Tuesday 10^th September, 2019 1100

As sometimes happens, life has gone from irksome to normal in a very short space of time.

Having emailed the Dean to ironically thank her for the additional class and offer my reasons for not wanting to complete those daily/weekly performance forms, I received a call from her. She wasn't actually in the city and with my running on two timetables she was unsure just where the extra class had come from.

She agreed I could dispense with the forms and some time later she called again. The extra class is in fact the one I had scheduled for Friday mornings so now instead of having Tuesdays free, I have Fridays! If I wasn't serious about saving for next summer I could if I wished go away at weekends. Conversely it does mean that when the long weekend holidays come around (such as Mid Autumn festival this Friday), as usual I will get no benefit.

By God it was a struggle this morning. 0530 alarm, leave home 0715 and bump into Nordine whilst we waited for the bus. I found my classroom with no problem and even had time to have my smoke.

The first class was in fact the students' first class ever at university and Christ knows what they made of me! Not too large with 32 in the class and most from towns I have never even heard of, all in Gansu province except one. And when she introduced herself and stated her hometown I had to do a double-take. She comes from Huaibei in Anhui! Twenty-one hours away by train and tucked in the furthest northern corner of the province, not far from Suzhou where Joan lives. I'm sure in the fullness of time I will discover why the hell she is at school so far from home but one thing's for sure, she won't be going home for Qing Ming, Dragon Boat etc!

The ten o'clock trek to get the bus back was a trial, over two months basically sitting on my backside meant it was a shock to my long-suffering pins. The only good thing is that I have discovered I can still do my shopping on Tuesday as the bus actually stops about fifty yards from BHG. So I did shop and now I am skint until I go to the ATM. Nearly 400¥ and the only food was a bit of mince and half a pound of butter. The bulk being wine and a large tub of Nescafe which to be honest, will last me six months.

And now I am gratefully home. At some point soon I will need a kip and later I must make sausage rolls for future lunches.

I think the all day session on Thursday will be a tribulation.