Saturday 23rd January, 2016                  1600

I must admit that last night when the snow continued to fall. settled on the roads up to the point where it was difficult to tell where the kerbs were and the mercury dropped that perhaps I might have to eat my words about the unnecessary alarm being spread. It was a given that there was no way I could get to town today without walking to the bus, that was obvious.

Anthony sent me a message last night (he’s not on campus although will be in a couple of days or so) to tell me the water would come on between 0900 and 1500 today. Great, the website - or at least Google translate - stated clearly that would only happen in the teaching area. No argument with that, it’s empty. Once again nobody thinks to tell the Laowei and although I did have a suspicion, Andrei and Juliette will have been taken unawares unless they copy and paste every site entry into a translation application, highly doubtful. Good job I never had the trots or things could have gotten unpleasant. I have two buckets full for loo duty and three large pots for cooking or hand washing. Oh and the kettle is full in case I want a mug of Bovril and of course my morning cuppa.

When I got up this morning I looked out and saw clear tyre marks on the roads. Still plenty of white on the vegetation (still is now) but it meant a town trip was on. Mindful of the fact that the forecast said tomorrow night and Monday it would be -17C, even though I didn’t need to, I went to town - our entrapment could simply be delayed. The hardest part was extricating the bike from our building. The area I park it is on the north side so it doesn’t get any heat so there is frozen snow there even now. After that all I had to contend with was the biting cold from the wind generated by riding.

Having had a bacon and emmental baguette last night and finding it rather insipid, I had a change of heart on the macaroni cheese I was going to make tonight, I don’t think it would be good.. Maybe the edam I bought would be marginally better but still…….

So mentally on the bus I changed the forthcoming menus. It is chicken and chips tonight with fish and chips at a later stage. The problem is I don’t know if I can cook the breaded fish in the oven or whether it needs to be fried! I reckon to be safe I will have to fry it.

I was lucky with the bus back, it being Saturday, and although I had to let two depart without me as there were no seats it was third time lucky. The Chinese seem to know the times of the buses and turn up at the right moment although quite how baffles me because the timetable on the stops only shows numbers for the first and last buses of the day. The rest is a load of cyrillics which I assume inform of the stops the various buses service. Me? I just know they come roughly every ten minutes except when I am in a hurry.

The water is still on (or it was when I started this because I did the dishes) and I just checked the forecast for the umpteenth time. Guess what? Suddenly the -17 has been downgraded to -7C for a couple of nights, after which it nudges above freezing again. My scepticism may yet be rewarded. All that concerns me now is that the snowmelt may not entirely evaporate and overnight may turn to ice. I was narrowly missed by an avalanche which cascaded off the roof of the south entrance when I left this morning!

I discovered about 5kg of Pedigree dog biscuits that Pepsi never got to eat and so last night put them downstairs for Mum and kids. So far the repayment has been puddles of pee on the stairs and landings. Thanks Mum, can’t you teach your kids to go outside?