A Hot Summer

I was so darned correct when I predicted more than two weeks ago by now that my last blog would attract very few visits. Indeed, I could count with half of the fingers on one hand. But that was not the reason I haven’t posted anything since, even though I didn’t like such prophetic correctness either. The July that we had just left behind could have been the hottest ever, with long periods of Very Hot Weather Warning in force for some two weeks in a row, and we had the hottest Sunday in July ever in 138 years, with a record high temperature of 36.1 degree Celsius, the Observatory had announced, adding that some areas such as Sheung Shui had recorded 39 degree Celsius.

Meanwhile, the infection figures continued to rise and hover around four to five thousand a day as more friends and acquaintances got infected, resulting in meetings, lunches and dinners having to be cancelled or postponed. July was to be the month in which Rotary clubs organized their change-overs individually and collectively, but the mode of operation had to be varied and I ended up skipping quite a few of these meetings, to be on the safe side. There was an evening, for example, that I had geared up to go to a meeting, but as I was going down the lift in Mei Foo, learnt from a poster in the lift that our block was included in the mandatory testing list, but fortunately not under lockdown mode. So Su and I went for PCR tests in the neighbour tents and skipped the meeting; and we did it in the following week too. We had also stepped up RAT tests. Indeed, we took these tests before and after we attended gatherings, normally dinners. And we were invited to quite a few birthday dinners to mark friends turning 70 or 75 years of age. Last weekend, we had dinners on both Friday and Saturday in Causeway Bay and Wan Chai area; and decided to opt for staycation in Grand Hyatt for two nights, in view of the continuing bad weather. The sky did open up quite often and pour down rain intermittently and without notice, even when we were basking under the sun by the pool. I haven’t gone into a pool for at least two years, and the family area was somewhat crowded without the downpours.

Su continued to shop for goodies for our meals at home; and I had surprises on a few evenings, having to try a few courses of exquisite food in a row over four to five hours, comprising typically beluga caviar, wagyu beef and Alaska king crab, sampled with sake, champagne and malt whiskey. I tried very hard to work off some of the excesses through daily workout after my morning trip to Ricci Hall, but I seemed to be losing out. Was that good life; and did I enjoy it? I certainly enjoyed the process and the food and wine. And I am longing for a week of fasting that I had told myself that I would take up sometime.

At a recent dinner, we met up two friends we haven’t seen for a while. Raymond Chan was a great friend of the late Bill Chow. Indeed, Bill had introduced him to me and into our Lodge. Bill also invited him to our Wedding at St Joseph’s and a reception afterwards. Half way during dinner, Raymond voluntarily told us that he remembered very vividly scenes of our Church Wedding and the gathering at Helena May afterwards. He could also recall where the wedding cake was and the cake cutting. He then asked why he had not been receiving my Year Enders; which apparently, he had enjoyed reading; at which point I suggested that he could have changed his email address, adding that he could catch up by reading my first memoir. Raymond is good sport indeed and thereupon exchanged phone numbers with Su so that he could buy the book from her.  Ko Ying had introduced Alec Tsang and his wife Eliza to us before. They were on the same table and saw the process throughout and Alec volunteered to follow suit. Once again, Su proved her marketing skills, selling off two books in one evening. I should have started writing earlier, and maybe I could become a real author. Back in Mei Foo on Sunday, I autographed the two books and offered to drive Su to SF Express on Lai Chi Kok Road, which was a 3 km round trip, to save her walking in the scorching sun, but before the trip we went on to YouTube to check out the promotion video that Paul Wan had made and posted there in February 2021. It was there and had attracted over 250 views since. We wonder who these people could be.