Readers will know of my long service as captain of a high-speed ferry operating between Hong Kong and Macau and now the project we all used to dread (as it would lead to our redundancy) is now actually in progress and due to be completed in six years time. The following is from ‘The Independent’ and I thank my son Jay for sending it to me.
“Couples wander along Lovers’ Promenade in Zhuhai, taking photographs against the backdrop of the gambling enclave of Macau, enjoying the view of the South China Sea.
But within sight of the skyscrapers and casinos of Macau, a major transformation is taking place, and in six years’ time when the couples look out, their holiday snaps will have a backdrop of the longest sea bridge in the world.
Building work has just started on the 30-mile Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, which will link China’s southern economic hub of Guangdong province to Hong Kong and Macau.
The scale is breathtaking. The bridge is one of the most technically complicated landmark projects in China’s, and the world’s, transport history. Not many bridges, for example, include a tunnel section that travels underwater. And it will bring economic ties closer in the region, underlining the Pearl River Delta’s status as one of the world’s great economic powerhouses.”
Backache somewhat diminished today after the ministrations of Miko, whose agonising rub cures most such things in combination with tablets she had left over from her own muscle strain last year. By these means a visit to the doctor’s office has been forestalled. Nevertheless walking was a bit painful and so Leo had his early morning stroll curtailed for once, which was just as well, for against the season’s predictions it rained solidly for half-an-hour soon after we got back home.
I haven’t said anything lately about Thailand’s fragile political peace. The following from Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper is self-explanatory.
Suthep expects turbulence by red shirts around 19-26 Feb
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban Saturday told his party meeting that he expected the red shirt protesters to go wild and use violent protests during February 19 to 26.
Suthep said he expected the red-shirt protesters would use all forms of violence to try topple the government and bring back former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
– The Nation 2010-01-23
I had a hack of tennis yesterday afternoon with the Wanderers at the Sheraton’s courts. Once again attempting a foolhardy and over-optimistic response to a well-placed ball on the tramlines. I ended up bouncing off the fence and this morning I found I was quite unable to reach down to put my socks on. Before that tennis crash I had my annual ‘flu vaccine and my doddering is accompanied by non-musical sneezes and coughs. Ah well…
Readers of this journal will recall the very old man, Loong, an inshore fisherman all his life based at the Rama Vl fishing village who laid his boat up on the lake foreshore last year when the fisherman’s life became a bit much for him.
I always keep eye out for him and his boat when Leo and I make our dawn excursions around the breakwaters, and today we saw his boat now a pristine member of the local fleet once again. I didn’t see Loong himself pottering a round as he usually does, but it seems as if he’s passed the boat on to a family member or else finally sold it. It was good to see that the boat’s making a living for someone once again.
Notice Loong’s boat and the one moored next to it are both wearing garlands on the stem-post. A sign that blessing and commissioning ceremonies must have been done recently by the local monks.
I find it quite difficult to catch up with this journal when I’ve been away from it, but here goes…
The most important thing is keeping healthy, and I’m happy to say that Miko, Leo and I remain in good shape. She came back from a three day visit to son Ek in his Buddhist temple in the remote east of Thailand earlier this week, bringing back a fine video of the trip for me which made enlightening viewing. The temple scenes were marked by a rural tranquillity only punctuated by the unceasing crowing of a cockerel. The accommodation was basic, but very clean, and if you didn’t know, it is endemic among Thais to sleep quite happily on the floor.
There are only seven monks in this particular temple, which has a fairly spartan regime so far as I could tell, although local villagers come to do manual work in the gardens and grounds, and there is a handful of white-clad ‘Mair Chees’ (Nuns) in a nearby convent who come in to do the cooking. Most weeks a busload of children come for Buddhist educational lessons from the monks, and they too sleep on the floor in long rows in the guest shelter. Everyone is asleep soon after sundown in preparation for a 3 a.m. call (by the cockerel) to prepare for morning prayers that are chanted in the main hall.
My own son Ben was in Copenhagen to cover the the Climate Change Summit for his magazine, and was accommodated in far greater comfort aboard a large modern ocean ferry in the harbour. He tells me that after the late closing of the final conference he luckily managed to get up in time to get ashore and thus avoided waking up in the freezing Faeroes.
Here it is also wintertime, which is the very best season, something like the best of an English summer, and Leo shoots off ahead of me in the country park to roll in the grass out of sheer joy.
I’ve been giving most of my spare time lately to learning how to do internet journalism (Twitter links to my latest attempts on Associated Content) at the expense of this journal and I apologise herewith. When I’m stuck for time please go to the right hand side to seem my latest ‘Tweet’ where brevity rules of necessity.
We had a most unseasonable Christmas lunch at my own request this year; no roast turkey, nothing special at all, except the Christmas tree, just a big chocolate ice-cream cake that Miko bought me from Swenson’s and there’s still a lot of it left in the fridge under my personal guardianship. This frugality agrees with my conscience as well as my pocket-book.
The best time really was the midnight Christmas Eve carol service at St Theresa’s that Ek was forced to stay awake for, so as to come with us (he’s so much like the fat boy, ‘Joe’, Mr. Wardle’s servant in The Pickwick Papers – an eye on the comestibles when not asleep). The church was packed for a good sing-song with the school choir and rather wobbly orchestra; and there was Lady Noy and Iggy from the tennis group too.
It’s New Year’s Eve (Leo’s 6th birthday) as I write this and we had a glorious day on the beach with him. A fresh breeze had the waves crashing on the foreshore, and Leo braved them joyfully to reach us further out, exalting in the salt spray and the billows for hours on end.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
One wall of our living room is decorated with this year’s Christmas cards, all neatly stuck to strips of long red ribbons flanking the little Christmas tree with its lights that also served us well in Macau. I find the streams of cards a calming and heartening sight as well as a colourful seasonal backdrop; a steady reminder over the holiday season that there are people out there to whom we’re joined in bonds of affection and a shared past of some kind or another.
There is an evil plot to supplant the humble Christmas card with irreverent and irrelevant ‘E-cards’ (‘E’ for Electronic and for ‘E-mail’ I imagine) which I heartily disapprove of, having been at the receiving end of some pretty ghastly ones this year. Although I did succumb two years ago with a subscription to Jacqui Lawson’s (super, in my opinion) versions which just expired. ‘Just as well’, groan some recipients!
I have it in mind to make my first New Year’s resolution a bit early, with a vow to banish ‘E-cards’ next Christmas. They don’t last the twelve days.
