Sunday 4^th August, 2019 1630

When this gets sent it will be the last entry before somewhere hotter and sweatier.

Alice brought my smallest suitcase here earlier with I assume her clothes (don't think there will be a luggage allowance problem there, I can pick it up with my little finger!) so that when she comes on Wednesday she only needs her “small bag” – I'm guessing she means her school backpack.

Which then prompted me to start packing my own case. For a total of nine days I really don't want to take my “airmax” monster suitcase (doesn't usually allow taxi boots to close) so I am using the medium one. I hope.

With just one bottle of wine for the hotel on Wednesday and five 250ml jing jos for breakfasts in Shanghai, so far all the clothes and 200 cigars have fitted and there's room for the empty coolbag on top. No room at all for my laptop speakers though. The good thing is, as I smoke and drink I will free up space for the return journey.

Then I went to the jing jo shop. Now that sterling has recovered a trifle I decided to start withdrawing cash. I'm going to wear my money belt on the journey. With a UK account there's a daily withdrawal limit which has always been about 2,000¥ but today it said – twice – insufficient funds. Pissed off, I went and did my shopping, anticipating an irate phone call to the UK later. I had checked the Visa rate online and applied the bank charges so there was no reason to tell me to bugger off. Then I wondered if it was perhaps a penny over the daily limit, went back, tried again for 1800 and it paid out! Came back and checked again and 2k was under the limit, admittedly only just, but what's the point of giving you somewhere to check first and then not honouring it? I will be able to clear it out completely on Tuesday.

There are no daily limits on Chinese accounts, if you have the money you can take it all out from an ATM. Ok, it's 2,500-3,000 a time up to the machine limit (25k/30k normally) but you can move to another machine and start again. With effort you could get enough to buy a car with in cash. Or a house.

Mind you, now the yuan is allegedly being manipulated I can see myself both benefiting and losing.

Tuesday 6^th 1100

One final visit to the cashpoint today to wipe out the UK account and that's it.

I had a restless night last night due to odd dreams! Somewhere in there the latest US shootings had an effect because in one I became involved with county lines drug dealers and ended up being shot twice in the head with a small calibre pistol! I didn't die (they say you can't die in your dreams) but instead woke up needing the toilet.

In another, my car was pinched and my laptop and, bizarrely, wallet were inside. There's when it turned into a serious nightmare. Due to data protection my bank wouldn't speak to me so I had no card and no way of getting any money. The real life upcoming renewal in a few months must be preying on me. At last renewal it took months after expiry for a new one to actually arrive. If only they had the capacity to copy an address in Chinese.

So that's it for a while from Lanzhou, tomorrow I will put the cat out and check all the taps are off.