Sunday 17^th January 2021 2300

Well Lanzhou Alice was highly delighted with the news I had had to cancel my Yunnan holiday. Personally I feel it is somewhat unfeeling, notwithstanding her reasoning; it means she can see me a few days before Chinese new year. Love her though I do, I would rather be with the other Alice in warmer climes living in luxury although I know what she means, I'd love Joanna to be here instead of Kuala Lumpur – purely for selfish reasons also.

Anyhow, as of tonight I am happy to report I am now in a position to make my own ham again and also chips! I will include a photo of the fryer when I post, hence this will not go until tomorrow. The fryer is larger than the previous model, easily capable of feeding chicken and chips to two or three people at a time. I would have liked one double the size with two baskets but sadly have no room for one that big. But hell – chips again! Egg and chips, ham and chips, ham, egg and chips. Fish fingers and chips, spam and chips, spam, egg and chips, spam, chips and spam, spam, spam spam and cue the Python crew. If I want to be really lazy they sell frozen chips in Metro that I mistakenly bought ages ago thinking they were oven chips. They aren't, they are just pre-cut spuds! Lazy yes but that's my middle name these days and when next term starts it may well be something I will investigate. I am even thinking of buying a chest freezer, after all I'm not going to be spending 10,000¥ on a Yunnan break now. Feedback from students seems to be that they like “Grandpa” so fingers crossed for another final year to take me to retirement.

Oh. For the life of me I can't recall if I said this already but Mr Zhang has now stepped down from being my director. I am sure I mentioned ages ago that as senior faculty approach retirement the practise is for them to move sideways and down a little so as to allow someone else to be promoted. Due to Covid Mr Zhang remained in situ for nearly a year longer than he should have and I was rather hoping he would sign off on my final year of working here. However, his replacement is an affable sort, he came here with Brenda to check out my flat, so I am not unduly worried.

Monday 18^th 1750

My laziness knows no bounds.

Ended up deciding not to go to BHG for a proper shop and instead elected to go locally. I did regret it though. Their potatoes are still ropey and of course I now want chips! Really started to regret it when the only bottles of cooking oil I could find in the only brand I buy (goldfish on the label) were five-litre ones. They're damned heavy. Combine that with the fact the packaged eggs were in dozen packs but buy one get one free then even before the bottle of plonk and spuds it was a load. Thankfully I eventually found a two litre bottle and combined it with the one litre I already had. Plus with the virus scare now becoming ever ore real the shortcut to and from home is now well and truly bolted shut so I have once again to take the long way around. I gave Mr Jing Jo a miss tonight. And I still have 22 eggs to use up.

I did however clean up the fryer ready for use. The 2.5L specification would seem to refer to the “Min” mark rather than max because it took nearly three litres. Dinner shortly will be cheese omelette and chips. You know what it's like when you get a new toy, I will probably have chips every night for a week now! Chicken curry and chips sounds inviting.......

But I really must go to BHG tomorrow. I need more oil!