Saturday 19th January, 2013        1700

Still some straggling students here but I expect they will all depart by tomorrow seeing as the dormitory buildings will all be locked tonight - or at least most of them. I went to the outside supermarket this afternoon with Pepsi, seems they will remain open until the back end of the month.

While I was outside enjoying 10C and sunshine with a bottle I was approached by two fluffy puppies. No, I am not doing that again, but then a larger dog appeared and stood some way off. I wasn’t sure but I thought it could possibly be Flopsy. I haven’t seen her in months and I assumed she had been run over or killed and eaten. I called out to the dog, it ran over and immediately flopped down on her back to have a belly rub! She is still around and it made me happy to know. Almost as happy as ten minutes later when I received a text from Qing saying she was on the way to the station and would be here in the early evening.

2030

Too late in the day for me to contemplate cooking, so I came home, dumped Pepsi and left to take a bus to meet her. We have just dined on sweet pork (she loved it), prawns and egg & tomato - very nice thank you. Earlier Kevin managed to fathom out the router so I now have wifi, albeit everything had to be secreted behind the headboard so the cats don’t eat the wires. At present she is at my right elbow on her laptop chatting to friends and all is well with the world - my world that is. The bread machine is currently on and a loaf will be ready before midnight. This is so she can have marmalade on toast for her breakfast preparatory to a foray into town, when she wants to stock up on her own particular favourite snacks. As the forecast is 11C again the plan is to go on the bike, that way if she wants to visit multiple shops I won’t get exhausted from tramping after her.

For now though, I end this entry to watch some downloads and just enjoy her company.

Sunday 20th         1600

It never got to eleven degrees so at noon we took the bus along with some of the remaining stragglers still on campus. Incredibly (can’t remember if I mentioned this before) in midwinter suddenly pineapples have appeared, so I bought one in order to make pizza later in the week. As we were strolling to get the fruit I heard my name and turned around. It was Joanna. She has been staying with a student who lives here and will go home tomorrow. As soon as I introduced her to Qing the pair reverted to Chinese, a sure sign I wasn’t supposed to know the topic of conversation. It didn’t take a genius to know if it was whether we were married or going to be. Qing denied everything of course - she wants the rumours spreading as much as me - but of course nobody will believe a word. We can but try.

Ke Bi Wang it was for lunch, I wasn’t hungry but bought a small amount anyway, Qing put away four dishes, boiled rice AND went back for more rice. For a slim girl she can’t half eat.  Then it was the supermarket, mainly to buy meat for the brood seeing as rain is forecast for the next few days and anyway I don’t want to go out too often. As of this morning Qing was introduced to the delights of toast and jam for breakfast, which she ate after consuming a cold tin of Chinese “porridge”, which is a revolting snot stew but they love it. So, she had to buy more jam, methinks I will be making plenty of bread whilst she is here. How long that will be I know not because she is seriously considering going to Hefei after the holidays to study Arabic and then work at her uncle’s company, abandoning the idea of Sydney. I will get round to discussing her options some time soon.

Anyway, rather fortuitously Kevin phoned to tell me he was just leaving for campus so we got him to divert and pick us up. She forgot to bring her phone charger with her so as of this morning has been using the antiquated Nokia I used in my first year. Her dad has given it to a bus driver and it should arrive at the station in about an hour so I will see if I can prevail upon Kevin to take her.

We will all eat together tonight, finally I will make the chilli so I’d better get started if I am going to get the animals fed as well.