Reptile Residents

We have always been fond of the tree lizard that lived in our long beans and various other plants, and his more visionary friend that lived in our pumpkin plants.

I told you that our neighbour put up 6 lovely trellises for Mummy, right? When the trellis went up, a skinny lizard staked out his territory and sat balefully on a naked trellis. It must have been hot and uncomfortable but he sat it out.

Rather like the Pioneer Generation, don’t you think? He knew good times were coming.

True enough, the bittergourd plants grew lush and lusher, all around him.

Grandma is very unhappy about Mr Lizard being amongst the bittergourds. She thinks he will eat the bittergourds or the leaves or the vines. I told her lizards are insectivores but she claims he looks much much more padded out so he must be eating the plants. This reminds me of The Big Sister who says it is no point claiming that salad is diet food. Just look at pandas!

Warty Caterpillars

Actually this is a bittergourd, but isn’t it ugly even for a bittergourd? The Big Sister will say it looks better than it tastes!

Fabulous Frangipani Foto

Nice, huh? It’s the sort of flower The Big Sister might put in her hair, except she’s afraid of creepy-crawlies… anyway she is away at summer school for a month, but she comes back next weekend, hooray!

Chilli Godzilli

Remember my chilli plants which were hit by the plague then recovered from their affliction? They have gone from strength to strength and have been removing the lining of everyone’s tummies (except mine and The Big Sister’s, we don’t like spicy food much). Our family thinks that these chillies can take paint off, but my Pediatrician’s nurse, Aunty Jeanie, sniffed and said they are placebos. Aunty Jeanie’s tummy must be lined with cement!

These Chilli Godzillies are still in their original small pot with a few mealies! Here is a birds-eye view of birds-eye Thai chillies:

And just to show you how monstrous they are, here is a close-up shot:

The Big Sister has recently become a movie buff, because her exams are over so she has Too Much Free Time. She went to watch Godzilla with her friend who is a boy (you know what I mean??). Can you believe she picked the movie? This is the same Big Sister whose all-time favourite movie is Tangled and who watched Frozen 100 times. Anyway she was very cross when the movie started and Godzilla appeared. Apparently she got confused between Godzilla and King Kong, and was looking forward to a movie about gorillas.

Now you understand why she isn’t ready for her driving test even thogh she’s been having lessons for a year? Anyway her medical school friends were very kind to her and brought her to some shop and taught her the differences between King Kong and Godzilla. The simplest one is King Kong has fur. Godzilla does not. Just in case The Big Sister forgets, her friends made her take a photo of both Godzilla and King Kong.

 

What Tree is This?

See the 2 trees side by side?

Do they look like the same plant to you? In case it isn’t obvious, let me show you each tree separately. Here’s one (the one on the left):

And here’s the other (the one on the right):

OK, they are both papaya trees, that’s obvious. One has a single fruit. The other has many fruit. Singular and Plural. The Big Sister yells at me when I get my verbs wrong because I get confused between singular and plural. But guess what. She asked me when the mango would be ready for eating!!!

 

A-a-r-d-v-a-r-k

The Big Sister’s favourite cartoon when she was little was Arthur. I have read all the Arthur books but am not so fond of the cartoons, although I have watched “Arthur’s Perfect Christmas” one million times EVERY CHRISTMAS because she forces me to watch with her.

Arthur is an aardvark. His best friend is a rabbit called Buster. Buster eats everything! One day his mum brought him to a fancy French restaurant and there was a bouquet of parsley to garnish the salad. He asked the waiter what it was and the waiter said garnish. Buster ate it with great relish and then said “Mmmmm I like garnish!”.

I like all my greens and when our helper doesn’t cook enough vegetables, I eat raw coriander and spring onion off the stalk. So Grandpa grew this for me…. Mmmmm I like garnish too!

 

Remember Jonah?

When I was in Australia on holiday, I went to my QQ’s church. QQ means younger brother of my mother in case you are not Chinese. Anyway, one week at church, their pastor spoke about Jonah. Everyone knows that story, right? He disobeyed God and was swallowed by a whale who spat him out in the end (I am not surprised the whale spat him out, I would too). After all that trauma (I learned about trauma from The Big Sister – her driving instructor has been traumatized by her) Jonah decided to be a good man and go do what God wanted him to.

QQ’s pastor had a very low opinion of Jonah. But never mind that. One part of the story that you may not know is that God gave Jonah a leafy plant to shade him from the sun. According to Mummy, no one really knows what that plant was. I think it must have been a banana. Look at our baby banana tree (the baby of our big banana tree that gave us our whale-sized bananas). Just look at the size of its leaves! Jonah would have been a lucky man to be given our banana tree!

 

Out of Darkness into Light

Lately I have been singing along with Steve Green in the car. The Big Sister and Mummy unearthed some old CDs and screamed with excitement. They found 3 CDs by Steve Green and now we play them all the time.

One of the songs is A Chosen Generation, and the bible verse tells us that God chose us and called us out of darkness into His marvellous Light. Light is very useful. I will show you why.

Look at this. What is it? You can’t really tell because it is so dark.

But when you have marvellous light (actually any old light will do), see?

It’s just another of our papaya leaves that got bent when the tree fell over – again! We have now moved the tree next to the fence and TIED it there. We have had gale force winds and storms. Maybe I am exaggerating. My cousins in London really did last week though.

The Theory of Relativity

The Big Sister occasionally mentions this theory. It seems a bit confused. Or maybe I mean The Big Sister seems confused. She usually is. She has just started driving lessons and her instructor seems to spend a lot of time exclaiming “ALAMAK!!!”. That is not a good sign.

Anyway. We have a new pot of long beans because the old ones are not so productive. The new bean plants have impressive leaves! Look!

Mummy said that no one would know how big the leaf is, what with photoshop and all those fancy things. So I took another photo with my hand on the leaf:

Then Mummy said since no one knew how big my hand is, how would they have any idea how big the leaf is? So I will tell you. I am 9 years old, 136cm tall and 32kg. That is a good sized 9 year old. I cannot remember what percentile I am on (a percentile means that the doctor compares you to all other 9 year olds in the universe) but I will ask my Pediatrician and post later. My Pediatrician knows all about these things and has a fat file in her clinic where she writes stuff down so she doesn’t forget.

Anyway, then I had a bright idea. Here is a leaf next to my slipper!

OK. I am a size 35 European. I mean my shoe size, not me. I am Chinese. In case you want to know, my foot and The Big Sister’s foot are the same size. This means we are European size 35 and British size 2.5. Strangely, I am American boys size 3, but The Big Sister is American ladies size 5! You can have a look at this chart if you don’t believe me. http://www.dancesport.uk.com/shoes/conchart.htm. If you don’t have a size 35 shoe at home, maybe you could go to a shoe shop and have a look? Then you would know pretty accurately how big the long bean’s leaves are!

Stormy Weather and Right Angles

A couple of nights ago there was a big storm! Our papaya tree (the one that was transplanted by Grandpa into the big Toyogo pot – see this and that) blew over. When Daddy woke up in the morning, he found it leaning on our big car. He righted the tree, and it seems quite well, except that… well, look for yourself!

There are 2 right angles. We are learning geometry at school. That is very cruel to 9 year olds. Anyway, I asked The Big Sister, if 90 degrees is a right angle, what is a wrong angle?