Don’t ask me why but I kept waking up this morning panicking about time.
Ok, I know why.
Because Max and Karen were coming to clean. The worry was that I needed to cook! Irrational in the extreme, for what I had planned took longer to wash up the preparation pots and pans than prep and cooking combined even at my speed!
I did though lounge in bed until I was rudely awoken by air raid sirens at ten. Luckily I had seen on the Chizhou website there was to be a drill. I still checked online to make sure Kim Jong Fatty hadn’t set off another firecracker though. We had the wailing on and off all day, which was most annoying.
My cleaners/guests arrived half an hour early but proceeded to actually get here ten minutes late because they couldn’t comprehend the instructions I had sent. I got exasperated and used my phone credit in my efforts to find out precisely where outside the Shijia hotel they were.
But hell, they did a great job, especially in the kitchen where it needed both to be on their haunches with brillo type pads - I have never known tiles to be as stubborn, ever.
I could only start the business of food once they had finished in the kitchen (and they insisted on doing the windowsills which get manky due to the dreadful condensation)- it is a really bad kitchen and the cupboards get damp in winter too, hence I now keep foodstuffs out in the open unless they are sealed or canned.
Lovely. I don’t mind anyone visiting now. Time to cook.
I think they enjoyed the macaroni au gratin and the bread and butter pudding. They said they did but of course you can rarely be sure they are not merely being polite. The best gauge is how much they eat and judging by that, they did!
And now I am left alone to contemplate perhaps yet another week off.
Still no news. Thank God I am still being paid. But I must say this is the first time in my life extra holiday is most unwelcome. I really do want to be at the front of a classroom again. It feels a lot like the time I had 6 months on the beach after my shipping accident but that was different - I was in no fit state then and my job was not possibly at risk.
I am seriously considering (now my home is clean!) inviting Janet and the Dean for homemade pizzas if only to endear myself to the boss! There’s a thought - I could offer western cookery classes to the campus!
One good thing tonight was that all bar one item of my shopping was brought to me. The one missing because it may take a fortnight to come from the UK? Mixed spice for my bread puddings! Is the UK the only place which uses it????
As far as spices and herbs go here, normally the available ones in supermarkets are Chinese so you have no idea what they are or McCormick’s which are American. Pot luck on that. Some good, others not. Their paprika I think is from Zog.
But I now have a year’s supply of that heavenly nectar that is Linghams!
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