Saturday 29^th May, 2021 1645

I've not had a good day today. Firstly Jody woke me up going about her business (not her fault, by rights I should have woken up at six anyway given when I turned in) and because I was still absolutely shattered after yesterday (I hate Fridays) I started to drift back off.

And then that sodding bird started. God I hate it. Even when I lay on my right side so my slightly weaker left ear is the one exposed I can still hear it and it never shuts up. Must be female! I could use the earplugs I bought, certainly when I don't need to get up early but the one time I did on a work day I never heard the alarm!

Yesterday I had a bit of a bad stomach. My schedule is at fault. Three days a week I'm getting up at 0530 but my “movements” don't in general align, so I find myself praying I don't get caught short at school with only squat toilets. Of course, that acts as a compactor and I end up bunged up.

Now I don't eat a great deal of fruit but last night I bought some fresh cherries and they comprised my dinner. They eventually worked today but until they did I felt very uncomfortable. So my plans of going to BHG and washing all the dishes (I'm sure Jody doesn't believe a word) went by the board.

Tomorrow is scuppered because I have that English corner but I may well go for a McDonald's afterwards. A Big Mac normally goes through me in a sensible time frame! As usual that will leave Monday for scrambling to BHG and doing any baking I want to get done. Not having anywhere nearby campus (well, by my standards not nearby) in which to eat and the school canteens being execrable, my life is entirely taken up by planning and cooking school lunches and dinners at home. And I am losing the energy.

I may make a large apple pie for my lunch desserts (fruit!) and I have a couple of sausage rolls left which means if I make lemony, creamy prawns and pasta for my dinner on Monday I can take half of it for lunch on Tuesday. How I would love to have an English Tesco where I could buy microwaveable meals and ready lunches! Of course, now the weather is warmer if I had an e-bike I could zip out at lunchtimes and in the evenings. For about a month before the lunatic traffic in this city either killed me or put me in hospital.

Moaning over. For today at least.

Three hours ago Jody returned from her side job teaching at the primary school (she's back there now for a later class after having a nap here) and declared “It's f*****g hot outside!” According to the weather site it should have been 28ºC which for Lanzhou is indeed warm. I'd opened my office window to warm the place up but it only helped marginally as always.

But then a while later the sky started to darken and a wind arrived. I shouted to her (eating her noodles next door) that I thought it was about to rain, which wasn't on the cards. It didn't. Yet another million tonnes of the Gobi desert descended upon us.

I believe this year so far is a record for sandstorms in northern China and my previous years saw only a couple of mild ones but this year the sky turns orange and visibility is severely reduced. This one disappeared after an hour so was less intense than the recent one that enveloped us for three days.

And my heathcode thing stopped working yesterday. I asked Jody to take a look and she said I needed to fill out the information again. Great. A) it is in Chinese and B) I have no idea how to do it. I will ask Brenda to sort it (she installed it in the first place) but I shall wait until I get my new passport which fingers crossed, will be with me in about three weeks.

I don't even want to think about it getting lost in the EMS system Roland!