There was an old woman who lived in a shoe....

It's been almost four weeks of help-less in Hong Kong and I reflect on progress so far. With apologies to Eric Carle and his Very Hungry Caterpillar;

On Monday my four year ironed a lone football sock. The synthetic sock disintegrated into a green and black mess which stuck to the ironing board and wrote off the iron.

On Tuesday my four year old found the chocolate cake I had baked cooling in the kitchen. He took two large bites out of each half and left the rest for us.

On Wednesday my four year old watered the plants in the yard. He also watered his sister, the windows and the dry washing.

On Thursday my four year old found scissors in my desk drawer. He used them to cut holes in the mattress protector on the guest bed.

On Friday after getting repeatedly lost in a part of town I do not know, I put my head in my hands and may have been heard to mutter, “Sometimes I hate Hong Kong.”

“Sometimes I hate you.” said my four year old.

On Saturday my four year old cut the plug of my mobile charger from its wire. Fortunately it was not plugged in at the time. That would have given him a shock.

On Sunday my four year old went missing at rugby practice. My husband found him eventually in a hole 2 metres deep and part of a disused army assault course at the edge of the rugby field. He was yelling for help and had taken off his socks and shoes to throw up in the air in hope of someone noticing.

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I am no expert but you don’t need to be a child psychologist to work out that my youngest boy is crying out for attention. This my sunniest boy, charming, confident and funny is hurting inside and he’s angry. I assume it’s with me. Mother’s always do.

One day, on his return from nursery he seems unusually upset. I ask what’s eating him and after smouldering in a corner for some minutes he suddenly throws up his hands and says with passion, “I just don’t know what it’s all about!” I have put him into the bilingual class (Mandarin/English) of his pre-school assuming this was the best thing I could do to help him integrate into his new life here. As far as I understood they were learning to count in Mandarin, sing the odd song and learn some greetings. Now I feel like a horrid pushy mother who not only expects her four year old to move seamlessly from London to Hong Kong but also wants him to speak fluent Mandarin by the time he’s five.

We seem to be locked in a downward spiral. Searching for a way to break the cycle, to help him restore faith in his ability to do right, I praise him for getting his shoes on and in that moment he pinches his younger sister in the face, wrenches her beloved muslin from her grip and runs off. I am consumed with guilt that it is all my fault and that he just doesn’t want to be here.

I ask him if he likes Hong Kong and he says he misses his bed. He misses the trampoline and he misses Tom and Josh and Nick.

At home my four year old and I would snuggle down together most afternoons for a nap after lunch. Unlike his siblings, all elbows, knees and heels, he would merge his soft little body into mine and thus we would fall asleep, I for an hour, he for two. I awake to sound of his snoring, spread out like a sunbathing bear and tip-toe downstairs. On waking his first request is to go on the trampoline.

In the London garden we had a huge trampoline dug in at ground level. In no danger of falling off, my littlest boy would crawl down the garden as a baby and would bounce on his knees long before he could either stand or walk. As he grew up he would bounce out his frustrations with the world, enjoying the space he had to himself before the older boys got home from school. Then he would bounce with his brothers and the neighbourhood kids.

In my new role as Mrs Mop, our shared afternoon nap has become a thing of the past. He will still sleep after lunch, when I’m not dragging him and his sister into the car to collect the older boys from their after school activities, that is. When we get home we stumble in, tired, hungry and fractious. There is homework to be done and the older boys move centre stage and voice their needs while the younger two are side-lined for a while.

To keep some sort of order at home in this help-less time I rely ever more on the electronic babysitters of TV and computer. Homework begins to suffer. I don’t have as much time for any of them as I would like. Everyone is compromised. I feel like the old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

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And yet, I must do something for my unhappy four year old. He doesn’t need a domestic goddess, he needs his Mummy. Today after lunch I snuggle down with him to sleep and stroke his arm as he snuffles gently beside me. Water is his thing and since we arrived in Hong Kong he has thrown off his armbands and jumped in to show me he can swim. After an initial sharp intake of breath I see he really can and I rejoice with him.

It is half-term. We go to the beach and he swims in the sea. I leave the ironing undone and we spend a morning at the pool. We take sandwiches on the Star Ferry and go to a museum. The next day we visit my New Friend. She is musical and her three girls all play instruments. My four year old discovers a small cello, sits himself down and plays and plays to his heart’s content. The next day we have friends of his over to play. Seeing that his Mummy is building a tower that others are enjoying he kicks it down in a rage and the other children sidle off with their mothers. We go down to the pool and I watch my little fish dive down angry and rise up smiling.

