Welcome home, Eve-style

I've not had the best week of my life over the past week. Too detailed and too personal to go into here, but needless to say it involved an urgent dash halfway across the world to London and visiting hospitals. Always the worst fear for any expat who is miles away from their family.

This was also the first time that I had been away from Eve for more than a few days. And the first time on a weekend. I cried when I left home to go to the airport, forcing the Boy to promise to skype me in London before Eve went to bed every night. In the end it was fine. Eve got away with murder while I was away. Exhibit A - a weekend phone call home.

Me "Hello, where are you?"
Boy "In a shop"
Me "I can hear Eve in the background talking about Upsy Daisy, shouldn't she be having a nap right now?"
Boy "I asked her about a nap and she said that she didn't want one"

Hmm, so that's OK then! Eve also wants to ride my motorbike and drive the car but I hope to goodness he didn't let her do those while I was away. In all seriousness, the Boy made a great single Dad and both seemed to have lots of fun without me. That said, I hoped that when I got home Eve would be pleased to see me back.

I purposely walked into the flat, fresh off my flight back to HK, gifts in hand. Whereupon Eve took one look at me, nearly burst into tears and cried "But Mummy, I was about to go to the playground!". After five minutes of gentle reassuring that we would still go and I would come too, and the presentation of the Harrods westie dog in his own bag (thereby combining two of Eve's favourite things in one gift - a fluffy dog and a handbag), I got a huge cuddle and off we went to play on the slide.

When the wheels fall off... the track wheel that is

I don't have much patience for whinging (or gossip, but that's another story). I had lunch today with K, a feisty colleague who is Mum to not one but two gorgeous little girls. K, being the efficient lass that she is, popped them both out at once too. We were talking about someone she knows who is pregnant for the third time and has taken to her Mum's house for the last trimester because she's a bit tired and needs to lie down. Ah, bless. K and I both scoffed at this lack of gumption, us being both of a certain nationality and certain type of upbringing where complaining is seen as a sign of weakness and is punishable by death.

However, I confess that today I feel a lot like complaining. My life is starting to feel like a conveyor belt that seems to be getting faster and faster. I never much liked the Generation Game, I have found something inherently scary about Bruce Forsyth since I was a small child, but I am increasingly finding myself shouting the working Mum equivalent of "teasmaid, TV, hockey stick, cuddly toy" at my life as I desperately try to remember everything I need to do.

So, this morning, for the first time in my career I found myself late to a meeting. Not just a bit late, but full on halfanhourlateanditswithmybossandlotsofimportantpeopleshit late. The cause? My Blackberry broke last night. My life is now organised to the millisecond and if I don't have something to write it all down in and flash and vibrate at me violently to remind me to be somewhere then my life simply stops. Everything goes into my Blackberry, I even put my Sunday school teaching dates into it. Without it to organise my life I am lost.

My assistant called IT to get it fixed this morning, I couldn't bear to call and she had to prise my fingers off it. Someone came and took my broken little device away, and as I wept and made the man from IT to promise me that he wouldn't leave me on my own for too long, I realised the only option is to cancel all meetings for two days until I get the new one.

Stuck inside

A typhoon is about to hit HK (well, maybe, if it can make up its mind where it is going). This is annoying because I have my big rowing races this weekend. The ones for which I have given up my life for over the past 5 months of hard training and dragged myself kicking and screaming countless times onto an ergo. These are the races where all the good international crews come to race. Chinese national crew anyone? But now it is likely to be called off and, well, that's all folks.

However, considering one of the news reports I read today called the oncoming super-typhoon Megi "more powerful than Katrina" I think that come Saturday I will have more to worry about than a rowing race. Thankfully HK is pretty well prepared for this sort of thing - even if it is going to be much, much worse than the normal typhoons that hit.

H, our nanny will be going out tomorrow to panic buy food and I am going to panic buy Disney and Dreamworks DVDs.

The Boy, typically, is flying out of HK tomorrow to go off rowing in the US, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Mummy rant

It's been over a month since I updated this. In my defence this is my busiest time of the year when I am trying to train for two big races in the next month, write a strategic plan for my team, have a full time job AND be a Mummy that Eve recognises as someone who is involved in her life wearing anything other than sweaty rowing kit or a business suit.

It is usually this time of year that the work/life dilemma looms large and I get to the point where I realise that I simply can't fit everything in. This normally results in me deciding that the only thing to be done is give up work and be an expat wife. Or move to another country. I think both would be slightly extreme responses and the more sensible one would be simply to take on a bit less (I have now added being a Sunday school teacher to my extra curricula activities).

