Friday 7th June, 2013         1300

The illegal alien story got better.

Our foreign expert certificates get sent away for renewal and are yet to arrive back. With our passports we were given paperwork with which to apply for our new resident permits, included in which were photocopies of the FEC. Ollivier sent me a text saying we needed the originals and so I checked with the school and was told we didn’t. Unbeknown to me, Ollivier had just spent an hour at the police station with his Chinese wife as interpreter and had been refused. On finding this out I cancelled my siesta and started sending messages everywhere as the spectre of becoming illegal in 12 hours was somewhat uncomfortable.

Apparently phone calls were made and subsequently I was assured we would not be declined. Ollivier is not too concerned as he still has a fortnight’s validity. And yes, we had to pay and claim back later. This was a problem for Kevin as he has changed all his money into Sterling or used it on his flight. At 800y each it was hardly a piffling amount but thankfully for once I had enough money to cover both of us. I look forward to getting reimbursed in good time although with the way things are going with the foreign affairs dept (and previous experience) I have misgivings. Anyway, off we trotted to the police station to do the deed at two o’clock, taking Daisy along for translation.

Happily the young WPC who speaks English was on duty and she helped enormously. These people are the ones who visit the school to have a meeting with us every now and again and normally afterwards we all go for dinner. The WPC is my “girlfriend” on these occasions although she is happily married and as it has been a while since they last came I asked when they would come again. I like free dinners. It may be that it will happen towards the end of this month, which will be good as I will be off and they can’t do the usual thing whereby it is always my free afternoon or day they pick to come.

Everything is now sorted and we should be able to retrieve our passports on Sunday. However, our heroine the FAO screwed up the paperwork and it needs to be rectified - but at MaYa police station, not that one. You can sense - can’t you - that the waste of space will try to rectify the papers and get us to go and sort it? Well she screwed up so as far as we are concerned, she should have the inconvenience of putting it right, not us. There is no leverage for her this time as it won’t prevent our permits being updated! Watch this space.

Both yesterday and today I have been labouring under a bad cold (or man flu as wimps may term it) and had I been a student I would have asked myself for leave from my classes but of course I didn’t. Two more weeks and I am done for three months. I swear I have had more colds in the past three years than I have in the thirty preceding ones. Surely I must be running out of new strains to catch?

The rain is back so the temperature is low to mid twenties. Thankfully I am free for the afternoon and may well snooze for a while, we are working over the weekend to make up for the dragon boat holiday and from tomorrow onwards it will be pure examinations. The only good thing about that is that I get to sit down all day.

1600

Well I am done in. I am cooking half a duck for the four legged ones then bacon, eggs, mash and HP for me. A seriously early night is called for and I honestly don’t care if I wake up at four, I just want to shake this thing off. If I wasn’t so hungry I would be in bed now - pity I don’t have anyone here to bring me food and drinks in bed! I have to hang until eight or so of course for Pepsi, whilst she is very good now I can’t torture her bladder that much but will chance an early last outing at eight. Enjoy your weekend.