Weekends tend to be an interesting mix of trying to find things to do with the kids, and ferrying them to birthday parties. We started Saturday with a visit to Ap Lei Chau (a small island just off HK Island). There is a large shopping centre there with furniture shops and more importantly for this mission, toy and kids shops. The girls had a ball trying to play with every toy in every shop. Luckily JC didn't find what Mrs M and I called the "aisle of Death", which was 10 metres of Barbie from floor to ceiling. Returned home for the girls nap, only for PB to wake first for a change. I took her for a walk and was happy to witness her first ever golf shot. She sliced a little, but nothing that cannot be fixed in time. I'm looking for an appropriate moniker, something like Tiger, but more feminine. Perhaps Tigress.

That evening we went to some fellow Disneyland inmates' for dinner. As Mrs M pointed out, it is odd to be going out for the night by walking down some steps from our apartment to someone else's place. We ate and chatted and played some board games, which can always be a testing time in a friendship. Luckily both marriages and friendship survived the night, despite some cheating by our opponents. Mrs M gift for working out what my stupid drawings and charades represent meant we proudly held our own.

Sunday there was a charity bazaar at the Disneyland complex. It was smaller than expected with the usual collection of unwanted toys, chutchkas (Mrs M talk for useless bits and pieces) and books. JC played on the jumping castle before she and Mrs M headed to another birthday party. Not before she purchased her very own Barbie balloon of course. This meant PB and I were left to spend some quality time together. We sat on the grass on watched a couple of the acts they had performing. Someone in the crowd passed out, which was dramatic for 5 minutes, but it took 20 for the ambulance to arrive and the drama to pass.

The entertainment started again. Now I can see why as a parent you would be proud and happy to watch little Margie do her ballet. I can even admit that is cute for a couple of minutes. But 45 minutes of it is getting too much; and the clowns were pretty lame too. Thankfully PB also eventually realised the cr@ppiness of what was going on and we left. PB walks everywhere now. This made the 100 metre walk from the bazaar back to our apartment complex take 30 minutes. PB has an unerring sense of which way is the right way to go and then go the other way.

JC returned from her party with another, larger Barbie balloon plus an Elmo balloon for PB. We then headed back to the bazaar for the afternoon, where JC again went on the jumping castle. Interestingly it deflated while she was on it which she thought was great fun. The rest of the afternoon we mucked around on the grass even though the fair finished at 4pm. The girls decided to use the stage to play their newest game, which I like to call "Run around and scream". The rules are simple. Run around. Scream. Fall down. Start over. They play it indoors too, which then leads to another rule - stop when Mummy or Daddy say so. For some reason this rule has not yet been accepted into the game. We returned home and JC and I watched (can you guess) Barbie in Nutcracker, which included us doing our usual flourishing ballet routine at the end. She takes after me in the dainty department I'm afraid.

Now most evenings I take Misti the wonder dog for a quick walk so she can relieve herself before bedtime. Last night we walked to our usual spot, she spent 15 minutes braving the gale force winds sniffing every square inch of the turf before finally doing her thing. Then as we walked back to our apartment we walked past a family getting into a car for the airport. A mobile phone went. I did a double take. The ring was unmistakable. Hava Nagila. Maybe Dr Mahathir meant we rule the world by mobile phone ring, not proxy.