However, for a really extreme response see the below email that was sent out by a parent of a child from Eve's class in reply to an invitation by another to meet for coffee mid-week, when any working Mum is in the office. I'm not sure whether she is taking the piss, had a few drinks too many and let rip, or is really angry enough to send this email to a bunch of parents she has never met. Or all of the above. A few names and locations changed to protect those involved.

"I'm Alice's mom. I would love to come but I tragically have to go to work. I recently discovered that I hate working and I want nothing more than being a stay at home mom, as its so much more fulfilling than the unintellectually stimulating crap I'm doing now. Unfortunately I am in the middle of a project and I can't really leave until February. So as much as I would love to join you, I'm afraid instead that I have to be in my horrible little office carrying out pointless work. Please have a coffee on me and let me know about any weekend playdates, I would love to come along. God I can't wait to resign and be there for my kids."

The real meaning of soap box

Short update on the local election. As election day nears (5th September) the wavers and bowers are out in force. On my way to church today both Paul and Ellis were standing at the same junction waving. I note that Ellis has stopped bowing now, although it was a rather hot day today. It has taken the whole competitive side of the election to a new level when both candidates' waving abilities can be judged side by side.

Clearly, however, the Ellis camp felt they were losing out because on my way home this afternoon I noticed Ellis seemed somewhat taller. A closer look showed that he was, in fact, standing on a blue plastic box.

You couldn't make it up.

Boys and girls bits

Eve has a little friend in the playground, M. He is 4 and his little bother is Eve's age. M is quite taken with Eve and Eve is rather taken with M. He is quite a boisterous little boy, but very gentle and kind to Eve. I think it might help that she is the same height as he is.

We were in the playground yesterday and the three of them were playing together. M needed a wee and ran over to the gutter, pulled down his pants, and had a wee. Eve, wanting to copy everything he does, then went over to the gutter and pulled down her knickers. Quickly running over to pull them up, I explained to her that girls have to wee on the toilet. She initially seemed suspicious, but after some reinforcement by M's nanny, Eve asked to go to the loo. There are loos in the swimming pool by the playground and M insisted on coming with us.

When we got there, however, Eve refused to let me pick her up and pop her on the loo and screamed that she wanted to wee standing up. She had a complete tantrum over it. I explained that girls can't wee standing up because boys have a willy and girls don't. She started to scream louder. Whereupon I looked next to me to see that M had pulled out his willy, held it out so Eve and I could see and said proudly "see this is a willy, and you don't have one".

Eve went quiet, absorbed this piece of factual reality, turned around and sat on the loo.

He who bows lowest

A slight diversion from Mummy chat for a moment to explain a strange phenomenon occurring in Pokfulam (the suburb where we live). We are currently in the run up to a local election for a seat on the district council.

The seat was formerly occupied by Ronnie Chan (now gone to work as a government advisor). Ronnie started a new method of connecting with the electorate by standing with big banners at the junction of my apartment complex and the main road and waving all day. He was the only candidate we ever saw. Our apartment complex has around 1,000 apartments. The equivalent complex just below us about the same. So some clever election analyst figured out that dear Ronnie could capture around 4,000 voters by simply standing in one place all day. Ronnie won the election by a landslide.

This might sound a bit facile but there are few differences in policy platform between the parties. They tend to be either democrats (whose main angle is universal suffrage for HK, because we don't actually have it yet) or the pro-Beijing parties (who don't want it, or only in a form that could never challenge the mainland government). In reality all important decisions in HK are made up of a largely unelected bunch of people at a city-wide level, so the district council hasn't got much impact. Therefore, it is more like a school election popularity contest than a sensible election.

For this election we have two democrat candidates. I think the pro-Beijing ones have largely given up on our district, which is mainly expat and middle-class Chinese. Both candidates have adopted Ronnie's approach and placed themselves strategically at points to gain maximum awareness.

Initially I was impressed by Ellis. Not only does he stand there all day, but he adds a bow to every passing car. Not just any bow either, but full ninety degrees bend at the waist bow. He does this to every car. I was impressed and had decided that he would get my vote.

However, over time we have seen less of Ellis and he seems to have been replaced by supporters who just wave. I would rather see Ellis, it shows a sense of commitment, but at least if he is going to send a replacement then they should also adopt the bow.

Feeling somewhat let down, this morning I was on the bike on my way back from circuits to find our other candidate, Paul, setting up his own stand. This was 7am and he was doing it himself. Not just sending some student supporter to get his banners ready, but doing it himself. Ellis doesn't do that!

So now I find myself conflicted.

That said, I've not yet filled in the permanent residency forms so I am not actually entitled to vote. But that doesn't stop me taking this whole election process terribly seriously.