Sunday 24th February, 2013          2030

Lantern festival day. I had harboured thoughts of taking the bike to town (forget the bus now the students are reappearing) in the hope of seeing and snapping a lantern dragon because there will have been one in the town centre. The weatherman let me down and instead of a nice warm and dry day we had a not so warm and with hints of rain one instead. Combine that with my staying up until after 0300 watching the rugby and you can see why I went off the idea. Mind you, it will be nice to see Ollivier again tomorrow so we can discuss his earlier prediction that France would win the 6 nations - I will not rub it in of course!

Still, not going out means shortly I will use the leftover frittata which otherwise would probably have gone to waste. When I took Muttley out earlier I saw a handful of my students, the shops and cafes are slowly opening again and the bakery looks as if it is gone. I never used it - well, apart from the few times I did when I first arrived and then discovered everything they made was disgusting - but I am sure the students will miss it, although there is another one outside which they can walk to. The place is being refitted as another eatery. I went in for a nose and I would guess it will be another few days before they are ready. Whether their fare will interest me is debatable, from the look of the menu signs I think they will offer basically the same as you can get in the other cafes. If someone opened up a proper burger place or even a KFC type fried chicken shop on campus they would make an absolute fortune from the students. I wish I was in a position to do so!

So tomorrow I go and try to reclaim my old classes and at some point I do want to go to town. It looks as if I will run out of smokes before matey gets his delivery so I need to try and source a few days worth. You never know, it might actually approach the 18C we have been promised but I won’t hold my breath.

Monday 25th       1830

Either Ollivier hasn’t returned yet or he is keeping a low profile because he knows he will get a ribbing!

As for the classes, things got a little complicated although it was all done via text or phone call. It transpired that Kevin only had one of my lot and the other had been given to a Chinese teacher. Quite how a Chinese teacher can teach oral English authentically when they appear to have only graduated a year ago is beyond me. I stole back the class they gave to Kevin although he did tell me the school’s reaction was to call him and ask him to agree to take what is apparently a new class who have just appeared and are on my schedule. Doubtless they will be three year students returning for a further two years to try to improve their qualifications. Equally they will be awful to teach so I certainly don’t blame him.

Kevin quite rightly refused and to be honest my intention was not to swap classes, simply reclaim my chicks.  I got Joanna’s class back but was told it was not possible to get class two as they had been allocated to a Chinese teacher. I was less than content and, whilst sitting at the shops mulling over a beer, I suddenly wondered if they wouldn’t give me the other class because they thought I wanted to offload the newcomers. I sent a text and it would appear I was right because I now have all my babies back. I am sure they think I am completely bonkers but I am so happy tonight to have given myself loads of extra work! The only downside is that due to constraints, whereas originally I only had 0820 starts on Monday and Friday, I have them on Wednesdays and Thursdays as well. Looks like I will be going to bed early all this semester!

The campus is buzzing again and it was good to see many of my students - it is incredible that I find I miss them when they are not here even though I enjoy the holidays.

At lunchtime Kevin and I went downtown in his car. I wanted to get cigars and he wanted some screws to reattach his motorbike cushion. His man still hasn’t got my smokes but he did have the café crème ones so I bought them to tide me over until the delivery. We lunched at KBW and then he went to the hardware place. I decided to go in with him because believe it or not I had no idea where to buy screws, tools etc other than the few on offer in  Lottemart. I am on record as saying that to me DIY means Don’t Involve Yourself but you never know when you might need something. I am glad that now I know where to go. They even had bottlescrews and I haven’t seen one of those since my seafaring days. I also now know where I can buy rope, something else I have never seen for sale here.

So, back to (an extended) grindstone tomorrow but at least it will break me in gently with just an hour and a half after lunch. At least it is warming up again - I only needed a sweater today.