But, then there’s the flipside. Of course.
First of all, as I put it when we were jogging through a
breeze-rippled wheat field on a blazing hot, cloudless day in the rolling hills
of Bedfordshire – “You’re not conning me, Britain, not for a second!”
If I could have a cast iron guarantee that we would have
weather like that week for ¼ of each year, I’d never leave. But you don’t, and
never will. The hottest summer for 37 years? I look forward to the next one
when I’m just shy of retirement.
Plus, the weather’s not all glorious anyway. When you visit
for a week, you can just revel in it; but
I know that to live day-to-day, in a country utterly unprepared for any
extreme weather (hot, cold, wet, whatever), in this heat is unbearable – sweaty
offices, melting roads, broken transport systems.
The running was a joy, yes – but on my return home I took a
hard slog up the hill behind our flat and was rewarded with the view I’ve published
on here before of Hong Kong harbour. That can’t be bad.
And it’s hard to get too
dewy eyed about a country where it is possible to be taken out for a birthday
surprise canoeing trip (thank you Nic J)
and a) Be assaulted with a barrage of stones by cursing 11-year-olds and b) Be
attacked by an arsey swan when simply trying to have a picnic (see below).
But also, on the positive side of things, going home to see
our friends, family and big life events should never be seen with too big a twinge
of regret.
Aside from my own, I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed a wedding
so much having invested so much time and effort to be there, and been looking forward
to celebrating with the couples and seeing our friends quite so much. We may
miss some in the future, but we’ll bust a gut to make as many as we can, and we
know now it’ll be worth it by a country mile.
Not seeing our friends regularly is pants, but we clicked
right back into place as if we hadn’t been away; and probably had more genuine
conversations and good fun than we’d have when we saw each other every week.
Plus, as Claire’s birthday picture showed, it’s not like we haven’t made some
great friends here!
And on family, I realised that even when we were in the UK,
we didn’t see family more often than every few months anyway; and then for no
more than hours or a day at a time. So actually, spending a leisurely couple of days golfing with my dad; a good meal out with mum; and a late evening BBQ with Claire's parents was all a bit of a luxury. Plus, between returning home to the UK and having them
come to stay in HK for more than a week
a time, we probably won’t end up seeing much less of them than we did
before...
And finally, of course, as this blog has almost universally
spelt out here, this move has been a brilliant adventure and fantastic fun...and we are going to have the chance to show many people how great it is, as we are pleasingly inundated with visit requests.
And at the end of the day. When you can spend the first weekend
home on a fantastic night out – tapas, wine, a crème brulee-red velvet-chocolate
mousse-cheesecake all-in-one cake, dancing to live music till 4am – and still have iPlayer to while away a
hangover the next day, it’s pretty hard to feel sad about moving to HK for too long…
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