Longan season

Mother Nature is good at helping you cope with the extremes. When the weather spikes, she gives us longans to cool us down. Chilled, the fruits are like refreshing sorbets on a hot day.

The local varieties sold in Mui Wo have quite thin flesh that sticks to the seeds (the China ones are fleshier) but they are just as sweet.

The Banana Uncle is selling them at HK$8 a catty. I got two catties and now am having a luxurious longanfest.

A word to the prudish: Banana Uncle has taken to wearing super skimpy shorts in this weather so avert your eyes when choosing your longans... or you may see more spherical objects than you'd bargained for.

Bye bye banana tree

I know it's stupid to get sentimental over a wild banana tree but this one along the path to Pui O was my favourite.

A legacy of a long-forgotten farm, it probably had not been tended to for decades but it still continued to produce fat bananas (I admit I did take one and it had a wild tangy flavour).

Since then I've looked forward to saying hi to it every time we go on our usual walk.

So I was really sad to see it dead and mutilated on our last walk. Yes, I know, it was wild, uncared for and probably chopped down to create a firebreak.

But it was still a living thing and I miss my little banana tree.