Saturday 4^th April, 2020 1530

Lately I have been weary in the early evening. I'm not one for taking siestas so instead I have actually been going to bed sometimes as early as 2200 and naturally waking up correspondingly early.

The central heating is now off and it is cold in here until the fan heater warms it up.

So this morning I was doing some work and at ten o'clock I jumped out of my skin when the air raid sirens went off. I immediately – rather too immediately as it turns out – pounced on Facebook denouncing the “practice” as in poor taste given the situation.

A couple of minutes later our Shanghai correspondent replied to inform me it was the start of a three-minute silence in honour of the Covid martyrs. Everyone knew. Except me. I'm not on Chinese social media, I'm sure there was nothing in China Daily yesterday and it seems as though I may have read it too early this morning for the report to have appeared. Jody, I found out, knew about it but had singularly failed to tell me. When I thanked her and told her I had just made a prat of myself on Facebook she thought it highly amusing.

Half an hour ago I finished marking everything in my inbox. I then made mistake number two of the day. Jody wants to go to Metro and said she'd like to go today. I said I've just finished all my work so if you can wait we will go tomorrow, that's if a late class doesn't send me more work. She has got the hots for their strawberry turnovers and I love the apple variety. Usually here the puff pastry has a nasty taste (I don't think they use butter) but these are delicious. Plus I get another Whopper dinner!

I then returned to my office and as I sat down, sure enough I had tempted fate because yes, you guessed it, another email full of homework pinged into my email! I may get it done today but if not it will have to wait. There will be no work winging its way to me on Monday as it is a holiday and I have ensured that my classes abide by it! The weather is supposed to warm up by then so just maybe it will be haircut time.