Summing Up Sunday: 6th November

Well, it's seemed like a pretty busy week at 2CC!

J went away with a friend for a couple of days to London, which sounded like great fun. There's a new part to the Tate Modern (the New Tate Modern - imaginative).

Looks amazing outside, huh?

A box of mirrors - you can see J's phone straight opposite. Really cool!

Sam facing Shelob?

The old turbine hall with some sort of sound installation

And inside!

Great food, fancy hotel, good company and kind enough weather. Nice treat for this time of the season. J went to two shows: one about cancer which was a combination of hard and a little cringy/OTT; and Amadeus at the National Theatre. We all love the film, and the actors were amazing. Just found they're doing a live cinema version in February - maybe A and E will get to see it too?

Then, it was A's time for fun and she flew up to see M and wee S in Edinburgh. She's still there 'til Monday, but having a good time in spite of the weather. (She almost lost her watch but miraculously found it - hooray!) They went to 'The Slug' or dynamic earth (we've all been countless times, but it's forever amazing).

See why it's called The Slug?

Unfortunately Edinburgh's high winds meant no fireworks for A&co, but E and J went to Puxton Park at the last minute for a fantastic display. No photos, as it takes away from watching them and, unless you're a professional photographer, they never come out very well anyway. Brilliant display. And a huge bonfire.

Today, J went off to do some apple-juicing at a friend's farmhouse. We still have a lot of apple juice from last year...

And we had our first frost.

How were all your weekends?

Shearing at Fernhill Farm

Last Saturday (by the way we have sheep, in case you hadn't noticed) I opened a Christmas present from A. It was late indeed but it needed to be as it would probably be cruel to shear sheep when it's too cold. So the present was a day at Fernhill Farm (http://www.fernhill-farm.co.uk) to learn how to hand shear. It was organised by the amazing Emma (http://bristoltextilequarter.co.uk) and taught by the amazing Andy.

Andy's story is that he toured the world shearing ten months a year for twenty years, then returned home and bought Fernhill Farm with the proceeds. There, 800 feet above sea level on the windy Mendips he and Jen and their two children (there may have been more, but we met two) have hundreds (or is it thousands?) of sheep, some pigs and some beef. We only saw the sheep.

They were Shetlands! And also some Dorset Polled Horns, and some Blue Faced Leicesters and some Texels used in the usual complex way to produce a variety of types of lambs for a variety of purposes.

One thing that Andy and Jen aim to do really well and really differently than most British farms, is produce beautiful and valuable wool. Hence the Shetlands (who have the finest wool of British sheep breeds). However their fleeces tend to be a bit sparse, so if you  cross them with Blue Face Leicester they retain the fineness and crimp of the Shetland but are bigger sheep with much thicker denser fleeces.

So, we started with a tour of the farm:

Looks chilly? Yes, I suppose so, but not too bad.

Apart from livestock they grow wood of all sorts; here is some willow for weaving:

They have their own BIG series of ponds for purifying water, into the top of which goes waste including sewage, and in the bottom of which grow English crayfish (famous for needing  pure water) and in which one can swim! (But not today, too cold)

They also make shepherds' huts from some of the wood they grow

and look inside!

All farm produced content. Not 100% sure this is a good use of wool though:

This, however, definitely is:

Produced with a peg loom, and demonstrating all the different colours of  Shetland fleece. I'm going to try that.

Then back to the lambing barn where we started

to get down to the serious business of learning how to cut sheep. Without cutting them. No blood please.

Demonstrated by Andy first on his 150kg Polled Dorset ram

Then it was our go, having first donned the specialist footwear:

These are apparently very important. I must not have been listening when we told why, so I can't tell you. Perhaps it's because one moves the sheep around with one's feet and legs, and most of the time they are sitting on one's feet, so they might get snagged on things on normal shoes???

Here's my ewe:

A Shetland or Shetland cross,so nice and small and with a fine easy-to-cut fleece. Or so I hoped.

And that's us about half way through, the camera/phone all sweaty steamy. It's a very hot job shearing, even a small cooperative ewe like this on a relatively cool day!

And finally, a fleece!

Hong Kong visit, October 2013, Tuesday (last day)

Today was the day for visiting the Housing Society, Mum's old employer, where she was a senior manager from 1957 to 1962 (when she had me, and as the habit was in those days, stopped work) and many of whose managers she then taught at the HKU extra-mural department from 1969-1974. S had got hold of Peter Kuk, the communications director, and Wong Lai Chung, a former chief executive who retired in 2008. Wong Lai Chung (she preferred to be called LC) had arranged our day, meeting us at the hotel at 1025am, with a very plush black minivan, driven by a young man with an amazing haircut. We were taken to the far western end of HK, to Kwai Lung Lau estate, which had been designed by our friend Michael Payne and built in 1967.

It was a 5 block estate housing 20,000 people in 5,000 units (approx), until 1998, when a landslide came though the middle of the estate and killed three people. The estate was then redesigned, taking out the middle block, and building two new 40 storey blocks out the front (the original ones are 20 storeys).

 

This is the old estate blocks, showing the hillside where the landslide came down, and the gap created when they tore down the block it had damaged. Note that the buildings are coloured. When built and in our youth they were all "fair faced concrete" which meant uncoloured and naked grey, supposed to be the perfect building material (and still defended as such by Michael Payne).

 

This shows where they cut the building in half, so you can still see the floors and where the corridors would have been.

The dragon mural, created in 1967 by Merilyn Payne (Lung means dragon, so it's part of the name of the estate, I didn't understand the rest of the name, something to do with view of the sea).