This week at rugby my little boy found a tiny snake (dead) and put it in his collecting pot. He showed the other boys and both his street cred and his self-esteem rocketed sky high. And this afternoon, he put his head against my thigh and his arm around my legs and said, “I love you Mummy.”

Cool

I think. It might. Be getting. Cooler........

Don't get me wrong. We are not talking autumnal chill here. I still can't bear the thought of long trousers but temperatures are down a significant 3 or 4 degrees to 29. And it's quite pleasant.

The other day as I walked past, next door's maids were using hair dryers to dry the freshly washed, long-haired, white dog which lies elegantly behind glass in the air-conditioned interior of our neighbour's home. He is a Samoyed, a breed used originally for herding reindeer and pulling sledges. The obvious choice for Hong Kong.

Oh Happy Day

We are invited for a day on a junk. The party includes visiting in-laws and four other families; 13 adults and 14 children but the junk is large and there is plenty of space for everyone.

We take a taxi to Sai Kung, a fishing village, about 40 minutes’ drive into the New Territories. It is a lovely day and it is lovely to be out. The junk leaves from the public pier and we are plied with food and drink the moment we set sail. We chug along for about an hour, past scenery remarkably reminiscent of the South Downs. We pass uninhabited islands outlined with rock structures which remind me of Finghal’s Cave and the Giant’s Causeway.

We draw into a quiet cove with a sandy beach. There are two other junks and a yacht already there enjoying the same peace. It is the first time we have been anywhere in Hong Kong without being overwhelmed by sheer numbers of people. As we drop anchor I watch as two huge jellyfish swim by. They are the size of dustbin lids with long threatening tentacles.

I go with a group in a small boat to the beach where the little ones play with buckets and spades and paddle about in the shallows. I pretend to swim but the thought of the jellyfish keeps me close to the beach. Another motor boat
sets off from the junk with the older children for a banana boat ride and we watch them being pulled along, shrieking with delight as the banana tops the waves in the motorboat’s wake. They return with the remains of one jellyfish drifting from the boat’s propeller.

We are served a delicious lunch. The children enjoy real hamburgers and then, whooping for joy start jumping from the top deck of the boat into the water below. Not wishing to be outdone the Mums follow suit. It is a blissful day and distinctions between adult and childish behaviour begin to blur with the help of sunshine and white wine. The Dads take off on the banana boat for a “boys’ ride” and the Mums go next. Within minutes there are five women, one of them a grandmother, bobbing up and down in the South China Sea laughing at their own spectacle. It gets funnier but less elegant as we try to right the banana and haul ourselves back on.

Back on board coffee and brownies are served. Someone has an iPod and the children dance in unison to Abba and the Village People on the top deck, rejoicing that no-one here will tell them to be quiet. We sun ourselves on the deck and get to know each other a little better, other recent arrivals like us, mostly strangers to Hong Kong, feeling their way and making friends, little by little.

As the sun dips behind the hills of the New Territories we return to Sai Kung. We are sun kissed, salty and tired but each of us has enjoyed the day; the escape, the service and the company. The children have been themselves, have swum and dived, laughed and made friends. The parents have relaxed and realised that Hong Kong really could be quite a good place to live after all.

Big Buddha

One great thing about October in Hong Kong is that it is liberally peppered with public holidays. Our instinct on weekends and public holidays is to get out. October 1st was National Day and not entirely sure how to celebrate it, we decided to do the tourist thing and to head for the Big Buddha. Guides to Hong Kong will tell you the Big Buddha is the largest bronze outdoor seated Buddha in the world and as such it sounded rather impressive.

Big Buddha is reached via cable car known as Ngong Ping 360 which takes its visitors 3 and a half miles up a mountain from its terminus on Lantau to Ngong Ping Village. This part of Hong Kong is known to experience the worst air-pollution readings and visibility is often negligible. Local wits deem the cable car name appropriate in as much as 360 metres is about as far as you can see on the average smoggy day.

Having queued for well over an hour round a bus station, up an escalator, over a bridge and back again, we eschewed the “Walking with Buddha Tour of Enlightenment” and bought basic return tickets for the cable car. Then queuing began in earnest. We snaked back and forth 24 times before reaching the cable car. The boys grew bored. Predictably. They began to fight. A Chinese family with two impeccably behaved children watched in amazement as we snaked past them 24 times, the antics of our boys growing ever more turbulent with each turn.

