We arrive in Sydney on friday and will be home for about four and a half weeks. Hopefully we will catch up with everyone as we missed a lot of people at christmas time.

It makes me so happy to see them out. Goodbye Italy, I won’t miss you.

There was a water leak from a pipe under the front of the garden between our house and our neighbours house. When they dug it up and turned the water off, you would think that we would have no hot water, but you’d be wrong. The government supplies our hot water so it is a separate system to our cold water. It is made in a factory nearby and I like to imagine I know which one it is; its the one with all the steam coming out the top.

Here is a picture of the hole they dug to get at the pipe.

Everywhere I look there is talk about bad reffing decisions and I agree, this world cup has had some shocking decisions, but I don’t know if a video referee is the answer. Sure, a video ref might seem like the answer and at first it might prove a hit, but as more and more decisions are made away from the pitch, I believe it will snowball as refs feel they need to hand the decision over.

My personal answer is more referees on the pitch. Have the traditional referee stick to one half and another in the other half and they can cross over at the centre circle. Then at either end have an extra 18 yard box referee. I believe this is a better way of removing the cheating and poor decisions, without slowing the game down.

I wonder how I will feel after Australia get ripped off by bad reffing again tonight though.

There is an attitude here that I have been trying to understand for an entire year and I think now that I may have it worked out. I see it displayed on the roads, in markets and in manufactured goods and it is not a positive attitude. It is about getting ahead as fast as possible because there are no consequences. For way too long I thought it was “damn the consequences”, but honestly I see it now as a lack of understanding that there actually are consequences.

This morning there was a guy laying in the middle of the road next to his partially destroyed scooter, while a crowd, including the driver of the car that knocked him over looked on. I didn’t see the accident thank goodness*, so I can’t comment on his personal riding ability, but the fact that he wasn’t wearing a helmet leads me to assume he was riding like all the rest of the people here. I can just picture him zooming out into the traffic without looking and becoming a temporary hood ornament.

There is a T intersection near our compound where a road that skirts the canal joins the main road. Like the rest of the world, the main road users have right of way, but I never drive through there like I have right of way because far too often I have had to brake hard to avoid killing riders, smashing cars and being run over by trucks. The locals just drive round the corner and onto the road like it’s just a continuing part of the street in the form of a sharp bend. These days, more and more I am using alternate routes to avoid the chaos in certain places.

Dying on the road is an extreme consequence, but there are so many other examples of which I will give one that is just frustrating. A freeway can come to a standstill in Beijing without there having to have been an accident for everyone to rubberneck at. All you need is a freeway exit. If the exit is being used, requiring drivers to slow down and line up, instead people will drive down the breakdown lane and jam it up properly. Once it starts to jam up, people will use the next lane out to try and force their way in, which will stall the traffic in that lane and make people use the last remaining free lane. Eventually there will be people two lanes away from the exit trying to get across to use it and the whole freeway will be stopped. Three official lanes and the breakdown lane, all backed up because two or three people couldn’t wait 20 seconds in an orderly line.

*Alex says that the ancient Greek god of luck is too obscure to use here, but as an A** I want to move away from things like “Thank God” and “Bless you.”

**Alex thinks “A” is too obscure for “Athiest”

Alex thinks I am being wierd just for the sake of wierdness.

Here is our Ayi. Her name is Xiao Xiang. Ayi means “Aunty” in Chinese and basically she is our nanny and housekeeper.

One of the big perks about living here is the Ayis. Not only does she do heaps of our stuff for us, she also only speaks Chinese, which is contributing to M and Luki being bilingual.

We got a paddling pool yesterday and the drunken midgets enjoyed splashing the tiles and watering the marigolds.

Luki spent a lot of time getting out of the pool.

Emily was annoyed that I had my hat on backwards.

Dad, why is it like that?

Your hat, why is it on backwards.

Not like my hat. My hat is on correctly.

I’m serious Dad.

Here, let me fix it.

I have it, now i only need to reposition it.

Ah, much better. My work here is done.

The little guy is really getting into playing. He loves to play with M’s flashing ball, pull books off shelves and battle against lounge cushions. I will try to capture him in the heat of cushion warfare next. For now here he is with ball: