Monday 19th December, 2016                       1430

Can there be many things worse than going to bed leaving yourself five hours to sleep before the alarm goes off, not being able to sleep because you itch and you don’t feel 100% anyway, dropping off then waking at 0140, tossing and turning for ages and finally reaching REM about half an hour before you have to get up?

That’s what I did.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t as exhausted as I should have been, for which I am heartily grateful. Mind you, the biting cold made a very good fist of ensuring I was wide awake when I left home!

On the bus in I had a text from David apologising as he had missed said bus. Now I had thought nothing of it because sometimes rather than staying overnight at his family home he stays at his grandparents. However, of late his attendance has gone from excellent to poor and his timekeeping has been lax. When he arrived I was going to chide him and take him to task to book an appointment to have his mattress surgically removed from his back.

Thankfully he turned up during the break and came to my office to explain his lateness. His grandmother has passed away. My immediate comment was why had he even bothered coming to school? Regular readers here will know from what I have said in the past that Chinese people are extremely close to their grandparents seeing as they look after them all week while their parents work. Therefore when one dies it hits them like a ton of bricks. I wanted to come to school he said. The reason?

My father is home.

Ah. Enough said. At least now I know why his keenness dropped off this past month.

East campus has had no water all weekend. I asked why and apparently there is a burst water main or pipe, possibly it affects the immediate surrounds as well. Anyway, I went to the toilet for a leak. When I entered (these toilets are completely open with just a low wall either side of  the hole you direct your effluent down) the bus driver was squatting in the first cubicle, a student was having a dump in the second and the third was free. Oh God, I could see why it was free, it looked as if a herd of Fresians had paid a visit after a banquet the night before. When I finished, I pressed the button to flush but I had forgotten there was no water! I fled. However, with a supermarket shop on the cards afterwards I had no option but to go again when I finished work.

I cannot begin to describe what it was like after another horde of students had compounded the situation! I am wondering if I should take a bottle with me to work and do it in my office tomorrow.

It would seem the entire class of eleven wish to come to my place for the party on Saturday. Even the two who never came to class today. The cheek of it! It would be churlish of me to exclude them even though perhaps I should. It would put me in a bad light and anyway I would feel guilty.

I have roped Suzy and Sheila into coming on Thursday to dust and mop the floors and dangled the promise of a roast chicken dinner by way of inducement. They did want to just come early on Saturday but I had to point out that I would be cooking the entire day and we would be in each others’ way.

I bought that much meat in the supermarket I had to rearrange my freezer and even then I had to ram the drawers shut. I have a sneaky feeling that when the time comes to take the meat out I will have to take out two drawers at once. Only the vegetables and salad left to buy now.