Sunday 19th October, 2014                          1015

That was a long time! Part of it initially was that I was either too busy or tool tired to  write but that quickly became something else when a virus got into my laptop. I think it entered when I clicked on an Adobe upgrade pop-up (seeing as it was then everything went pear shaped) and now it has corrupted Chrome, causing me all sorts of problems.

The only cure will be to remove and reinstal it but Kevin is trying to find some software with which I can capture my saved passwords (there are a lot!) and bookmarks, otherwise it will give me real grief. For now, I have learnt how to make it work despite itself although I have to use IE to deal with iPlayer.

On Tuesday we had the school final of the speaking competition. At two thirty I was just getting ready to leave for it nice and early so I could take my time climbing six floors and be able to have a smoke beforehand when I received a text from Kevin. “Where are you?” Somehow it appeared perhaps the start time was two thirty and not three as I had thought. I shot straight out of the door, rode to the building, went as fast as I could up to the top (not running of course, just not stopping halfway as I usually do!) only to be confronted by locked shutters at the top of the west stairwell! Great! Back down a floor, along the length of the building to the east and up, finally, thinking I was about to expire from oxygen starvation, entering the room.

Picture the scene. A room full of students, a load of Chinese teachers including Prof Fang as judges and all looking straight at me. “Sorry” was all I said as I took my place next to Kevin., convinced I had held everyone up. All I can say is that there are occasions when technology failures can be welcome. This was one such, for they had been having problems with the microphones and so I never delayed proceedings at all. Phew.

As we are all working Christmas and Boxing days, instead of doing what we usually do which is go out for dinner with a student apiece, Kevin suggested (after my tales of my night in the Hilton Hefei recently) that we should go there on the 27th. My pal Steve who used to be the gaffer there was approached to see what discount we could get for booking three executive rooms. The executive bit is important because although a lot more expensive, you get to use the executive lounge. Not much use for me during the day but in the evening the bar is help yourself for free. There are spirits and decent plonk as well as beers and soft drinks on offer so they can expect to take a huge hit that night both before and after dinner. Sadly I am pretty sure they clear the bar away at about ten to get ready for breakfast but we can always go down to the sports bar and play pool when that happens. I am surprised they are not doing traditional Christmas dinners though because when I was there last I read a booklet about events just past and forthcoming and they had most of the festivals covered. I am sure we will find food to suit us though - Vivian’s steak being a case in point. Plus of course there’s a decent breakfast to look forward to.

Thursday and Friday I was busy teaching and struggling with it because this sodding cold is tenacious. Either that or I contracted another one just as the first one left. I took delivery of a consignment from Jinkou, I only ever buy 500y plus of goods from them as it gets you free delivery. I now have bangers, pies, smoked salmon etc along with breadcrumbs (I want to have a crack at Scotch eggs at some point) and eight boxes of instant macaroni cheese. The latter were purely to make up the price to qualify for free delivery as some of the pies I wanted were out of stock. I have also splashed out on two bottles of Sandemans port which came last night and that tooth polishing thing I mentioned. That is the last thing I am waiting for although having now found hotdog buns, and being in possession of proper American hot dog sausages, I may have to order some of them as well as French’s mustard! All these things most of you can just pop down to your local shops for……

On Friday night I took Carol to the Sichuan restaurant seeing as Ollivier had given me discount vouchers worth 20y. She ordered duck heads and ten half heads arrived complete with half beaks. She relished getting her chopsticks in and winkling the brains out, declaring this practice makes you smarter. I will stay thick. I ordered sweet and sour fish and a whale arrived. I nearly died when I saw the size of it but of course there’s always the doggy bag for Carol to take back for her mates - and there was a fair bit left. A nice evening and Kevin very kindly dropped by to give us a lift back after he had finished in town. The meal was made more interesting by the fact that the entire middle of the place had been taken over by a wedding party and the happy couple actually tied the knot up on stage. It must be said, she was a stunner.

Yesterday I had (unwisely) agreed to play games in two classes for the little school. One was at 0930 and the other I was told 1400 but that later changed to 1430. Not only is that not fair on Pepsi, I wasted an entire day for two classes so I told the owner I wouldn’t do that configuration again. Fair enough, there was plenty of time for me to shop in between along with meeting up with Carol and Anna and having lunch but by the time the second class came around all I wanted was my bed.

It is a glorious morning here with temperatures expected of 29C (they are saying 31C tomorrow) which is yet another example of the sheer vagary of climate here surrounded by the mountains. I did my laundry late last night and it is all dry now, even the towels. I shall therefore have a shower now and take Muttley out. We may be adventurous today and go to the fish place as I need to top up my phone before going to the supermarket and the Business Street, which is what the students call the new shops/restaurants development. I must say I wish they had built it three years ago because prior to that there was only one place anywhere near that had food I liked - and that’s closed now!

Oh yes, nearly forgot. Ollivier has taken his wife and youngest to Huimin where they will stay while he returns presumably today or tomorrow. He had a translation he had emailed off but something went wrong and, having left his computer behind, he asked me to get the file and email it for him. Well not only am I the last person to ask when it comes to computer technology but coincidentally when I did get home my own laptop went into meltdown. I was going mad for an hour when Kevin suggested by text that I restart it. It worked. So I went to Ollivier’s armed with a usb stick. He has two screens (confused the hell out of me) and it’s all in French! I changed the thing at the bottom to English but nothing happened. I tried to do what he asked and muddle by, trying to recall forty odd years ago at school but wasn’t doing very well. I clicked something and a screen came up which I thought was asking me if I was sure I wanted to do whatever I had clicked. Er, no. Annuler looked a pretty good bet to be “cancel” so I did and his laptop promptly shut down! Give me strength. I restarted and was greeted by an entirely black screen with a flashing cursor - that was it. Oh my God, I’ve blown HIS up as well as my own!

I am relieved to report that Kevin came back later and all was fixed so the first Ollivier will know of it is when he reads this blog……