Weekend beckons

 Here are some pictures from our boat trip last Saturday. This is where we moored for lunch.The beach was a fair old swim away.

  The dog needed to go ashore....there was no doggy toilet on board. So he put on his life jacket and allowed himself to be lowered onto a surfboad

 Then he was  pushed to shore. The little boy was being Captain!






Our boat lady ready to throw the rope onto the pier

Some views of the scenery

I had the fitting for my new dress this week, I've to collect it on Saturday, looking forward to it, it's the first made to measure item I've ever had. Including fabric and lining, it cost me £27. I also bought a new bag, not a fancy leather one, just a nice purple nylon lightweight one to use as carry on for all the flying I'll be doing over the next few months.It holds my travel document folder, iPad and other sundry items in several pockets. Should be easy to find things on board in the dark, I hope.
 Lessons, in swimming and Mahjong, continued this week, I seem to be making some progress in both. I bought a little travel Mahjong set, it is not so tiny that you can't play with the tiles and not too heavy to carry around. I really bought it so I could practice recognsing the tiles; some are easy (bamboo, circles) but the winds and the characters are more difficult.

I paid a visit to the new 3 storey bookshop over in Causeway Bay on the island. The papers have been full of it since it opened a few books ago.What a lot of hype! I really didn't like it at all.It was packed, very noisy and vey smelly, both from the sheer volume of unclean humanity and fried food from the  food court above. Also, the English and Chinese are mixed on the shelves,making it hard to find things. It gave me an insight ito illiteracy, though, all these books and I had no clue what they were trying to tell me.Whenever I tried to look at the lower shelves, people were pushing past, almost knocking me over. Call me old fashioned, but I like a calm, relaxed QUIET bookshop. For me going into a good book shop is almost like going into a temple. I feel renewed and refreshed when I come out. After coming out of Eslite, I felt like I needed a bath and a stiff drink! However, I did manage to find a book of Scottish poetry and a reprint of an American childrens book from 1949 which I hadn't seen before. I hope Callum likes it!The free carrier bag is very cool, black and white images of Hong Kong street life. After queuing for ages and answering an interrogation to get their loyalty card (which is a scrap of paper! Not even cardboard!). I emerged, blinking, into a huge shopping mall full of things I could neither afford nor fit into. Sometimes life here is tough, eh?

We went for a walk last night and ended up in a German Bierkeller for a pint. It's a bit out of the way, so we expected it to be fairly quiet as there are lots of more easily acessible bars. Obviously another several hundred patrons had though that too.

Today I'm going to the flower market and I really need to finish the dreaded ironing. Then I should start looking out clothes for our holiday in Singapore. Woohoo!