Remember, remember the 5th of November, 2016                    1510

The bank DID oblige but for a usurious cost - £13 to transfer £80! Being between a rock and the proverbial, I had to acquiesce but had I known at the time that the reason my latest card still hasn’t arrived was down to the work experience lad I got last time, who never cancelled the June card, thus preventing the issue of another, then I may have become quite indignant. Even better, I provided them with a SWIFTCODE for my Bank of China account and discovered the terminology is a joke because it still takes 3-4 working days (if it arrives at all) by which time I will have been paid. I ended up borrowing from Janet again. Sometimes, well often, I think life is God’s cruel joke on humans. Or I would if I believed there was one.

On the internet front, Brenda has arranged for a married couple who are IT teachers on the main campus to attend my home on Monday afternoon. Apparently they also speak English well. Fingers crossed they can fix it because it is getting to the stage where I may as well have bought another router and had someone Chinese read the instructions and set up from scratch. I have not hidden my thoughts as to Wang’s expertise, or the fact I am convinced all of this is down to his incompetence.

I don’t know about anyone reading this but I have never, ever, heard of anyone unplugging their router when they go to bed - have you? Well if the last two nights are anything to go by, the old fossils above me (and into whose internet I am hacking), DO! And they go to bed at stupid o’clock, like just after ten! They then plug it back in late morning so I have to be quick off the mark to squeeze as many Mb as I can during old people hours. I can’t moan, for at least I have some internet and after they go to bed I can still watch downloads - if any have completed. Today is looking good despite it being pointless my leaving my laptop on all last night.

Before I went shopping I browsed pasta bake recipes and quick meals, thinking I could concoct something simple for tonight. Well it’s all very well them saying “store cupboard ingredients and leftovers” but that doesn’t apply in China!  I mean where the hell am I supposed to get Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup at the drop of a hat? Or exotic cheeses when I can’t even get cheddar offline? For the singletons out there who actually cook and don’t like to waste food because of budget, I am no different in that I often find cooking for only myself a chore. I love cooking for a few people because it will get eaten but some things simply don’t keep or freeze well.

Tomorrow is no problem, I will do roast pork (again!) but eventually I found one I can in fact do. I’ve never seen chilli flakes here but I have powder and oil that will do. As for olive oil, I passed on that when I saw the prices! For some reason in China you can only get extra virgin, yet I prefer the ordinary olive oil with no taste. Hideous prices. So tonight’s gourmet feast is not something I would have dreamt up in a decade - tinned sardines with pasta and onion and things. Might be ok hut I couldn’t even eat a whole tin of sardines (they come in baked bean family size here) let alone pasta as well but it was that or go and have noodles. Cheaper of course but it’s a bit like working for Mars. You don’t fancy chocolate after a while. Mind you, I worked in a brewery once and the same never happened!

Nice day today, coat and shirt all that was required. Tomorrow will be colder and greyer but I shall only go around the corner and the flat is as snug as a bug, in fact at times I have to open a window to cool it down now. I can only hope it’s as cosy in the dead of winter.

I was idly looking at flights between Lanzhou and Hefei (forget Chizhou, you have to pay a fortune and go via one of the main airports) and if you time it right it can be ridiculously cheap - 230y each way for a 2-2.5 hour flight. I would love to see Joan again but then I would need an hotel, whereas if she came here………..

My class yesterday started off with eight students. I had especially prepared for them a selection  of my photos to show them on the screen in the second period. Bugger me if first three of them begged absence for period two to go and rehearse a song, then another three likewise for a play! I was left with two!  I said seeing as I had spent an hour sifting through pictures I wasn’t going to waste it for just them so I could put a film on and have the pictures next week. Let’s just talk. Well I wish every class was like that. This time I introduced them to Countdown, just as a girl joined the class. At their suggestion I joined her team against the two remaining boys. I did warn them they had absolutely no chance of winning were I to do that - and they didn’t. Normally I split a bigger class in two to play against each other and I play solo for fun. I have to say that the run of letters was appalling by any standards and even I was often reduced to 4 letter words, usually to their 3. All good fun.

Down in Bailie/Peili Square by the BRT there was the usual “man on a soapbox” trying to flog toothbrushes and other tat cheaply through a microphone but there was also an opera of some sort on a big stage in the square. I know that in Peking/Beijing opera all the parts are played by men (often in falsetto) but one performer was very patently of the fairer sex so I have no idea what sort it was. Lovely costumes and I regretted not having my camera with me. Maybe next Saturday.

I have been informed that a week on Friday my class is cancelled. They are all art students hoping to become art teachers and they have an exhibition of their work all week. I suggested to Janet that instead of taking the day off on Friday, in place of the lessons I could go to school anyway and view their work. She’s typically Chinese - inscrutably crafty! Oh no! come on Tuesday morning. You have afternoon class but are free in the morning! Aside from making it yet another extremely long day, I know she is angling for another lunch at Pizza Hut but with me paying! Nothing against that, she just bailed me out and it’s my turn after all but she COULD have simply been blunt about it!