Continuing our China visit, on Christmas Eve, Jan (my sister in law) and I, decided to pop out for some last minute shopping and left Joe and Ed at home to look after the kids. Hong Kong was a city that never slept and everywhere was always open. We bought clothes, more gifts and finally went to several food shops to pick up some last minute ingredients we needed for the next few days, including cream and ice-cream. On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at a bar, perched ourselves on a couple of stools and left the shopping at our feet. One drink led to another (served by a lovely young man). We had come out in jeans and jumpers and no make up. After another couple of drinks and a few more chats with the barman, we explained that actually we do scrub up quite well and this was just our casual look.

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By now we were starving, so we ordered some snacks and carried on drinking. I reached down to pick up my handbag and when I put it on my lap, a white creamy liquid dripped all over my jeans. I looked down and noticed a white lake under our stools. We suddenly realised that the ice cream had melted all over the floor. We leapt up, wiped the bag down and dumped the ice cream. As it was now dark, we thought it was probably time to go home. The lights of Hong Kong were beautiful as we hailed a cab and sang carols all the way home.

We were greeted with a degree of coolness when we arrived at the apartment. Joe and Ed had gone to great trouble and had made a lovely spread. Sophie (Joe’s youngest daughter) was not amused as she had been helping with the food and waiting for ages. We tried very hard to eat the meal without giggling, but it was very difficult. That’s a meal we won’t forget in a while!

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Next day was Christmas Day and all the girls opened their presents. Kerrie (Joe’s third daughter) was delighted with her Cabbage Patch doll which was all the rage at the time. She didn’t know that we had searched every toy shop in Hong Kong for the doll and ended up buying a copy in the market as all the shops had sold out. Kerrie has always had the most incredible eyes and they were like saucers when she took the doll out of the box we had made, named him Michael and asked for his papers. “What papers?” We asked. Kerrie’s eyes got even bigger. “His adoption papers of course!”. She said. We hadn’t realised that the original doll came with an adoption certificate. Ed and Joe disappeared to another room to speedily create the “Adoption Papers”. We handed them to Kerrie saying that Father Christmas had left them in the post box. Michael was given pride of place and came everywhere. We were all sick of him by the end of the holiday, to the point where Joe nearly threw him off the Peak at the top of Hong Kong Island. Sorry Kerrie! 💕

To be continued …..