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safe in bangkok and relaxing before dinner in the thai restaurant downstairs. flight was 45 minutes late but otherwise painless. i contacted the hotel to arrange for some birthday flowers for rachel, and the awesome peninsula staff also left a chocolate birthday cake in the room... and upgraded us to a high-floor apartment with a gorgeous view of the river - awesome!
with all of the baby and birthday talk, it's easy to forget about our two little (well, one little and one large) housemates, ben and poppy. for your viewing pleasure here are the rascals. first is poppy looking out the window on sunday, and the second is the bigger version of yesterday's ben photo - where he's looking at us on the balcony from inside, wondering how on earth we managed to get on the other side of the window. the look of confusion on his face is classic:
sitting in a café having a hot chocolate waiting for our excellent yet rather unreliable obstetrician to arrive at his surgery. my work office location sucks for many reasons, but this is a big one. 20 min taxi to central and if the appointment is delayed (which it usually is), i have to kill time in town and end up losing half a day's work. plus, there is a boneheaded chinese businessman at the table next to mine who is yelling down his phone oblivious to the rest of the café patrons who are quietly enjoying a peaceful afternoon in what was (until 5 mins ago) a nice quiet café.
here's a stealth photo of bonehead:
honestly, the sheer incompetence and crappiness of hong kong supermarkets is sometimes astonishing. today i went to get a salad that had chicken slices, lettuce, some dressing and - a little weirdly - some ravioli on it. the salad was simply called "chicken salad with ravioli", and i just wanted to know what sort of ravioli it was. "excuse me, what sort of ravioli is that?"
*blank look*
"um, can you please tell me what's in the ravioli?" [i pointed to the pieces of ravioli]
*blank look* *reads the sticker on the back*
[handing me the box] "yes."
good grief.
busy week this week - appointment with the ob dude this afternoon for a scan and checkup (rachel not me), antenatal classes on wednesday, hedge fund fight night to watch alex box on thursday, and then the bledisloe cup rugby match on saturday. our seats appear to be pretty much on the halfway - sweet!
just back from singapore from the apaa conference (bunch of patent lawyers from around the world gathering to talk and socialise). i'm absolutely shattered and am looking forward to a good sleep tonight. there was a social event each night (including tonight - i'm missing it) and i even got up at 5:45am on monday to play golf - eeek. had a great day - although in 35 degree heat it was a sweaty day. met some cool people there and also around and about during the conference, and might even go again one day (well, actually it's in hong kong next year, so i probably will be there) met up with kirstie and robin on monday night for supper at their place and had to go at 9:45pm when i started to doze on their couch. oops. saw arabella and paddy for lunch on saturday, and am pleased to see that arabella has a cracking 'evil laugh' now..
a few little photos - charlie, penny, view from the plane today:
got home this afternoon after a pretty decent flight from heathrow. we had a tough final day in london, with penny, charlie, tim, sarah and me all getting sick on the last day (rachel felt a bit icky, but didn't have the 'symptoms' that the others exhibited). poor little charlie was in a really bad way when we left, and was about to go and see his doctor - although sarah let us know that he was on the mend this afternoon. the flight was sweet - the flight was full so we didn't get our points upgrades, but we had exit row seats reserved so despite being the gathering place for people waiting for the toilet, we had an absolute load of legroom. we even had the seat next to us free, but someone pounced on it shortly after takeoff.
the cats have forgiven us for ditching them for so long, and poppy has even had his first couch cuddle with rachel.
i have a load of photos to download, but they can wait. here are some that i took on my phone. in order: rachel and penny, rachel on the london eye, charlie in wandsworth common (with sarah and penny in the background), rachel and tim consulting the london a to z while charlie takes in cbeebies, and sam and katy in edinburgh.
