Wednesday 19th December, 2012          2045

Knackered today and it is absolutely perishing. I just hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow because even though I don’t want to ride to town tomorrow - I always consider the bus in the cold - I have to ride because on Monday the spring (or something) broke on the main stand of my bike. I was taking Pepsi for a ride and the stand dragged on the ground, with the resulting metal-on-concrete sound. Pepsi is of an extremely nervous disposition anyway and before we had travelled five feet she had shot off the bike like a scalded cat. So I have to take it to be fixed as at present it is tied up to keep it above ground and I don’t like using the side stand because I always think it will topple over.

It looks as if our actions over the last meal has put the message across because this morning we all (foreigners) received calls or texts asking if we were free on Saturday afternoon so the school could take us for Christmas dinner. We are free and it was nice to get a few days rather than a few hours notice. Long may it continue. The Christmas meal is normally a smaller occasion than the mid-autumn meal because it takes place purely for the westerners’ benefit, however I am sure it will be a lovely repast.

Both my classes today expressed disgruntlement with me because last night I never gave them any of my gifts. I took pains to point out that my intention had been to tour the auditorium but the students were so greedy and eager to get hold of a trinket and blocked my passage that short of beating them back (and being videoed to boot) might have appeared unseemly and would rather jar with the “Ho Ho Ho!” image I was trying to project!  

Now this evening when I took the mutt to the shops I happened to notice a girl who came into the café to order some food. I don’t have a particular fetish you understand, but I couldn’t help but notice she had no earlobes. Curiosity piqued, I then observed the other people in there and to my surprise none of them had any either! I shall now have to continue my research in case this is the same with all Chinese.

Thursday 20th         1930

I really don’t want to be doing that too often. Yes, it was not only freezing cold but also raining when I went to town. I had to wear the cape which meant I couldn’t wear my furry hat or my earmuffs, not pleasant. First stop was the repair shop for the bike - a thirty second job for them to simply fit a new spring and I was on my way again. And yet again  my little shop still has no cigars, so that involved going to the other two outlets, one had two packs and the other had two packs but also had some little tins of ten Café Crème type smokes so I bought a carton of those. I am sure the price was 10y a tin but they charged me 200y and when I got home I found there were just ten tins and not twenty in a box. I will certainly check the price next time I go and have words if I am right, bloody cheek.

At five o’clock I became the proud owner of an “intelligent bread maker” on which all the buttons and screen display are in Chinese and the instruction booklet is the same. So far I have had no success searching for online instructions in either English or Chinese - the latter I can get Google to translate. I will ask Kevin to see if he can find some, failing which I will ask Joanna to translate longhand for me. I suppose I could have a bash at sticking ingredients in, running it on whatever it is preset to when you plug it in and seeing what happens - it‘s usually the small loaf with a medium crust!

I washed my trainers last night in the washing machine and of course in this weather there was no chance of them drying out so I bought electric shoe dryers you put inside and plug in. they heat up and theoretically dry your shoes. I left them drying for 18 hours and by lunchtime they still weren’t dry so I had to wear my slightly small shoes to town. I am rather hoping that if I leave them on all tonight I will actually be able to wear them in the morning.

I have yet another English corner/party tomorrow at six. Being my light week I have a break from ten until after lunch and as I have cocked up with exam dates for one class (it didn’t help when I see them once one week, twice the next and then finding out we are off the first three days of 2013) I had hoped that class was free at 1020 so I could make a start. No such luck, nor on Monday when I also have time so guess who will be working for a while on the afternoon of his day off next week?

Enough for now, I am off to continue searching for instructions……