Thanks to my daily saxophone abuse, I'm now used to meeting the occasional local in our basement... stressed landlords, morbidly curious residents, fans of tunes screaching and the like.

I can understand their intrigue, as if I weren't the one producing that kind of racket, I'd want to find out just who was responsible. I usually greet said listeners with a hastily mumbled 'dway-boo-chi' (sorry) and my award-winnning little-boy-lost / please-forgive-me expression.

My latest audience members however, are more irritating than a drunken Leeds FC fan on a long haul flight (economy class too), or, as I've recently been discovering this week, a bike saddle that not only whirls left and right, but backwards and forwards too, to groin-numbing effect.

Anyway, yes, those blasted mosquitos! After the first couple of months here, they seemed to have tired of my new blood and weren't such an issue, but in our basement of aural horror, they have formed quite a clan.

Presumably one tone-deaf adventurer fly heard my wailings and called the members of its Musical Depreciation Society over for a wings-up. They must certainly be got rid of though, as I now have red, polka-dot ankles (even the rivers of sweat don't wash them off!). (Mmm, nice. Thanks Matt.).

Oh, a bit of cultural stuff for you. We have the day off tomorrow as it is the Moon Festival. This is more a family do than another street festival, so Louise and I will be spending the day with Candy, a new Chinese-English teacher at school, helping her prepare the evening BBQ feast for her family and buying all manner of firecrackers and rockets. It should be pretty interesting, so I'll try to report back (hopefully with some detail on the origins of this moon theme).

How for now...