Saturday 2nd September, 2017                        2300

It has recently started raining inside my home.

There has always been some in the fridge/freezer corner and on the bathroom windowsill as previously mentioned, but now great patches of the dining room ceiling have started to detach, fall to the deck and create mini-rubble.

In the UK I would immediately suspect upstairs had a leak but there is no evidence of damp (and anyway upstairs would have squealed long before now if that was the case). Instead, my amateur opinion is that poor quality materials were used in finishing off, that, combined with not fixing properly and applying such a thin veneer, has resulted in this.

Considering I never look up at the ceiling except when in bed (and if THAT starts crashing down on me when I am asleep there will be hell to pay!) the only inconvenience thus far is having to sweep up the debris.

I couldn’t face cooking tonight. I couldn’t face taking a bus somewhere to eat either. But of course now I’ve discovered a place for sweet pork….well!!!

So I moseyed on down at just before 1900 and was surprised to find the little café absolutely full. With time on my hands I was happy to wait outside having a smoke until a table became free, the only drawback being they don’t keep beer in the fridge and it’s not cold enough yet to have room temperature pijou and enjoy it.

However, within seconds a party left and I think the owner’s wife approached me and broadly gestured towards the pictures atop the wall. I simply nodded, asked for a beer and sat down. I’ve only been there once and yet she remembered what I had before! Possibly it’s because I am foreign and she knows I can’t read the menu.

Whilst waiting, I did something I had promised myself I would not do. I sent a text to Janet. She has a memory like a sieve and to be fair I don’t want to drop her in it, especially when she organises my teaching timetable. She had said my schedule would be decided by the end of the week and seeing as school finishes on Fridays I reckoned my rota should be ready.

Everybody else, including foreigners, started back at work on Monday but not yours truly. I do have a tendency to over-think at times and of course being well past Chinese retirement age, my thoughts became dark with possible problems renewing my work permit/residence permit and the school not alerting me to it. Unlikely, but not outwith the bounds of possibility.

What I didn’t want was a phone call at 0800 Monday morning (in all probability my mobile would still be turned off though) asking where I was, all the students were waiting.

My rota is still not decided. My summer holidays so far have been 9 weeks and now apparently I have a further week off, totalling 10 weeks. Well that’s both good and bad. Good because I am on pay but bad if it means next year they decide I am an unnecessary expense.

The reason?

To date no postgraduates have come forward for the Cyprus foreign study programme, the dean wants to give it another week. If there are still no takers they will give me undergraduates. Hence you may understand my concerns over being dispensed with next year as needless expense. I would like to think that in that scenario they would offer me a position on one of the other campuses but there is more oversight there and I am now very happy with my little corner of China, commuting notwithstanding. Leave me on east campus.

So another week off. Were I flush with money and had desires to jet off somewhere for a few days I would be annoyed because I have no passport and without that I cannot board a train or plane. It is with the Public Security Bureau being processed for my new documents to keep me legal here. Luckily I have neither resources nor desire.