No Christmas Lights Tonight.

Somehow the power-box managed to short circuit itself, or at least the rain had helped in more ways than one, so that trying to turn on the lights to the garden Christmas tree (it’s not pine, not anything else, but it’s tall and it looks like any Christmas tree) will result in the main fuse tripping.

Not that it matters, since we don’t quite celebrate Christmas, but it’s nice to help brighten the festivities with a tree of blinking lights to decorate one small side of the road.

For a little bit of speciality the family decided on KFC for dinner, and guai ling-gao for dessert (bitter as hell, but a sign of good quality), and instead of a humble fire and some popcorn we sat and watched TV and cussed at the ever unchanging grievances of Hong Kong soap dramas (at least, dad and I did).

This evening we found the first grapes of the house.


We’ll we watching if more will follow, but from how my mother accidentally killed the other vine with her random trimming, the future looks bleak.

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Here’s a note for you, if you even plan to have a house with a garden that gives you a lot of space to plant and grow trees or flowers;

Avoid. Planting. Bougainvilleas.

They can look very nice, especially when good balances of rain and sun come around with the weather, and they can bloom into a menagerie of colours, and when the flowers shed onto the ground it can look like it came out of a Victorian painting (at certain perspectives, also depending on your tastes). But when it comes to upkeep, you either make it a point to trim it consistently, or prepare to hack at it one fine evening, ala Prince Phillip to rescue the Sleeping Beauty.

Damage report; several splinters, a couple of cuts, a thorn through the pirated Crocs and into my feet and twigs and brambles and leaves in the hair on both days of battle.

Also, I neglect to mention; as it is pretty much common for people to plant it by the fences, an untended bougainvillea can cause mega damage to it, as it grows outwards and if you have those wire-type fences, it can push it outwards and pretty much open up holes where it shouldn’t.

We don’t have wire-fences now, but I remembered that year where gardening led to discovering that the fence was fucked up by a rogue bougainvillea, which led to the father engineering his dream fence, which led to the most miserable month of self-construction, and golly, it had hurt so much.

Do yourself a favour, and skip on bougainvilleas. Pretty yes, but the thorns and the nature of it, it’s like something Maleficent herself would throw up for good measure.

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I don’t know why I keep finding stuff like this:



Oh, and this is some neat animation:



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Ooh nuts, it’s pretty much belated since I uploaded it so late, but

Merry Christmas everyone.

And here’s wishing that you’re with the people you love and that you’re out giving love.

And if you don’t celebrate Christmas but just the holiday, I hope you had a great day.

Cheers!