On top of the wall

It started foggy but cleared just as we arrived at Mutianyu.

No one's watching - put it on automatic!

Sometimes, brothers share a passion ...

Chinese rabbits could not all be this well-endowed, but she didn't like to ask ...

Armchair skating - a delight for young and old

Terminal mistake?

Tim's parents were due to arrive at 9:55am. On every one of the several occasions that we have collected people from the airport, they have flown into terminal 3 and spent at least 45 mins getting to the gate. Today, Tim's parents arrived at 9:35 at terminal 2 while their reception committee (us) arrived at 10:35 at terminal 3. It took us a while to realise our mistake and get to the other terminal but they were remarkably relaxed considering that they had had very little sleep, spent an hour waiting for us and were on their own in a country whose language they can neither speak nor read. We were impressed!

Where's the 'sleep' in sleepover?

Verity will soon be 10 years old but Tim's parents are coming to stay and Chinese New Year means that some of her friends won't be in town on her birthday so she had what is known as a 'sleepover' involving 10 x 10 year-olds, lots of talking, lots of laughing, lots of shrieking and not very much sleep - still, they were happy!

Just for the record ...

Two weeks off helped restore my perspective and I have, at least, the illusion of sanity as I start the New Year. By year end, both Lou and I wanted to go home and felt at the end of our tethers: One of our friends has lived all over Asia and was attacked with molotov cocktails in Indonesia but she feels that China is the most stressful place she has lived and says that she has been here five years and the stress doesn't go away. Everything is harder than it is at home and you can never be certain that things will work; add to that the fact that you're trying to get a lot of things done at once; that you have little support; that your London colleagues expect to be able to contact you in their time zone rather than yours so you're never off duty; that your wife is exhausted; that your children miss their friends; that you have to spend any spare time trying to learn the language and you have an idea of why this feels like hard work.