Wednesday 12th December, 2012       1700

My youngest brother’s fiftieth birthday and one on which another is sitting in pain with two broken incisors, gashes in a hand and knee and a broken shoulder which may or may not need pinning. The former brother arrived at today simply by remaining alive long enough, the latter met with an unfortunate accident when his perambulatory skills deserted him temporarily. I wish them both the best on this day, not least because the injured sibling is supposed to be cooking Christmas dinner for the patrons of the other’s pub!

Nothing much to report from here of late as it has been pretty much routine, albeit cold. I ruined my first class’ day today when I mentioned that they get new years day off. They were adamant that the break was three days. I was pretty sure I was right - indeed having mapped out the exam dates for each class had I been wrong this would have been a major spanner in the works - so I asked the monitor to nip to the teachers room in the break and get a school calendar. Needless to say it appears I don’t need to adjust my plans.

It was payday today so tomorrow I must tog up and go to town for my monthly supply of drugs and nicotine, while there I will have some lunch. I am really thoroughly bored of campus food now and whilst I cook a bit for myself, without a bread maker it is a pain and going to town in the cold is not something to be relished. I am seriously considering going for some sweet pork alone in a little while - expensive but nice and at least they keep the doors shut in the winter.

Thursday       2000

I did indeed go for sweet pork and prawns last night and left with a doggy bag which will be tomorrow nights dinner - all I will need to do is buy some me fan (boiled rice). I changed the bed yesterday and thought about putting the electric blanket on but decided against - with four everlasting hot water bottles I can wait a bit longer. Kevin has been using his for a month now!

I went downtown mid-afternoon and stopped at the bank to make my first withdrawal on a Chinese card from an ATM, I was half expecting to find there was no money on the card and none in the book either which would have been fun but fair play, Cinny was spot on.  Got my drugs and went for cigars. They hadn’t got them and I had just seven left, not even enough to last until bedtime. The woman rummaged around and found two packets and I think possibly she will have a delivery this weekend. If not then I will be forced to pay at least 15% more at the other two places I know that sell them. Steak and dumpling platter for a late lunch/early dinner and then back before it got too cold for someone without long Johns and the second I got back the rain started. At least two days of that to look forward to thanks.

One of the comperes for the Christmas concert collared me this evening to briefly run through the Santa routine. During the chat it suddenly hit me that it is this coming Tuesday! Yikes, I need to do at least a little preparation beforehand!

This is quite a short entry considering the last was a few days ago but I will post just in case anyone thinks I have pegged out. I haven’t yet, although I do have a bad chest which had better bugger off before Tuesday!