Tuesday 21^st November, 2017 1700

No crashes today, but then I have only been out locally nearby to buy a few bits for my “packed” lunch tomorrow (some savoury bites and cakes plus a bottle of ugghh – water), my daily home liquid requirements and some apples for tonight's dessert.

I do wish I was faster in the kitchen. I am terrible at doing two things at once so refrain from even trying and I am not deft enough to do the fast chopping you see on Masterchef (talking of that, I watched the latest professional heat last night and one of the critics – pompous gits – actually talked about the “nuttiness” of the cauliflower being missing. Since when has cauli ever tasted of nuts??) so it takes me ages to produce anything.

Without banging my drum, I do average more successes than failures and if I cook something often enough I can even become consistent.

Tonight's cottage pie I know will be good seeing as it was frozen from the same batch as last time, hence I am trying to make a crumble for the first time. Couldn't locate rhubarb (and forget about cooking apples here) so bought red apples instead. It had better be good, as most ingredients are imported and costly. Apples 7y, butter 20y, demerera 15y, flour 5y, oats 5y, cinnamon 8y. That's nearly £7 – ridiculous here. Please note I have found a way to get the pound sign – only takes about 10 clicks!

You will see from the photos that both pie and crumble look very much alike even with an uncooked crumble. All I need to do now is make homemade custard, also a first attempt but allegedly simple. I have a small bottle of vanilla from the USA but have never, ever separated egg yolks! I know you have to use the shells to do it but my crystal ball tells me there is a 70% chance I will cock it up and I only have four eggs! Good chance to use my electric whisk for its maiden outing. It came free with something I bought but I can't recall.

Tomorrow Alice is supposed to be showing me how to complete the exam forms on Peili campus. Having gained the concession of delivering a final total score instead of all the mullarkey they wanted, my problem is going to be the fact I have no student numbers or names in Chinese characters to identify who is who. You get the feeling Alice will be taking my attendance book and doing it for me? Well, it will mean she will get another invite for a western meal here!

Pat totalled up my anticipated Taobao bill last night. For six items (cheddar, chutney, lime pickle, Halls mentholyptus, Italian herbs and Colmans mustard powder) it was 587y!!!!! That's £65!!! Either she has no idea how to find decent delivery prices or they are ripping us off here in the sticks. I may revert to Jinkou. I only stopped using them because I have to order 500y to qualify for free delivery – they look pretty good value right now......

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The girls have just left. Delighted with the pie as I expected and despite the crumble being VERY crumbly, I used a lot of oats, I nonetheless made a lot of custard. Not exactly Ambrosia but I'll tell you what, I was pleased with the result and I am my own worst critic when tasting time comes. Less oats and more sugar next time but definitely not a failure otherwise Stephanie would not now be lugging the leftovers back to her university!

More arrows are added to my culinary quiver as time passes.