Finally inside, the cable car whisked us up over Chek Lap Kok airport – a vast modern structure which occupies an island of its very own, land which was entirely reclaimed for the purpose of building Hong Kong’s new airport. Due to the limited visibility we couldn’t see much of it. Below us were fisherman standing chest deep in the murky waters of the Pearl River Delta with polystyrene boxes floating beside them to hold their catch. From the sandy turmoil left in their wake they appeared to be raking through the estuary mud with nets for shrimps or shellfish, we couldn’t be sure. From our vantage point however, we could also see what else was floating in the river and it did not make us more inclined to try the local shellfish.

Up and up we climbed; the steep wooded hillsides of Lantau looking curiously reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands through the mist. “What’s that?” yelled the children in unison as the pinnacles of a fairy tale castle came into view. “Is it Disneyland?” they wanted to know. In fact it was the entrance to Lin Po Monastery. And yet that initial impression that the place bore a remarkable similarity to Disneyland wouldn’t quite go away. As we reached our destination a monkey took our picture for posterity.

The cable car spat us out directly into the first of many souvenir shops. This now familiar Chinese marketing tactic never fails to irritate me as it means we start each trip by disappointing the children with our repetitive and forceful NOs! in response to the vast array of tat we are channelled through.

Ngong Ping is a one street tourist town. As such it bears an uncanny resemblance to the film set of a spaghetti western where the wooden houses are little more than a façade. I snuck behind to make sure the shop fronts did in fact have backs to them. Instead of the Nevada Desert I found an enormous coach park belying the wished for impression that the tiny Chinese shops, ornate little bridges and curlicue roofs had grown up as part of an ancient Chinese village.

We giggled at the shop names; the Wing Wah Ngong Ping Tea House (Starbucks is next door), Chopstick Gallery, Hoi Tin Tong and Wo Kee Loong Gifts Shop. “Where is old China?” pondered my husband. “Has it all been bulldozed?”

Could anybody really be fooled by this, I wondered. And yet it seems so for the tourists were there in their thousands, paying homage to the Buddha, visiting the temple and then, presumably depositing their disposable income in the pockets of the tat vendors.

We wandered on up the main and only street towards Big Buddha. My husband had to make a call. Our youngest needed a pee. We couldn’t find the facilities and rather than leave the other three I decided the coach park was as good a place as any. She was lucky to escape being photographed on the job as mainland Chinese will waste no opportunity to snap blonde children of which, it appears, they have seen remarkably few.

The Buddha towers over the village and the monastery as one might expect. He benevolently lifts his hand in blessing and the tourists swarm on up the steps to see him at close range. We had the buggy with us and excused ourselves. But we did enter the monastery through the fairy tale castle.

Here incense sticks of all shapes and sizes were for sale in the forecourt and huge golden effigies frowned down on us in the ante hall. The religious were busy bowing in prayer in the garden; huge bunches of glowing incense sticks held aloft. Signs warned of the hot incense pots where the incense sticks end up in a bonfire once prayers have been said.

In the inner courtyard steps lead up to the temple where three huge golden Buddhas looked down from their vantage point above the altar. The courtyard itself appeared to be given over to a huge open-air vegetarian canteen.

It is tempting to believe that Big Buddha has been around for centuries and that we, as modern day tourists, are following in the footsteps of our forefathers who came to admire this astonishing Hong Kong sight generations before. In truth Big Buddha has only been there for a rather surprising 15 years. The monastery is slightly older, having been founded in the 1920’s but we are not talking ancient dynasties here and one can’t help leaving with the distinctly Disney flavoured impression, which came first, the tourist town or the Buddha?

Helpless in Hong Kong

Before we left London any mention of our move to Hong Kong invoked the universal response, “You’ll have loads of help.” I could hardly wait. Fully supportive of my aspiration to be a Hong Kong princess a Special Friend gave me a small book entitled “How to run your home without help” by Kay Smallshaw. First published in 1949, my book contains such gems as “Running a home may seem unspectacular and ordinary, but making a success of it, so that the home is a happy one for all who live in it, is creative work to rank with the best. Exhausting though it may be, it enriches the personality.” We laughed together at the thought of me reclining in Hong Kong, glass of wine in hand while someone else did my housework and I prepared to embrace my new pampered life-style with barely-disguised enthusiasm.

Our arrival in early August was much aided by our Bulgarian nanny who flew out with me and the children to help settle us in. After four weeks she returned home to get married and whilst I mourned her departure I did feel her husband-to-be might have a prior claim on her time. She was succeeded by our one-time Czech au pair who, after backpacking around Asia, arrived to spend September helping me out. “What is this? An employment agency for Eastern Europeans?” snorted my husband back in June when he heard of my plans. I wish. For neither of us could have anticipated the time or complications involved in employing the much needed amah we so longed for. The day dawned when the lovely Czech returned to her studies in London and I was left well and truly help-less in Hong Kong.

