Alex - Q2 review

Colin's quarterly review of Alex:

Alex it has been a lively and productive quarter where you have been working hard at growing up. Significant progress has been made in your ability to roll from front to back and you have gained ground in knowing when not to push long carrot sticks into the back of your throat.

On the topic of food I'd like to highlight one of your key strengths, eating. I see that you rarely miss a chance to consume food and have raced to 9.5kg's. While this is certainly a strength, in abundance it also touches on a development area, namely not demanding food every three hours during the night. In addition it has an impact on other areas where as we discussed at your previous review we had some stretch expectations, namely crawling and rolling from back to front.

Other notable achievements include concentrating hard and pushing two teeth through your gums, going swimming and being dunked under water without crying and learning to grab and lunge at whatever looks interesting. 

Overall it has been a successful and fun quarter and I'd especially like to highlight the talent for keeping items on your head and many fits of giggles as a way of giving back some entertainment to your management parents. 

I look forward to working with you for many years and aim to provide the support you need to succeed.

Bike ride!

This morning it was an early start - up just after 5 and off at 5.30.  The upside being I got to go out for a bike ride with some people from work. Since most of them live in Shunyi, Mohammad and I had a bonus 14km to the start of the ride and of course a double bonus 14km back home at the end making a satisfying 91km total. Weather was clear blue skies and sunshine and it was a pleasure to be out on the bike again having only had two rides outside since we arrived. We basically headed due north from Shunyi and after 20km headed for a loop up to a reservoir surrounded by mountains - a lovely spot! The roads were good tarmac and aside from the traffic lights which periodically stopped the traffic it was easy to motor on at a good pace in the bike lane by the side of the road. Of course you need to watch out for random vehicles using the same lane to go against the flow of traffic but this is Beijing after all! Route and a couple of snaps shown below.

Parents visit!

At the start of May my parents came to China for what sounded like an exhausting 10 day tour of some of the main attractions - Shanghai, Xian, Great Wall, Beijing. Arriving at our door they certainly felt that they needed a holiday to get over the vacation and having colds didn't help. Luckily they had a further few days with us to play with Alex (after scrubbing hands - see earlier comment about colds!) and relax. My father seemed rather taken with a book we had got for his visit 'A 1000 years annoying the French'. Much of the time was pottering around showing them the local sights and places we often go to around where we live - April gourmet, the blue frog, Indigo mall and various coffee shops. We had a couple of trips out, one day we tried (and failed!) to find the kite market a little north of Lido but did stop in at the English tea rooms which had some very welcome fish and chips. Dad and I went out to the aviation museum to see a vast collection of planes, mainly versions since the second world war. Many of which bore more than a striking resemblance to  Western developed planes which apparently had been explained by the Russians as just what you would expect by giving the same problem to different groups of engineers, they would naturally converge on similar solutions. Similar maybe, but identical seems a stretch!

 
 
 

On the final day we went to a large market which basically claims to sell 'everything'. I don't think they are far wrong! After wondering around the paintings, vases, general jewellery stalls we headed into a shop selling paper supplies for my mother to stock pile good paper for painting. After some time (probably too much for Dad!) we had amassed a reasonable pile of goods and Eleanor set about haggling the man down, casually throwing in a few more items when it became clear he wouldn't let his price go down any more.

The trip was finished off with a trip to the Blue frog, our favourite restaurant/bar in the Indigo mall before the following morning putting my parents in a taxis before heading off to work. We called the following evening to see how the flight was and of course it was boring but the jet lag had kept mum up all night and she had struggled through the day and seemed pretty wired!

The Wall. The Great Wall.

No trip to Beijing is complete without a visit to the Wall and with the Spring temperatures hovering in the high twenties and the sun shining we thought it best to go and spend a few days investigating it ourselves. We went to Mutianyu and stayed in a lovely hotel called the Brickyard - a conversion from its namesake. They put a stress on locally produced goods where they couldn't grow it themselves. To help guests feel more in touch with nature each room had huge windows with only the bottom section covered by curtains. Next to the bed were two sets of eye masks but these were basically redundant with a small baby ready to leap up at the first sign of dawn at 4.30am! On the upside we could see on top of the ridge the great wall from our beds.

For our first trip up we took a ride round to the cable car to pull us up to the 14th tower of this section. Once at the top the wall stretches either way into the distance tracking along the top of the ridge all the way. Needless to say that contemplating how far it stretches in either direction, 5,500 miles in total, is impressive. The weather was clear blue skies and sunshine without a hint of pollution and we enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the wall to tower 18. After this it ramped up a steep section I scrambled up while Eleanor took some time in the shade with Alex. Half way up this section a group of Chinese tourists seemed to take pity that I was by myself and insisted they all had a photo with me, arms held in the air, before moving on! From the very top we could see down into the valley and the village we were staying in, but curiously no sign of the path that we were assured would take us down to the road and home. Of course we found it eventually and with Alex dozing on Eleanor's back we picked our way down the dusty, rocky path.  Our pace was enough to overtake one family who seemed surprised to find a baby hiding in the bundle Eleanor was carrying.

Back at base early we had lunch and took turns with the masseur whose fingers had the knack of prodding the most painful parts of the muscles but I'm sure (hope) was good for us. In the evening we went to the other side of the village to eat in the sister hotel to the Brickyard - the school house. The dinning area was very much a school room and you are encouraged to draw on the place mats, the best of which get displayed on the wall, all very old skool.

For our final day Eleanor tried the jacuzzi in the morning but found the water temperature way too hot to get in, even when they had removed the cover which was a bit of a failed treat. I spent a couple of hours hiking up the trail we had come down the day before and trekking along the wall a bit further before returning the same way. With the warm weather and steep climb it felt like a good work out which might have off set all of the nice food we'd had! After that chance to stretch my legs we had a bit of lunch and headed home.