Thursday 5th September, 2013            1445

Typical. My day off and my plans to go shopping in shreds, it has been raining all night and all day. I think I have enough smokes to last until after work tomorrow (longer if I hit the snuff!) but I have no meat for the animals, only biscuits. That won’t go down very well I can assure you. I may pop out and get damp in a little while, the fish shop has, I discovered, a little freezer in which they keep fish and chicken.

As for my own needs, well food-wise I can buy something or have something on toast (cheese or beans) but in view of the increasing difficulties of obtaining cigars I have spent over an hour looking online. I think I have found Cuban Fonsecas priced at 28y for a box of 25, which if true - and I will get Joanna to contact the vendor to check - is a flipping bargain. Plus if you buy 5 boxes it’s free delivery and as I won’t want to order every week I will order 25!

Or just maybe this may be my time to try and stop, I have heaps of Himalayan snuff.

Friday 6th          2000

I suspected the cigar price might be wrong - the price was for ONE cigar! That would mean a single box would wipe out my budget for the month, so back to the drawing board, or rather a search downtown of any cigarette stalls I can find! If unsuccessful then it will be time to panic.

It’s been a miserable day here with light rain which turned to drizzle and still hasn’t stopped.

Loads of freshmen have now really started arriving even though they are not supposed to come until tomorrow. Once again the stares, giggles, “hello!” directed at your back before they run off squealing, “may I take a photo with you?” etc are in full swing. This evening I was even insulted in the campus supermarket when two girls walked past me and one said “American” - she was rapidly put right.

I have just emailed my internet shopping list to Joanna. I’m afraid I have gone overboard this month ordering lentils, split peas (Kevin came back with a blender so I will be making soups), Scotch eggs, beef pies etc plus 60kg of cat litter. Admittedly the latter is a lot (and will cost well over 200y) but that should ensure I have enough to last until after the spring festival.

I regret there is not much more to report but this is simply down to the awful weather, meaning I have no desire to go out much.

Oh, nearly forgot. Angela got her results today. She scored 8 in listening, 6.5 in speaking (remember I was asked to get her to that from 5.5 and therefore my success rate in that respect remains at 100%) but she blew it by getting 5.5 in writing and she needs at least 7. I have no idea if she has to resit the entire thing again but I really hope she can retain the two good scores and just retake the writing.