On day one my husband brings me a cup of tea in bed. He lays breakfast and gets the older boys going while I drag myself up. To be fair he does this every morning but today I appreciate him more than ever and am inclined to rechristen him the Domestic God. I am particularly sad when he leaves for the office. Once breakfast is cleared and packed lunches made, I go upstairs with the Little Ones, tidy their bedroom, get them dressed and clean their teeth before seeing them on to their nursery bus.

So now it’s just me and Kay Smallshaw alone in the house. She instructs me to “settle the order for the morning’s tasks.” I do quite well and plough through the housework, or the daily round as she calls it: I sweep inside (ant and cockroach prevention) and outside (snake prevention). I clean bathrooms and hoover rugs. Whilst hanging out the washing I notice that the dress that almost cost me my daughter has dyed the whole wash pink. Whilst I can live with pink napkins I'm not sure how the boys will feel about their pink pants.

I remove little handprints from glass doors and empty the waste paper baskets. Then I make the beds. Unlike Kay I do not find that “bedmaking can be quite a pleasant interlude from the dusting and sweeping” but perhaps that’s because I’m not doing enough dusting. I know I’m not matching up to her high standards when I leave cloths and detergents all over the place and have to go back and search for them for, as Kay says, “It’s the sign of a slovenly worker to leave jars and tins around!” Yup, that’s me! Next I take out the rubbish. As I lug the sack along the path next door’s two maids give me a friendly wave from where they sit in the kitchen enjoying a quiet cup of tea together.

By day two I’m bored stupid. The novelty of being a modern-day Kay Smallshaw and making a success of my housekeeping has already worn off. I get through the morning with the help of Diet-Coke and chocolate. If Kay Smallshaw is to be believed all this housework is having a beneficial effect on my figure so all extra calories are cancelled out.

In the course of the next few days I am relieved to discover I can still cook. My enthusiasm for being in the kitchen increases no end when it dawns on me I can set up my lap top and listen to Radio 4 while I work. I'm annoyed that I did not think of this earlier. I can barely hear the World Service murmuring live through the UK night so I “listen again” to the Today programme and am amused to hear John Humpreys saying, Good morning, this is Today, because in fact it’s yesterday. I am a day behind and am forever running to catch up. But the news is the same whatever day it is as stock markets around the world fall and fall.

As far as ironing goes I get better. The children’s clothes are at least relatively small and one advantage of eternal summer is that they only ever wear shorts and t-shirts but I really struggle with the king-size duvet cover. It strikes me that in a country with an immigrant population of 250,000 foreign domestic helpers I am possibly the only expat in Hong Kong to be doing my own ironing. And my husband’s, and my nine year old’s and my seven year old’s and my four year old’s and my two year old’s. This is not good. Whilst I can’t say my personality is being enriched by the experience I will admit to a feeling of relief when I reach the bottom of the ironing basket.

Far from being the multi-tasking genius I have always considered myself, I find that my days tend to fall into the laundry, cooking or cleaning category. Thus on some days we eat well in an untidy house and on others we have neatly ironed clothes but make do with leftovers. To my intense irritation I find I grow more rather than less exacting as time goes on. It begins to matter when the stairs look dusty and I become obsessive about using a sleeve board to iron my husband’s shirts. I even clean out the fridge. Perhaps I am morphing into Kay Smallshaw after all. What am I trying to prove, I wonder? I know I can do it but it is to the exclusion of all else I once enjoyed and at the end of the day, the daily round is mind-numbingly, back-achingly, relentlessly, finish-it-all-only-to-start-again DULL.

As for my aspiration to be a Hong Kong princess, the tiara has definitely slipped. Let’s just say that for now she’s more Cinderella than Sleeping Beauty.

Red Sky at Night

We’re playing a game. We begin a common phrase or saying and the children have to guess the last word.

Two many cooks spoil the.... “Books?” suggests our eldest.
Every cloud has a silver… “Lining!” shouts the seven year old.
One, two, buckle my…. “Shoe!” yells the four year old.
Red sky at night, shepherds’…. “PIE!” triumphs the two year old.

Out of Darkness Comes Light

While other families enjoy a lie in or a leisurely breakfast our Sunday morning rush (rugby kit x 3, water, sun cream, mosquito repellent, picnic rug, sunhats, mouth guards, shoes on) is caused in part by my own selfish wish to be dropped off at church before the others go on to Valley Fort.


