Friday 22nd November, 2013                  1930

Yes I know I am sporadic but it takes time to recover when you are an old fart and when things are happening rapidly workwise as well it leaves even less time to sit down and compose something.

Ollivier has already moved home - says it took him 90 minutes which suggests youth and a wife and students to help makes a difference - Kevin has moved in but still has loads to shift from the old place and I? Well, I have gotten as far as dumping new bedding on the bed (but not removing the plastic mattress cover), buying a few fittings for Kevin to fit using his drill and the workmen coming to instal the gas bottle for the double hob. I really haven’t felt like doing anything lately, exciting though the move is.

Of late I have been an agony uncle to a Chinese dept major (Mulan) who has started attending my classes (she and her two siblings are orphans). Her 18 year old brother has met and fallen head over heels with a girl and with sisterly concern she is worried he is neglecting his high school studies. Worse, he has no time for her any more. She is happier now that I have explained that love at 18 is all-encompassing and excludes everything else, she has tried but won’t be thanked for nagging and he needs to make his own mistakes and decisions. The odd thing about Chinese students is that they will often open up with really personal problems to a foreign teacher which I believe they would never for a moment consider doing with a Chinese teacher. Maybe it’s because the Chinese teachers have no time for that, I know not.

This afternoon at four I received an SOS from Ollivier. He had called Kevin but he was downtown and I assume unwilling to help at that time so passed the problem to me. The French contingent (and yes, he reads this blog!) had run out of petrol en route to town. I retrieved a jerry can from Kevin’s place which only had about a litre of petrol in it, thought about going to a garage first to fill it and decided against as it should have been enough to get the car far enough to fill up. On arrival I did comment that the way to avoid this problem was to keep petrol in the tank but was assured the petrol gauge was faulty. Whatever, after emptying the contents of the can into the car, it would run for a second or two and then stop. My theories (and as yet I have no idea if either were right) was that there was either an airlock or perhaps because being half on the road and half on grass resulting in a starboard list the fuel was on the wrong side of the tank for the uptake.

His wife Coco called the VW garage and eventually an old Santana arrived with four chaps in boilersuits. They went along the lines of the “not enough petrol” theory and I left when they cluttered off to fill the jerry can to see if that would do the trick. I did ask to be sent a message once they were mobile again but so far have heard nothing. But he’s French.

Tomorrow Lucy is coming to the new place to clean the floors, windows and inside the wardrobes/cupboards which are covered in building dust. I have splashed out on a new broom and pan and a new mop. After that I can start transferring clothes and other items plus remove the mattress cover. Next week I will hit Kevin with the guilt trip to put my kitchen and bathroom shelves up and plumb in the washing machine. Then it will be a case of mobilising the troops (probably my last class on Fridays) and organise a crocodile file of “ants” to ferry all the heavy stuff. Except perhaps the fridge/freezer - for that I may get the school porters involved.

Sunday I have a full day at the little school. They know two lessons are all I want to do, with the odd (very odd) exception of a three-lesson day, but one of their teachers (Rock - a good old Anglo-Saxon name) has just lost a grandparent and needs Sunday off to attend the funeral. A bit of bad luck as it happens because he only got married a fortnight ago. I am wondering if I will see his new wife on Sunday because my western mind says both should be at the funeral. I suppose it makes up for my own absence last weekend though.

So that’s it from here and it may be a while before the next entry too!