Thursday 16th March, 2017                            1706

So after getting my cigars I had my less than satisfactory curry at a very small Dico’s at the train station and headed back home for a quiet evening in - as usual.

Yesterday was the weekly shop, which I delayed until late afternoon because I couldn’t be bothered cooking myself. Off to the sweet pork place, where I had a dry hotpot of prawns, peppers, onions etc. Very nice and at 50y including rice, I wasn’t about to leave any king prawns. It did mean I overate and suffered all evening as a result but although plenty of vegetables were left, there was not a prawn standing at the end. It really is a place I need to take a partner or two, I can’t even finish one dish on my own. But nice to go there, Mama is always pleased to see me and it’s pleasant to sit inside watching the pedestrian traffic milling around outside. Always reminds me of my first few days in Lanzhou.

I still haven’t found a decent flowerpot with compost and now the mint seedlings are a good inch tall and densely populated. I need to fix that before long if I am to be able to have minted new potatoes come summer.

I had intended to take a trip to the western supermarket in the city today but cancelled it due to lack of interest and a bit of a grumbly belly after last night’s Bacchanalian feast. Instead, I motivated myself to make macaroni  cheese, one aluminium tray is baking as I type and three others are nestled in the freezer for future occasions. The two remaining shepherds pies that I oversalted are currently on the pavement outside defrosting and awaiting the attention of the wild cats and dogs when they get a whiff - although when I was standing in the kitchen I observed many Chinese people pause whilst walking past, clearly puzzled as to what the hell they were!

I think for the first time I have actually got my body clock to where it should be. I was in bed before midnight last night and awake before eight this morning. Perfect for tomorrow’s 0500 rise. Of course that will all be destroyed at the weekend due to the final round of the 6 Nations and I will doubtless be wrecked early Monday morning. Still, it’s only once a year.

Last night Georgina asked me if I wanted a job. Having already told her I have no interest in teaching online, I was surprised when she asked again. The job? She is going to put me forward to someone as a candidate for running her new company’s foreign teacher blog! I gather I would need to moderate it also but it seems there is money in it. Seems like a damned good excuse to start from blog number 1, tidy the entries up and post them. Hardly a great deal of work, eh??!! Fingers crossed because that sort of work I am more than happy to do.

I was earlier looking through my papers to find the change of address form for the Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund. The last statement I received was for benefits at the end of 2000 so I thought a current one would be good.

Imagine my surprise when I spotted that this pension becomes payable in 2 months! I was convinced it would be my 65th birthday with the state pension to follow a year later. I now need to contact them to make sure and if so, tell them where to pay it. Apparently by law the pension has to increase by 3% compound per annum (something else I never noticed before) so I could be in for a nice surprise and my final 5 years working (hopefully in China) will be with possibly a 50% payrise depending on the exchange rate for sterling. Sadly since the EU vote the pound has slumped from 10y to the pound to about 8.5y which makes a fair difference. Still, that much extra would make my life here so much more enjoyable and of course I could tuck some away for when I pack up work.