St Stephen’s Chapel stands in the grounds of St Stephen’s College, a one time Anglican mission school established in Stanley during the early years of the last century. During the war the College was used as a hospital but on Christmas Day 1941 the invading troops entered it and killed many of the patients and staff. After Hong Kong's surrender the College became an internment camp for civilians. The Chapel itself was built in 1950 as a memorial to all those who suffered and died in the College during the invasion and subsequent internment.

The first time I attend I introduce myself to the vicar on the door.
“I’m from the Parish of Putney.”
“Oh Giles Fraser” he responds. “I read him in the Sunday Times.”
“Yes, the controversial Giles Fraser.” I say. “But actually I’m from All Saints, on the Common, the other end of the Parish.” I don’t add how dear it is to me and how much I am missing it. He doesn’t need to know how sad I am.

While the boys knock themselves about on the rugby pitches St Stephen’s Chapel offers me a little patch of personal peace. A simple square chapel with few adornments, arched windows, terracotta floor tiles and wooden pews. Dappled sunshine pours in through the flame trees outside and through the stained glass figure of St Stephen himself. It is light and airy. There is a pipe organ and ceiling fans hang from the high white rafters. The walls of the chapel are hung, not with tapestries or religious paintings, but with mattresses. Mattresses covered with cream brocade sheets.

Sunday is a day of rest and enjoying the peace and quiet I sit and ponder; why are there mattresses on the chapel walls? In the pew in front is a mother with a young son and a beautiful voice. If I shut my eyes and mouth the words I can pretend it is I who sings with a voice from heaven.

This morning, to my alarm, the visiting vicar faints during the service. Three anxious women rush forward to revive her. In the dash to be a Good Samaritan, I do not remember the mattresses.

I take my two year old daughter with me to church today. My little patch of personal peace thus reduced she climbs into my lap and nestles into my chest and I give thanks for her safe return.

Back on her feet the visiting vicar preaches, out of darkness comes light. She smiles at me and I think, this is relevant both for you and for me.

Missing Iona

Stanley Market is a favourite with the children. A veritable rabbit warren of small lanes and dark alleyways lined with narrow, open-fronted retail outlets, they beg us to bring them here to spend their pocket money. The shops snuggle together cheek by jowl whilst the hanging wares intermingle at the entrances as they flutter in the breeze; clothes, linen, jewellery, lanterns, souvenirs, toys, shoes, sports equipment, handbags, hair slides, pashminas and paintings.

My little girl takes me by the hand and points, “Want pretty dress.” I can’t fault her taste. She tries it on and marches confidently out of the shop while I pay, marvelling at the bargain for a genuine label or a genuine label copy. At that price who cares?

We follow her into the crowded lane. It is crammed with browsing tourists who move like sluggish brack water along the street. Keeping sight of all the children is hard. It is some minutes before I realise I can’t see my daughter. I press on, calling her name and peering into the shops as I pass. My husband retraces our steps back to the dress shop. The older boys catch on and run ahead to conduct their own shop by shop search. I hope they won’t get distracted by Pokemon cards but they return and to my dismay say she isn’t there. I take my four year old very firmly by the hand. It would be just my luck to lose two children in one day. We meet my husband coming back the other way. He shakes his head. This is every mother’s nightmare; it’s been ten minutes, maybe more. My blue-eyed, golden-haired girl is gone, and I have lost her in a street market with a hundred tiny shops and a thousand concealing pashminas.

In the shop where we bought her dress I grab an identical one and implore the assistant to remember if she has seen the little girl who left wearing this dress. Another customer hears and says they saw her heading down the lane but in the opposite direction to the one we took. I fling down the dress, command my boys to move from the spot on pain of death and run. Pushing through the crowds, shouting her name. How long does it take to lose a daughter? No time at all.

Faced with a choice of streets, I choose the way we came. I am wrong. Blank faces look up to see a desperate mother fly past calling for her daughter. Too much time has passed. Panic is rising in my chest. How to raise the alarm in the streets of a thousand shopkeepers when I don’t even speak their language? Someone catches me up and points back the way I’ve come, says something about the police. I run back and see a crowd of anxious onlookers. In their midst is an officer and in his arms, smiling away, is my baby girl in her new dress. I fold her into my arms and weep tears of relief and joy into her warm little neck. "I thought I’d lost you." I say. "Was gone. Was lost." She tells me. "Where were you?" I ask, hoping for a clue. "Clapping at lanterns," she beams.

Dim Sum

We go to eat in a Dim Sum Tea House. My husband, who’s done this before, takes charge of the ordering while I throw in a few additional suggestions for good measure. When the food arrives in steaming bamboo baskets the children go very quiet and look on, curious yet disbelieving as we lift the lids.

