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I have had terribly bad luck with machines this week.

At the start of the week I turned on the exhaust fan above the stove only to have it make such a horrible rattle I had to turn it off again immediately.

The washing machine stopped functioning properly two days ago, which is very distressing. It is especially annoying as I have only one pair of trousers that fits me now, and they take bloody ages to dry. I’ll only be able to leave the house every second day now, or possibly just go along with local custom and head out in my pyjamas every now and then.

Yesterday I was clever enough to leave a candle on top of the oven when I was waiting for it to heat up, so wax dripped down inside and caused clouds of scary smoke to start appearing from the air vents.

Finally, this evening I plugged in my hair drier in and started to dry my hair, only to remember as sparks started leaping out at me that I brought it with me from Japan, so probably should have used an adaptor…

Now the kitchen smells of melted wax, the laundry smells of damp wool and everywhere I go I am followed by a small cloud of slightly burnt hair smell.

I probably shouldn’t touch my laptop again for a while…

It’s very much autumn now.

Sunny afternoons and clear skies have made for perfect sitting-by-the-lake weather, and the park keepers have been kept very busy sweeping all the falling leaves.

Lucky Chandler is away, as the sight of a broom made of twigs is just too tempting, and he tends to pee on the sweeper’s brooms if they ever dare to stop for a rest.

Today as we lay in the sun, the sound of someone playing an erhu came floating across from the island. I begged for Patrick to take me over to see, but he said it was “just a normal thing”, so weird for me to want to go and stare.

By the time I had convinced him that it was ok for me to stare as I am a foreigner, and we do strange things, our erhu uncle had moved on to playing Chinese chess instead.

I think I’ll just have hurry over and stare by myself next time.

Jana is exceptionally good at buying presents.  Really, scarily good.

I’m terrible at buying gifts, I wish I knew whatever it is she knows.

Next time anyone is shopping in London, I can now personally recommend Cath Kidston and Molton Brown.

Thanks to Jana’s thoughtfulness, I can now take my new shopping bag to the supermarket, buy up on groceries, then come home and bake away to my heart’s content in my new apron.

According to Patrick, the matching tea towel would look nice if I wore it scarf-like on my head, but I think I shall just use it for it’s original purpose.

After all my baking and dish-washing is finished, I will be able to bring my hands back to their naturally lovely state with my new white mulberry hand wash and lotion.

Happy days!

All thanks to Wincy, while in Hong Kong, I managed to buy TWO of the products that I have previously blogged about wanting.

I was delighted to discover the Causeway Bay Francfranc stocks Oh! Bear, the very ugly but very lovable bear I found online not long ago.  I now have an ugly little Oh! Bear all my own, who sits on the tea table looking rather forlorn and I am sure, just a little embarrassed by his somewhat scruffy appearance.

Wincy read my post about egglings and had seen some in Harbour City, so took me to buy a couple to bring home.  I bought a little lavender for myself and adopted a basil for Wincy, who can’t take it home to Melbourne with her.

I managed to crack their tops without smashing them all into tiny bits, which was an excellent start, but failed to notice the sunny days and relatively warm weather we have been having have completely disappeared, so the poor little things probably wont sprout.

They have been sitting with me in Patrick’s office with the heater on, so fingers crossed something might happen yet.

Although we really had very little time, and no plans, we managed to see a surprising amount over the weekend.

Friday afternoon Michael and I went to Ocean park, as I was busily avoiding Wincy before Jana arrived so as not to blow the surprise.

We took the double decker bus there and back, managing to excitedly elbow and shove our way to the top front seat both times… well, to unintentionally get to the bus stop at the front of the line both times at least.

I was a little disappointed with Ocean park, I don’t remember much of it, but I remember it being better than it was.  There were far too many people in the aquarium to enjoy much fish-watching, and after walking past the chairlift once and seeing no-one there, we returned about 30 minutes later to find an unmoving queue of hundreds lined as far as we could see.  No chairlift ride for us this time.

Saturday afternoon in Stanley was much more enjoyable, possible because it involved eating things and buying things.  After we had spent the last 24 hours being laughed at when we bought things (including train tickets!!??) we came to the decision that we should probably be bargaining.  We left the market feeling very impressed with ourselves after each buying one item at a knocked down price.

Saturday evening, our bad luck with queues continued and we ended up taking a taxi up to the peak rather than the tram, and our hard work bargaining in the afternoon was all undone when we bought tickets to the new observation deck.

We found it a little odd that when we bought the tickets to the observation deck the girl immediately told us there would be no refund, but weren’t too worried by it at the time.

After a short time enjoying the view from the observation deck, we headed back inside to find a coffee.  Eagle-eyed Wincy  spotted an outdoor seating area at Pacific Coffee, where we discovered that the view was just the same as the observation deck, but there were no crowds and we could sit and drink coffee while enjoying the view.

The reason for the ticket girls insistence that we wouldn’t get a refund became clear when we found that in addition to the comfortable and free view from the cafe, the old observation area is still open and also free to enter.

Just a little annoyed about that.

Despite our few small annoyances, the whole experience was hugely enjoyable. We walked through Kowloon park each day, visited the waterfront in the daytime and at night, saw the lighting show over the city twice, had drinks at Lan Kwai Fong in the evening, and generally enjoyed how easy it is to get about in HK. ..

So forget all that negative stuff I wrote.  It was good.