View inside one of the 'units' (=flat) in one of the new blocks, where the allowance is six square metres per person, meaning two people to this one room flat. The ones in the old building were a similar size, though with more facilities. When originally built they were for four adults, or two plus four children.

Kitchen area in the new block.

Roof garden in an old block. There was also a community hall on the roof, where Amy, (back to us in this picture) gave us a very informative PowerPoint presentation about the estate. The impression was of a very socially thoughtful and well managed place.

We were then taken to lunch at the Housing Society's offices in Causeway Bay, hosted by Peter Kuk, and where we were joined by four more people who had known Mum, either working with her in the late fifties/early sixties, or having been taught by her. The meal was excellent, and the conversation very interesting. We were impressed and touched by the effort they had put in, especially as tomorrow they are running or attending a seminar for the 65th anniversary of the Society.

After this lunch we were returned to the hotel, where we flaked out for the afternoon, before heading our for our final evening, aiming for the Temple Street market on Kowloon side. We got distracted on the way by eating at the YMCA, then by the famous Hong Kong Harbour sound and light show, which we viewed from the sea front in front of the HK Cultural centre.

It was fun standing in the warm dark watching the boats and lights opposite, but the sound and light show itself (lasers from the tops of some of the buildings and some plinkety plunk music) was pretty medium.

Then Temple Street night market, and back to the hotel for the last time!

Hong Kong visit, October 2013, Monday

A less busy day today, though it started with quite a big thing, going to Tai Long Wan (Big Wave Bay). This was my favourite beach as a child, and quite remote to get to by road, so we didn't go often. As the name implies, there were always big waves, so it was exciting. And I realised that as we're staying in Quarry Bay, at the eastern end of the HK-side of the harbour, we might be quite close going that way round the island. We are, as google maps reveal. There is still no road over the island at the eastern end, but there is a path straight over the ridge 1500 feet??, (seems unlikely but it was certainly a long way and very steep!).

Anyway, I took the MTR all the way to the end at Chai Wan, then found my way through the estates to the massive cemetery that takes up most of the steep hillside here, and sure enough, the path leads straight through  and up up into the forest, over the ridge, and down the other side. From the ridge I could (1) hear the surf, and (2) Big Wave Bay was signposted. Hooray!

The beach was the same, with big climbable rocks either side, and a good continuous roar of surf. Changed were the surfers! (none of them in the 70's) and that there is now a village with a few shops behind the beach. Only my phone to take photos, as I had gone wearing what I could swim in:

I left a bit of a damp patch on the seat in the MTR on the way back, but was out of sight before feeling any embarrassment: I doubt the idea of swimming would have occurred to my fellow passengers.

Then on to the main planned thing for the day, S's arranged visit back to the LRC (Ladies' Recreation Club), kindly facilitated by a young woman in the club management. It has many more facilities than it used to, but the main pool was exactly the same

and the surroundings being jungly:

Then a visit to St John's cathedral, 

 where Joyce and Michael were married, one of the wedding photos and also our christening photos taking place here:

We then crossed Garden Road to the Peak Tram, and after a little debate decided to visit Peak 

school again, as when we went on Saturday it was dark. What a good idea that was (and well done S for being persistent and bothering to ask)! She went in just as the children were coming out at the end of the day, and asked at the office if we could look round. The office manager was entirely welcoming showed us a series of old ledgers that we found our names in, and then allowed us free reign to explore!

The playground has a rain cover and a softer floor:

The classrooms are considerably modernised (interactive white boards, air con instead of fans) but entirely recognisable

(they always were very bright)

The playing field is now all AstroTurf,but the stairs, hall, toilets etc etc seemed pretty much the same.

And finally S and J went for a walk round Harlech/Lugard Road, with its amazing views and jungle canopy effect

Though you can't tell from this picture, the same tree (a rubber tree) is all the roots/trunks on both sides of the road here.

Hong Kong Visit October 2013, Sunday

No run this morning, just a rather longer swim in the hotel pool. Once again I was the only one in it, and I find it a very good way to start the day.

Planning over breakfast (in Starbucks again, we tried Maxims next door, but no WiFi), lead to a decision for a day out on Lantau.

What a day! The rest can be told mainly in pictures.

We took the MTR to Dung Chung (30 mins, the city that used to be a tile roofed village of maybe 20 long houses) from where the cable car takes the easy way over the mighty slopes of west Lantau.

This is the view whilst queuing for the cable car.

 

We quickly leave Dung Chung and climb

and climb

and climb

until eventually we start to see our destination: Bo Lin Buddhist monastery at Ngong Ping.

The peak behind it is Lantau (lan=broken, tau = head, but the rather nicer name is Fung Wong Shan, firebird mountain, with one of the twin peaks being the male firebird (fung) and the other being the female (wong)). It is just over 3,000 feet. I have tried to find out the elevation of the monastery and can't, I'm guessing 1,800. 

The monastery expanded massively with the construction of the big bronze Buddha in the 1990s when it was the biggest in the world. 

In the middle of all the tourist glitz and consumerism the temple seems pretty real.

And then we caught the bus down to Tai O, the most western village on Lantau. It seems to be genuinely a fishing village still,

though catering for tourists too. As soon as we arrived we were invited on a boat ride to see the famous Pearl River pink dolphins, which was fun, though no dolphins, and they also took us up the "main street" of Tai O.

We wandered around the market (mainly dried fish) and took in the very beautiful evening. 

 

There is even a little bit of mangrove, that habitat beloved of geography lessons, which was so plentiful when we were children here, and now is apparently endangered.

The mighty mountain looms over all, and explains why Tai O is still so isolated: it's quite difficult to get to!