Thursday 6th December, 2012          1530

A cold day today but at least dry for a run to town. I fancied some lunch and needed pet food and with a day off I didn’t have an excuse not to go. I had my lunch in Ke Bi Wang and I thought after two and a half years here I was used to everything - the spitting everywhere, kids peeing and pooing in the street etc but today it was proved I thought wrong.

Thankfully I had finished eating and was just having a quiet cigar while I finished my beer. On the next table to me there were two women with infants and to utter disgust and horror, instead of taking it outside, one of them held her toddler off her lap and let it crap in the restaurant. There was runny shit both on the floor AND on the chair. The worst of it was that the only eyelid batted was mine. I appreciate they have a different culture but by no stretch of the imagination can that be acceptable in any society.

Regular readers will have noticed I haven’t moaned about my knee for quite some time, that’s because it completely cleared up for ages. Until this morning that is. An anti-inflammatory banished it after an hour so hopefully it is something I will only get periodically, in which case I can live with it. I am certainly not spending 500y a month on crushed seashells that may in fact not do any good anyway.

2100

Really not a happy teddy tonight. The government have had a concerted crackdown which has resulted in my being unable to access the BBC to watch my downloads. The people I use are aware and have sent instructions to everyone but I couldn’t get it to make any difference, maybe Kevin can when he gets back. This happened a year ago and in fairness the firm did find solutions after a couple of days but it is really annoying because even accessing my emails is now problematic seeing as I use Gmail and China is not best friends with Google. Even doing a simple search for anything results in an error message.

Friday 7th     1800

I felt a trifle under the weather today with cold symptoms and also slight nausea of which I don’t know the cause because I never ate anything unusual yesterday - unless you count a jacket potato. Being my easy week I only had four lessons today, even so I still managed to walk in the wrong classroom this afternoon when another teacher was already in there.

Immediately after I finished classes I had to go to an English corner put on by some of my lot. I must say I am enjoying what these kids do, which is make them a sort of mini concert with some games thrown in and at sensible times too. In my first year they were held outside at night and the only attraction was me and I was expected to speak for ninety minutes, resulting in my developing a pathological dislike for them. This year they are fun. It’s also good to see some of my new chicks showing early confidence in hosting events and performing so early into uni life as it gives me a clue as to which ones to encourage more and make suggestions to. The run up to Christmas is getting busy now, we have the main concert on the 18th and today more of my students asked if I would come to their Christmas themed corner three days later. Somehow I think by the time I knock off on 4th January I will need that long holiday.

The bread maker tale has now become a saga. On Monday Kiki was told my repaired machine would be despatched that day. Yesterday she went to collect a package but all it contained was the bucket and paddles - no machine, so she refused to sign for it. It transpires that when we sent it back “free” it was to the manufacturers, who refused to pay the delivery charge at their end. The machine is God knows where but I have ended up paying to send the bucket back. Kiki is at present dealing with the vendor who neither has the facility to repair it nor provide a replacement as they don’t sell that make any more. Small wonder if they all break down. I have told her to ask them to send me a new machine regardless of brand and if they agree and I end up with buttons and manual only in Chinese I will get someone to translate it for me. If the Panasonic Kevin has wasn’t so expensive (thrice the UK price) I would buy one and at least I could depend on it.

2030

Too cold to stay out long, it is down to just four or five in the evenings now, and with the Chinese habit of leaving café/restaurant doors wide open in all weathers it is no warmer inside than out. I have heard many different reasons for this but the most popular brace are to prevent evil spirits from staying long and, my preferred one even though it is idiotic, is in case customers are deterred because they think they are closed. Hardly likely when the lights are on and the place is full of people.

I have the entire day free tomorrow and fully intend to spend it doing as little as possible. Sunday I am teaching from 1400 and having looked at the forecast they say it will be the coldest day so far this winter with a high of 6 and a low of - eek! - minus one. Looks like it will be full  battledress on the bike then.