Mrs M was out last night at a Bee Gees cover band. I got a call around 10:30pm to listen to the festivities and to be told she'll soon be home. 2am. That's all I'm saying. She enjoyed her tennis lesson yesterday, hitting the ball really well. The coach has told her she just needs a new racquet, which luckily he can provide at a good price. Today is her first day in the competition, and given she can hardly move a muscle following yesterday's lesson it will be a triumph of will if she can make it to the court.

The hunk of junk that is our car has had two things go wrong in the past five days. Used cars are cheap in HK, but it is because the repairs cost so much. Fookie the mechanic has been contacted - he's good, he'll send one of his boys to pick the car up, and he's expensive because he caters to the expat market. Here in HK we joke about the "Gweilo tax" (ie on expats). It's not standard or universal, but for the most part there's one price for locals and a higher one for expats. It's just part of life here.

The TV drama continues - we need a new VCR as the one we brought from Australia is set for the wrong standard. At least electronics are cheap here, and I can see an outing to Fortress over the weekend.

PB has taken to walking all the time. There's no stopping her, and she now prefers to walk rather than shuffle. JC is getting much better at sharing her toys with her younger sister. And JC has taken to cooking - this morning she had prepared "dinner" for her daddy. Sure it's plastic, but the presentation is sensational and the mix of flavours is exotic.

An interesting package arrived last night at work. It contains 4 tape cassettes and a book, titled Everyday Cantonese. Today is my first lesson in the language of Hong Kong. I'm not good at languages but I'm determined to at least get the basics covered. The book starts well.

Learning Cantonese isn't easy. Many non-Cantonese speakers have started on the road to learning, stumbled, fallen flat on their faces and given up in frustration.

I'm keen to get to Lesson 23, Sports. I'm going to ask how to say "Sydney Swans will win the Premiership" in Cantonese. I could well be booking my flight to Melbourne come Monday.