The weekend started with footy with the lads at the pub, and finished with me having a shower with a woman who was not my wife. And to cap it all off, I had two women in my bed this morning!

Friday night was the start of the Rogby World Cup. We decided it was appropriate to celebrate by joining other Aussies and a couple of English hangers-on at a small pub in Lang Kwai Fong called the Whiskey Priest. The upstairs section comfortable seats 40. There were at least 70 people there. The two people missing for most of the match were the bar staff, making drinks ordering interesting. Something like: "You may as well bring as many beers as you can carry." Australia won. Beer won. Everyone won.

Saturday was dreary but we took advantage of the brief lull to head to the Peak. There is a small outdoor playground where the girls had great fun trying to find new ways to hurt themselves. JC spied the famous "Chippies" sign (known otherwise as McDonald's'), so we headed up for an early lunch. Sitting outside on the terrace, we were quietly enjoying our deep fried meal. It gets quite windy up on the Peak, so a brief gust came through, lifted up the umbrella in the middle of the table, and clipped little PB on the chin. After making our feelings known to the management, all the other umbrellas were also taken down. PB got away with a small scratch and was soon happily munching down the rest of the chips. But a part of me wondered whether this was because of my famous Pret boycott, Maccas owning Pret and all. They bought us off with a few free vouchers but I'll be writing a letter to them this week.

Dropped the girls home for their daytime nap (schulffy time in the household vernacular). Then we had some emergency shopping to do. Not retail therapy. We have some friends who just headed back to Sydney to get married. They asked us to mind the fish. No worries. However the air pump didn't work, so those fish were looking like toilet fodder for sure. A quick trip down to Wan Chai and we found a replacement. Mrs M also started musing about adding to our pet collection by getting a fish tank. This way when we say let's go watch Finding Nemo we can sit JC in front of the tank instead. The quick shopping trip took about 2 hours, as it tends to do. We had to visit a stationary store so Mrs M could obtain the necessary plastic folders and files to re-order our records. I don't want to say she is fixated on this kind of thing, but she certainly knows more about filing than I ever will. I suspect this could be more a woman thing than a man thing. Men tend to be happy just to have assorted piles. Yet I maintain to this day I can find things under my system just as quickly if not more so than Mrs M, with her folders and the like. Sadly, we'll never know because I am too lazy to implement my system. Actually, Mrs M tends to take my system for mess (which it is) and cleans it up. Next we moved on to what can only be called a knick-knack everything mumbo-jumbo store. It had hardware, it had crockery, it had all sorts of things you never know you needed until you see them. Mrs M was in heaven.

Returned to find the girls awake so I offered to take them to the indoor playground. There were twelve adults in the room, and again I was the only parent. The girls had a ball as usual. That evening we headed to a restaurant in Stanley called Lucy's which does European style cooking. Suffice to say most of the clientele are expats. We went with a French couple who arrived in HK the same time we did and who have two kids similar ages to ours. I was busy checking their heads for horns and their tails, but all I could find were two very pleasant and enjoyable dinner companions. The words Iraq, Jacques Chirac and cheese-eating surrender monkeys never came up. Great meal was had by all.

Sunday marked the 1 year Bali anniversary. We had a friend in town from Sydney so we headed to the Conrad hotel to join him for brunch. JC decided she needed to go dressed as Barbie (photos to follow, Ma and Da), with the dress just a little long but otherwise she was a dead ringer. Except her hair is sandy brown and she has hazel/brown eyes. At the cafe we were again disappointed in our eternal quest to find a good Eggs Benedict (with crispy bacon instead of ham). This time the hollandaise sauce was burnt and the eggs overdone. Mrs M and I live simply to find a good EB. We rarely find a good one and have yet to find one in HK deserving of the name.

The afternoon we hit the indoor pool at Disneyland as the outdoor one is getting too cold for the girls (and their father). After an hour of swimming I took PB and Mrs M took JC. We hit the showers and PB enjoyed the experience, although I think she was a little confused as to where the water was coming from. So when I said at the start I had a shower with another woman, I was really talking about a 14 month old curly wonder. But I needed a tag line to get you reading this far. And there's more.

After the swimming we again hit the indoor playroom and JC found a friend to go crazy with for a while. After putting the girls to bed Mrs M and I had our traditional Sunday night dinner of Chicken Kiev and chips. We watched some TV (that David Blaine is a good magician, but has the personality of a washing machine).

Now I have the day off today. JC decided to wake at 5:30am and in order to avoid her waking PB too we took her into our bed. So there's my two women in the bed trick. Took JC to school while Mrs M is down at Disneyland tennis courts wacking the ball with the meanest double-handed backhand I've ever seen. We have already started tussling for JC's sporting affection, with Mrs M showing her the tennis racquet and courts, and me pointing out the squash courts everytime we pass them.

She'll be a tennis player for sure.