To preempt the normal cries of “Errghhh, yuk! I’m not eating that!” we have ordered egg fried rice and stir fried vegetables for the children. Our four year old gags on the vegetables because they are green but happily eats his way through giant prawn wonton. Our nine year old bravely agrees to try the crystal prawn dumpling and will say only that it’s “Interesting.” Mostly however they use the chopsticks to play xylophone on the tea cups and charm the waitress into not noticing the mess they are making.

Dim Sum, a Cantonese speciality, is meant to be eaten with pots of Chinese tea for breakfast or lunch but arriving dehydrated from our ill-planned hike we gulp down water. I have been longing to sample it ever since we arrived but I have to admit the slimy translucent parcels do not look quite as appetising as I’d anticipated and picking then up with chopsticks is a skill which eludes me totally. One dumpling is too big to put in whole and my chopsticks don't appear to have a cutting edge.


My husband’s choices are spot on; steamed shrimp and vegetable dumpling, “Char Siu Bau” or barbecued pork bun, and glutinous rice and chicken wrapped with lotus leaf which even the children enjoy. My own selection of steamed mushroom and salty fish dumpling tastes and smells like the scrapings off the bottom of someone’s feet and I am thus relieved I didn’t insist on the crispy miced [sic] fish cake. I make a mental note to leave the ordering to my Dim Sum savvy hubby next time.

Hong Kong Hikes

I happen to mention I am missing the green spaces of home. A long-termer suggests we go on a hike. It isn’t hiking I’m missing. I didn’t hike round my garden in London after all, it’s barely big enough to sunbathe in. Nor did I hike on the Common; more often than not I sat on a picnic blanket drinking tea with my Lovely Neighbour while we watched our children exercise themselves. Yet going on a hike is the challenge thrown down to all those inclined to think that Hong Kong is a bit of a concrete jungle.

We went on a hike.

It starts innocently enough, downhill, along a road and through the Tai Tam Nature Reserve. We could have brought the buggy, so tame is this hike. We cross a reservoir or two and must have taken a wrong turn for each time we see a “You are here” arrow on map we are not where we want to be. We cross another reservoir and take a right turn along its eastern shore hoping to get back on track. Suddenly the walk becomes more Indiana Jones than Sound of Music. We scramble up and down along a narrow dirt path, crossing dry riverbeds on make-do stepping stones, whilst looking nervously at the signs telling us to “Beware Flash Floods”.

The boys bound ahead like puppies and remembering a recent tale I heard of a python in a Hong Kong garden which ate the neighbour’s cocker spaniel, I say to my husband, “What about S-N-A-K-E-S?” “Quite,” he says, “You’d better go ahead.”

“Why are you going in front?” ask the boys and without thinking I say,
“In case of mines.” Only then do I wonder if mention of L-A-N-D-M-I-N-E-S might actually be more scary to them than mention of S-N-A-K-E-S.

My eldest son says, “Do you think we might actually fall down a mine shaft Mummy?” and I can't help smiling for he is right there with me in Indiana Jones country. “Well, not really,” I say, “But if we do, Daddy would like me to go first.”

In true form we have not taken the day’s activity seriously enough. We have no map and, as soon becomes evident, too little water. My husband has to carry our two and a half year old daughter in a ruck sack more suited to a 10 month old. He is working harder than the rest of us and I insist he gets the lion’s share of the remaining water. The going is rocky, rough and narrow. We are eaten alive by mosquitos and as usual it’s too hot. It's a good thing we didn't bring the buggy.

I hear snakelike movement in the undergrowth on the bank beside me. “What was that?” chorus the boys. "Oh, just a lizard or something." I say. “Big lizard” says my eldest.

Let’s hope it slips down the mine shaft before we do, I think.

More Equestrian Events

My pet-loving, cuddly toy obsessed seven year old announced he wanted to learn to ride. I rashly agreed to go too, wondering as I did, why in four years of living in London we had never taken advantage of either Richmond Park or Wimbledon Common to get him on a horse. It all seemed so urban at the time but now we know that horses love skyscrapers, Hong Kong is an obvious place to start.

Riding is one hell of a kit sport. We traipsed to Kowloon in search of a tiny saddlery shop tucked away on the 17th floor of one more skyscraper. I needed jodhpurs and was inclined to insist on lightweight ones. I eventually found some which are, I suspect, produced for the local market as they only reach to mid-calf on me but under boots who’s to know.

