This blog could be longer than usual, after the long holiday that we all had. Indeed, most employees would have needed only to take two or three days leave to be away from office or work for nearly two weeks, so that most offices were not quite staffed for any real work during the fortnight….
April has become my birthday month after I found out late in life that I was born on a date other than the one recorded on my Identity Card which has been 7 April from time immemorial and based on which record I turned 75 yesterday. Yesterday was indeed an epochal day. It marked the…
Facebook today invited me to share a picture of me taken 13 years ago to date, which I did. It was one featuring me beside a flowering iron tree or Dracaena fragrans by its botanical name in a friend’s office. I was smiling. When Su saw it, she remarked that I looked very young then,…
Gus said in a group chat today that he would walk the Camino in Spain again in May when he would remember a just dear departed friend who was on the last trip which Gus had organized for us on the French Way to Santiago 11 years ago. I was on that journey too; and…
Once again, I found I was caught up by time and that it was almost a month since I posted my last blog when I mentally thought that I had posted one inspired by the lifting of the masks which by now was nearly three weeks ago. But first, let me recall some significant events…
Before I begin seriously to count the days and as we continue to eat and drink, the first lunar month has slipped through. Today is Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of Lent. In between, we witnessed Hong Kong successfully hosting the long and much awaited Marathon; after one cancelled in 2020 because of the…
The peach blossom branch continuing to show life signs notwithstanding, with green leaves sprouting here and there, we decided to dispose of it three days after Lichun. We would see what happens next year. Meanwhile, eating and drinking continued. Apparently, the opening of the borders had encouraged more people to visit Hong Kong, primarily to…
Today is Lichun, or Beginning of Spring on the Lunar calendar, and marks the first day of the first solar term or jieqi of the Lunar New Year – there are 24 solar terms in each year, six for each of the four seasons – although it is also the 14th day of the first…
Yesterday was the third day of the Chinese New Year and traditionally not a day conducive to harmony, but as my priest Fr Robert Ng often said, as Christians we shouldn’t be obsessed with such matters. We slept late after a late party in a friend’s place at HKU and then prepared ourselves to visit…
Last Wednesday, 11 January, Su had an urge to visit the Hong Kong Wetland Park, which both of us haven’t been to. Indeed, I was not too much aware of its existence. My knowledge and experience of wetlands were limited to the one at Deep Bay which I had visited as an undergrad, bracing the…
