I heard from Jon Pitts that a typhoon was brewing? "It hit today! Started as a level 3 and soon became a level 8 - pretty bad! I woke up and spotted that however blurred my sleepy eyes I really couldn't see much more than shades of grey whirling round out the window! All the trees were going sideways as was the rain - fast! I rang Mel and sure enough everything had been shut down - Hong Kong grinds to a halt when a Typhoon hits, which is a great precaution, although it does mean literally everything stops completely. I slept a little more but then thought I had better look keen and get up in case situation changed."

How frightening! "Yes, but staying up turned out to be a bad idea as I could have had proper lie-in instead of sipping tea, chatting and working on the computer. Luckily Mel had made it to the stables because there was no transport from my end!"

How did the horses cope? "Things gradually settled and the horses were allowed out again by mid afternoon. Luckily all the facilities have been purposely built rock solid! I schooled Bug, attended the welcome briefing, eat a large steak and jumped back on to Bug again when the stadium was open for schooling with floodlights in the evening."

The blog has been changed to an interview to comply with Olympic regulations.