More surprising than the length is the effect they have on my “seat” (technical riding term of course) when I sit down. A seam which runs up the back of my thigh (think seamed stockings, on second thoughts, don't) then dissects my behind and returns down the other thigh. This has the bizarre and not entirely comfortable effect of dividing my butt into its more and less fleshy parts thereby creating a natural cushion. I was under the impression my backside was fleshy enough but this was clearly not the case and, courtesy of my eye-wateringly expensive new jodhpurs, I now have an additional padded area made up on my own excessive and malleable spare flesh on which to sit. I’m not quite sure if it is I or the horse who benefits from all this but if it is the horse I think he might offer to help out with the expense.

We met at school, I already feeling very conspicuous in too short, bum-dividing jodhpurs. Fortunately we found the right bus, snuck on and sat down. What a comfortable bus, I thought. But no, it was my own redistributed padding I was benefiting from whilst everyone else sat on hard seats. I must remember to wear my new jodhpurs when we next go on a picnic.

We set off. There were a number of young girls asking each other if they could canter. I can but thought perhaps I wouldn't admit to it just yet. Then again, when they spot my jodhpurs they’ll doubtless assume I’ve turned up late for the Olympics. Or else that I’m one of those, all-the-gear-no-idea-types you see on the ski-slopes, like, well, like me in fact.

The bus took us almost to China. Just short of the Lok Ma Chau crossing to Shenzhen we drew into the Lo Wu Saddle Club. Our mounts were ready for us. I’d been told they were mostly ex-race horses, one time property of the Hong Kong Jockey Club and in view of our recent outing to Happy Valley I was not convinced I was ready to be raced over the border to Guangdong. Besides, I hadn’t bought my passport.

Ben’s was called Abo. Mine was called Prodigy. Ben’s was the oldest pony in Hong Kong. Mine was surely the most stubborn, prodigiously stubborn in fact. Nor was he in the least impressed by my jodhpurs and told me he certainly wouldn’t consider contributing to the cost.

Ben loved it and wants to come again. He did “round the world” and rode without a leading rein. I am reserving judgement, as are those leg muscles which have spent the last four years in retirement. Ask me tomorrow.

A Night at the Races

Every Wednesday evening Hong Kong’s Happy Valley is floodlit for the races. For those of you who think flat racing goes on only in the suburban or semi-rural surrounds of places such as Ascot, Epsom or Newmarket, think again. Hong Kong is the new equine capital and the perfect place for a flutter on the nags.

Happy Valley racecourse is built on a one time swamp. The British spotted its potential as a racing venue in 1845 and threw out the local rice growers, it being the only space on the island flat enough to race a horse. It is now surrounded by skyscrapers.

Whilst the horses may wonder what has happened to the trees, I find myself wondering if local residents watch the horses from their living rooms on the 37th floor. Do you move to Happy Valley because you love horse-racing or do you secure a nice flat and on moving in say to your beloved, “Gosh, look at the view Darling, I can just make out 14 horses racing round a swamp!” Without doubt it is the best tended grass in the whole of Hong Kong. I rather wish they’d let my boys play football on it between race nights but my husband says it is sacred turf and that football might spoil it. I expect the galloping horses take their shoes off before they enter.

We took seats on a high balcony where for less than a tenner we were entitled to drinks and the half-buffet supper. I was rather intrigued by the half-buffet. Where was the other half? And was it better than our half?

We had requested seats in the open air but this is far from being the norm if you are Chinese and committed to gambling as many appear to be. In 2007/08 betting turnover from horse racing alone was HK$68 billion.

In the comfortable air-conditioned interior behind our balcony there were a variety of seating arrangements; some like aeroplane seats in rows facing the in-flight entertainment and others, more exclusive, with small screens attached to the table tops so you can face your partner over dinner and glance sideways to see who won the Anniversary Cup, or more importantly, if you won squillions of dollars on your last bet. These gamblers give the impression they spend a night at the races without even seeing a horse for, spread out over the tables and chair arms are newspapers and sheets of information, racing odds and betting guides. Hard-core types pour over their statistics tracking the performance of horses with extraordinary names and working out if the odds are more favourable for a quinella, a tierce or a trio bet.

Quite different is the atmosphere at ground level. It is from here that the expat spectators choose to view the races and each other. A buzzing social scene exists around the various hospitality tents and bars where sleek, long-legged fillies toss their manes and vie for the attention of thoroughbred males.

I tried a number of tactics to win the cost of a flight home to London; selecting first the horse’s name I liked most and then the one I liked least. Getting more technical as the night went on; I tried track work rating, horse win statistics, trainer and jockey. All to no avail. Then we ventured downstairs to the paddock and took a look at close quarters. My friend who knows about horses said they ought to look as though they’ll fly. If they do it’ll give the residents on the 37th floor a shock, I thought.

