Wednesday 30th July, 2014          1300

I arrived back home last night utterly drained and contemplating the wisdom of agreeing to do another morning at the mountain school tomorrow, so soon after getting back. Nonetheless I agreed and Christina wants to come, so do it I will, although a six o’clock alarm call is going to be most unwelcome.

For now I am about to go and do some shopping (I have threatened to make cottage pie for Ellen, Fallrain and Vivi tonight) and then go and release Pepsi for all of two days before she goes back in again. I leave for Huainan and the lovely Air on Friday.

2000

Considering I ate hardly anything yesterday I was really looking forward to filling up on cottage pie. I sweated buckets in the kitchen and when I turned on my mini oven it didn’t work! Marvellous. Thankfully Kevin has one so we used that, Ollivier’s is too small to take the dish. We all ate though, albeit a little later than planned. So now it’s a must for an early night as I need a decent sleep so I can be Mr Jolly for the kids tomorrow.

Thursday 31st        1845

Well despite the early rise it was a good morning. Christina must have been as keen as mustard as she arrived at about seven, half an hour before we were being picked up. I think the kids enjoyed it and certainly Prof Wu did because he wants me back for a third time on the 10th August!

Tomorrow I am off to Huainan on the 1100 train. It may well be interesting. This is certainly the busiest summer holiday I have had here but now normal service is restored.