discount outlet shopping in my lunch break, and then sped to the Intercontinental hotel, where I made my way past the grand fountains and over the marble floors to pick up a bottle of perfume that hasn't been launched yet but had been delivered from Europe for me at reception.

I then grabbed a red taxi through the tunnel under the water between Kowloon and HK, spent a couple of hours in the office, and then made my way to the giant phallic powerhouse that is the ifc to sign my visa papers at Krusty's office.

We then zoomed down to meet a wholesaler gem dealer to negotiate our wedding rings, then up again to the roof for a press event, where one girl was smiling so genuinely at us that we went over to chat - turns out she is from Ballymoney, the tiny town where Krusty grew up, and that they went to the same school, where her mother actually taught Krusty maths. It's a teeny, tiny world.

We couldn't chat for too long, though, as we were awaited in Happy Valley for a night at the races. We were there to meet two friends, but as soon as we got in we started bumping into people we knew, and it seems every single one of our acquaintances was there, hoping to win big on their horse of choice, or at least win enough to pay for another pitcher of beer.

The joyful troupe carried on through the night, but not being able to keep up the HK pace quite so much yet, Krusty and I raced home to bed, ready for the next day of HK madness to come...

No wonder the rate of appearance of wrinkles on my face has grown exponentially...

D-116, look-a-like

While flipping through the channels on our now tv box, we found a film with Roberto Benigni. It was uninteresting apart from one thing - I just couldn't stop seeing the resemblance between the diminutive Italian and Krusty!

Krusty and Benigni were separated at birth! I am sure of it!

D-117, kaboom

After a day in the kitchen with good friends (for a story we're doing in the magazine), I went home to relax. But oh no. Not relaxing for us!

Mid-way through cooking dinner, I heard a commotion in the bathroom - the shower had literally exploded and a volcano of DISGUSTING Sheung Wan dried seafood sewage water was spurting out everywhere!

After the toilet seat, the shower. What's next I wonder...

D-118, layzee

Got up wanting to go hiking, but the ear wouldn't let me.

Instead I watch the brave people running the marathon go past our place through the window. Like the guys on SNL were saying, I am in danger of a flab-alanche...




After that, I engaged in the first stage of metrosexualisation of the Krusty in preparation for D-day - the facial.

While he had all of the impurities of the last 36 (oh dear) years squeezed out of his nose pores, I went for a little pamper too - and had the best facial I have ever had, hands down. We went to a new spa that seems to be struggling to find new customers and so has decided to give big discounts, so it was incredibly cheap as well as amazingly indulgent. Duvets, foot massages, hand massages and shoulder massages were just the preparation for the many, many delicious smelling elixirs applied to my face. Total bliss, without the Bliss pricetag. Me likey.

And Krusty now has craters the size of etna on his nose flanks. Hopefully they won't fill up with pollution again too soon...

Next step, abs.

D-119, wedding belles

Krusty and I spent a very glam day hunting for a toilet seat to replace the one that had broken at home, so after scouring Wan Chai's bathroom road, I was ready for some refined action.

We headed over to a friend's house for dinner, and spent the night with three girls on one side of the room chatting about chair covers and flowers (all three of us are getting married this year) and the boys on the sofa watching the Ireland-France rugby match.

I felt old, but also warm and fuzzy. I don't mind not being in a loud, smoky club anymore. I spent the evening doing what my parents were doing when I was a kid, thinking they were so boring, and I had fun.

I am officially old. And I like it.

D-120, laughter therapy

To get our minds off the bleakness of life right now, we went to the Viceroy to watch "Whose line is it anyway?" with some big names like Stephen Frost and Richard Vranch...

It was simply hilarious. I always imagined that the improv shows we see on TV have been cut and edited to only show the funny bits, but almost 90% of the show we saw made my cheek muscles ache...

D-121, everything's relative

Disaster! The (weather-proof) artificial poppies that I wanted to scatter around for my wedding have been discontinued! Eek!

But how insignificant this is. How can a wedding matter when my daddy is still in hospital?

About six years ago, as my parents crossed a street in London, they got hit by a big black taxi. My mother went to hospital with a hairline fracture that cost her her sense of smell forever, and my father got off with just a bruise on his bottom. An extremely painful, black bruise full of poison, sure, but just a bruise. He also started stuttering a lot, but this was just mild psychological trauma.

Or so it seemed.

Since his heart attack, he has been given a blood thinning agent to make sure that his arteries aren't under any stress. It seems that when he was knocked down by the taxi all those years ago, what they call a tumor formed in his brain, and this thinning agent has made the tumor bleed.

And so, to save his heart his brain is suffering, and he can't walk properly, or talk properly. On Monday I had a full 10 minute conversation with him, and today he could only get about 10 words out, all slurred.

The doctors say not to worry, he is going to spend three weeks in heart rehab and the thinning agent will be stopped, the bleeding will dry up and he'll be fine again.

I believe them, but it is unbearable not to be able to hug a person who can't communicate verbally. What good is a telephone when there are no words?

D-122, tis the season to be sickly

I have a double ear infection now, my lovely Daddy is still in hospital resting from his heart attack, my cousin B has been in hospital as they try to "turn" her baby (it failed - she will need a cesarian), and her grandfather has just been admitted near my dad for a pulmonary embolism. Meanwhile, Krusty's mum is ill with the lurgy in the UK and has lost a huge and unhealthy amount of weight.

What is going on?!

D-123, weather envy

Today was one of the loveliest days I have ever seen in Hong Kong, weather-wise.

But all I wanted to do was be in London making snowmen!

D-124, ouch

While we were shopping yesterday, Krusty kept walking away from me pretending he didn't know me, because he said I was embarrassing him with my wincing.

In fact, I was experiencing the beginnings of one of the worst ear infections ever experienced by a human being, and as the poison made its way through my ear canal, my entire body spasmed, making me look like a freak.

Now I am having a day of wincing in the confines of my bedroom, not wanting to scare my colleagues, or reveal my golf ball-sized glands to the world.

And what does anyone with an ear infection need? Jackhammers and drilling of course!

Thanks Hong Kong!

18.10: I have been complaining about all of this rubbish for too long now. And then I get a phone call from my mum - my dad has had a minor heart attack. Kind of makes you refocus. It also makes me realise how FAR I am. I know Skype makes the world smaller, but I can really feel the 13-hour plane ride that separates us right now. Thank goodness he is OK...

D-125, Costume National

Today I found out what it feels like for a boy who takes his girlfriend shopping.

Krusty and I headed for Horizon Plaza, in Ap Lei Chau, a 28-storey treasure trove of outlet shopping, where antique furniture shops rub shoulders with Prada coats and Zegna shoes.

I sat on a leather sofa for 2 1/2 hours while Krusty tried on EVERY SINGLE ITEM IN THE BUILDING. He said he was "in search of style", or his own style, which he doesn't seem to have established yet. I'm just glad he said no to that long Galliano coat with a skull on it that he thought looked so cool...

Anyway, we found THE suit, the one that will be worn on 6.6.09, so it was worth the pain. And I learnt a great lesson - I'll never go shopping with Krusty ever again!