We left a few dollars out of pocket having won not a bean. Fortunately the huge sums I had assumed we were gambling turned out to be very small, courtesy of the 14:1 exchange rate. Having won nothing I wondered how on earth I could get addicted. But then again, I might have more luck next time….

Immigration Problems

I have to visit immigration to pick up some forms. This is easy. Hong Kong’s Immigration Department is housed at Immigration Tower which is clearly labelled with big white letters on the outside of the building so that new arrivals like me know exactly where to go.

On the seventeenth floor with my fair haired boys in tow I walk through crowds of seated Filipinas who eye us suspiciously. They know we are not in the right place. Then we find out we are not in the right place.

In Hong Kong lifts are selective in the floors they visit. I have already understood that this can be useful when travelling to the upper floors of a skyscraper; you climb in at G and the lift whisks you straight up to floors upwards of 30, ensuring your meteoric rise to the top of a building gets off to an uninterrupted start. Those who want floors below 30 get their own dedicated lift and are saved the scowls and irritation of those headed for greater heights.

What I haven’t yet grasped is why some lifts only serve the odd floors and others the evens. This is the case in Immigration Tower which meant we had a problem – how to get from the 17th floor back down to the 2nd?

I suggest we go down to the 3rd floor and take the escalator. On the third floor we can’t see an escalator. Growing nervous of that determined look in their mother’s eye the children suggest we go down to G in the “odds” lift and then return to the 2nd floor in the “evens”. But I have spotted the emergency exit.

I push open one fire door and then a second and hustle the boys inside hoping to silence the alarm we have activated by opening the doors. As we turn to survey our new surroundings the door slams behind us. The alarm does not stop ringing. I try the door handle hoping we might go back and use the lift after all. Locked. Ben goes upstairs to try the door one floor above. He returns looking worried. We go down two flights to the second floor only to find the exit there is equally locked.

Returning to the 3rd floor I hope someone might have seen us going in and be on the lookout for three displaced Brits. For a while the three of us wave frantically through a tiny glass window in the vain hope that we might be spotted through a second and equally small glass window by a clerk who is sitting some distance away across the floor and behind soundproofed glass. I am not really surprised when she doesn’t see us. There is a deafening alarm ringing through the whole building, at least on our side of the door, and no one has batted an eye-lid, why should three excited wavers make the difference. And anyway, if she did see us, she might think we were waving, not drowning.

We are drowning in the hottest staircase in Hong Kong. There are no windows and the doors are all locked and no-one knows we are here. Perhaps we will find the dried remains of other immigrants who got impatient with the lifts and lost their way. Perhaps dehydrating those who are not clever enough to navigate their way round Immigration Tower is one way of limiting immigration. I have clearly failed the intelligence test and deserve to be sent home. I vaguely wonder if I told my husband at breakfast where we were going today and, if I did, was he listening?

We head down. As usual when I’m trying to disguise the fact we are in a mess of my own making I get the giggles. The children are not fooled by my telling them this is a great adventure and Ben grows decidedly agitated.

Deep in the bowels of the building we find another fire exit. It’s the end of the road. The fact that we have not yet stumbled over the remains of any desiccated immigrants makes me think this might be the way out. I push the bar down and instantly set off another alarm but we are beyond caring and so is everybody else, if they ever did.

We find ourselves in a lower ground area entirely enclosed by a high spiked fence. I suspect it is to keep illegal immigrants out. Little do they realise what a good job they’re doing at keeping illegal immigrants in. I wonder if we have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. The area is baking under the midday sun and there is no shade. Might we be discovered in three weeks time shrivelled up on the cement floor?

I cannot show the boys that I too am getting anxious. We attempt a circumnavigation of Immigration Tower and are fortunate to find a curtained window of a basement room which has a light coming from inside. Before us is a large high steel gate. I bang on the window hoping to attract the attention of a cleaner or a security guard. It has not escaped my notice that we have probably been observed by the latter on various CCTV screens so maybe they won’t even be that surprised to see us. Perhaps we will be welcomed in, covered in foil wraps and given cups of sweet tea. As I bang and call Calum and Ben open the large security gate and walk out, too embarrassed by their mother’s antics to hang around for one moment longer. Half suspecting they may feel inclined to close the gate behind them and abandon their rubbish mother I give the bemused looking cleaner a friendly wave and quickly follow.

We are back in the forecourt beneath Immigration Tower and I still have to get what we came for. The boys beg me to take the escalator and on the second floor I grab our forms and beat a hasty retreat.