Friday 7th October, 2016          1430

I am cold today. In fact it’s colder in my flat than it is outside.

I struggled to the supermarket to go and get some shopping for my dinner today, in fact I nearly never bothered but the thought of noodles yet again spurred me on. Why was it such a travail? My lower back is killing me.

For 60 years I have been blessed with a back that has only ever complained a little when I have overused it or when I subconsciously (and still do) bend over all the time when doing such things as washing dishes or chopping vegetables, when it is patently unnecessary. Today I can only blame one of two (or both) things - I either slept badly on my Fred Flintstone mattress or a week spent mostly sitting at the computer has taken its toll. Regardless, it served to make my trip unpleasant.

I hope it has disappeared by tomorrow. Yesterday I had a thought, well a suspicion really, regarding this holiday. It’s not often we get two consecutive weekends off outside of spring festival and summer holidays. A bit of research online enhanced my suspicion but failed to provide anything concrete. Suzy letting me know she wouldn’t be in class tomorrow morning was the clincher!

This sort of thing really annoys me even after six years. It is made even more irksome when before the holiday commenced I made a point of asking Janet whether there would be any make-up lessons yet she said nothing. Had I been in possession of my passport and sufficient funds, on the basis of that I may well have flitted off for a few days in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang or anywhere and arranged my flight back for Sunday. You know I wasn’t and didn’t.

Equally I could have simply carried on as I had thought I would and take the entire coming weekend off. Shut my phone down so nobody could contact me and then plead ignorance at about ten tomorrow morning. But you also know that’s not my nature either. So I sent Janet a text asking if there was anything she should have told me. Of course I got a reply informing me I have class all Saturday morning.

There will be some who perhaps are thinking “fool, could have had the day off scot-free” and yes I could have. I doubt very much if I would have been held to account (although they may have thought that after all this time I might have guessed) but Janet would certainly have been hauled over the coals. On top of that, those students who DO turn up tomorrow will have been let down really by yours truly. This way nobody is dropped in the brown stuff and although I won’t look like a hero, hopefully Janet will remember it and be sure to keep me informed next time. I could rail at the students for not correcting me when we last met and I said I would see them a week Monday but I can’t - they only found out from Janet themselves yesterday. This is what I believe the Americans call “SNAFU”.

So faced with an 0500 heave out for a Saturday slack party (apologies to non-Conways for the terminology) as you can imagine I have little appetite (leave alone money) to try any adventurous cooking. Instead it will be bacon, eggs and fried bread - I can’t even be bothered to make French toast. Of course I DO have HP sauce!!

Mind you, it’s payday Monday (if they remember me) and it will not be long before I can stock up on what I need to follow a delightfully unhealthy western diet properly again. Mind you, sitting on the bus today I was running through things I still need to buy and the list is frightening: at least 100y more of coat hangers, new mop, dry-cleaning to get done, long johns, gloves etc etc. Brenda seems to be under the impression that all westerners are newly-graduated “gap year” types who live out of a suitcase and only eat the local food. The idea that perhaps as we age, so we appreciate our creature comforts and familiar things, has not I think occurred to her.

When I look back to 2010 I really do wonder how I managed before I bought an oven and discovered Taobao!