Sunday 25th November, 2012           2230

When you want them to get it right they don’t, when you want them to get it wrong they don’t. Weather forecasters I mean. they were completely accurate today, meaning the ride into town was in rain and the ride back was in heavy rain.

For both of my lessons this morning the Chinese teacher sat in on the class. This is a recent thing and I am now wondering if it is because the owner has picked upon the fact I have not been enjoying it due to the control problem. Said problem to my mind occurs because it is a private school which will never expel a pupil because it would mean loss of revenue, the fact that I can neither chastise them in Chinese nor affect their test scores and equally important, they know I only have their classes once or twice a term to justify the inflated fees charged over those of other schools that don’t have a foreign teacher - ie all of them.

However, if this is the way it is to be then I am all for it because it makes a marked difference to their behaviour and I actually enjoy it for once. Long may it continue. I did a bit of shopping and had lunch afterwards in the vain hope that the rain would ease off but it simply increased in intensity so I had little choice but to brave it and try to keep as dry as I could. I would have wished the rain would bugger off to England but it appears they are getting ample as it is.

I have a date on Tuesday with Joanna (or more correctly Zhu Ana which is pronounced Ju Anna) for dinner so I will probably take her to the Korean bbq restaurant we went to yesterday, I want to try some different dishes. I haven’t made myself any dinner tonight but I did spit roast that pork and pinched the crackling for myself - my first in three years. The animals haven’t touched it which is really infuriating but it may be that I haven’t got the hang of spit roasting. I did it on 180C and although the outside is cooked I have a feeling the rest of it isn’t. Maybe next time I will do it on a much lower temperature because when in the past I have done chickens they have looked gorgeous but the meat has been dried out. Oh for a proper oven!

Still on matters culinary, does anyone know if you can make suet dumplings for a stew without suet? I know that sounds odd but no amount of searching online here yields suet, just pages and pages of lounge suits for sale. I was wondering if it was possible to substitute lard if anyone knows? Failing that I may make a stab by trying to buy some of the hard pork fat I sometimes see, grating it and seeing what happens. I wouldn’t mind trying to make goulash but the dumplings would be a nice touch.

And I know Christmas here is a very low key affair (eg just a meal and not a Christmassy one at that) but as I was idly musing online this afternoon I looked up the recipe for mulled wine. The only thing I could see that I can’t readily obtain is cloves but after much searching I now know I can get them delivered, so I reckon I can demand that Kevin and Ollivier both stump up the wine whilst I get the rest. You can’t beat a mug of it on a freezing night.

Oh, nearly forgot! I went to see Sonya at the bank when I finished teaching, not to get more money but because I finally asked Cinny to get the school to pay my wages into the account with the cashcard starting next month. When I took it from my wallet to show Cinny I noticed it was split, so went to the bank to ask for a replacement. Nothing is ever straightforward here is it? Unbelievably, getting a new card involves payment of money - ok only 15y of which 10y is the annual fee - and a completely different account number. I thought fine, do it and before my salary is paid in I will tell the uni my new number. But no, Sonya didn’t want to do it because if I did it now it will cost me 25y whereas if I do it next year it will only cost me 5y. Talk about complicating something simple! I did go for a test run at the ATM while I was there and even with a torn card it worked so yes, I will leave it until she tells me it is time to change. No point in having local friends in places and not listening to them, is there?