Saturday 15^th February, 2020 1800

Below zero again today but there is talk of northern China dropping 8-10 degrees next week. Great.

Nothing much to report today really but I just went to the jing jo shop and forgot my mask. It was one way of getting people to give me a wide berth! Everything still all locked up but the situation is much less bleak now we found that supermarket nearby.

Jody was asked to go to the campus office tomorrow to meet with someone from the English language department so they can get together and come up with my timetable. She's not happy because her time doing office work finished at the end of term and she's going back to teaching. The reason she's been asked is that although the girl whose job it is has now returned from New Zealand, the girl doesn't have a clue. So it's the usual case of she makes an awful cup of tea so don't ask her but so and so makes a great one, ask her.

Mind you, I'd rather have Jody doing it, that way I may just get a friendly timetable!

The virus precautions seem to be rather hit and miss though, certainly here. One day there's an army on the gate and today they were all inside the guardhouse keeping warm. There was however a speaker on the quarantine desk which was presumably pumping out propaganda of some sort. Maybe it's a fair weather thing!

So tomorrow I have no choice but to go to BHG unless I want to give up smoking. Will the bakery be open? When will the big mall be open again? When will China Tobacco?

I've never been in this situation before and doubt many of my readers have been either unless they are much older than me. It's nothing I cannot handle but it doesn't half seem inconvenient. It is not anything on the scale of wartime shortages in the UK that my grandparents went through, that's for sure but these days people squeal if they lose internet for fifteen minutes or their favourite brand of cereal is out of stock. I would simply like to know what is and isn't open before I make the trip!