Wednesday 11th June, 2014                  1200

For dinner on Sunday evening I had a supermarket pizza. During my first spring festival here, forewarned by a horror story from Kevin who was unaware of the shutdown in his first year wherein he survived for three days on coffee and apples because it was all he had, I crammed my smallish freezer with frozen spaghetti meals and pizza slices so as to be ready for a siege. I ended up giving the pizza slices away later (and they weren’t cheap) because regardless of what toppings they had they all tasted vile. I still have no idea what the “special” ingredient is that renders them completely inedible and so since then I have shunned them. The other day however, I saw a different brand and decided to give them a go.

It didn’t taste bad (although it wasn’t by any standards a decent pizza, the crust was too thick and crunchy) and it filled a hole. Later when I was walking Pepsi I had a coughing fit and ended up throwing up. It is over a decade since that happened and that was due to something my GP treated. Mystified by the cause (I still am) I wondered if the pizza was the culprit or possibly the coughing. I quickly dismissed these notions because even had it been off I had cooked it hot and long enough to kill any germs and anyway food poisoning takes longer than an hour after ingestion to manifest itself. In any event I had felt slightly queasy from before dinner. I then later developed the inevitable looseness at the other end of my body and had an uncomfortable night. All day Monday I felt nauseous, not to mention spending plenty of “quality time” in the bathroom! Thank God I managed to last out my classes because there is no way on the planet that I could use the school squat loos.

Virtually all gone now and just in time for tomorrow’s medical, upon which I am guessing hinges all our continued employment. I think I can confidently say that I am the only one who is a little nervous because I am the one they think will shuffle off this coil at any moment  due to my having a rather common condition among middle-aged western men  - hypertension. So, as I said I would do the other day, I dug out my sphygmomanometer and have since been checking my blood pressure at various times, both immediately before and after taking medicines and at various other times. Unless my monitor is wildly inaccurate, for a fat bugger fast approaching sixty I have the BP of an Olympic athlete - in fact this morning after my usual “cocktail” it was inordinately low although I would never have known but for the machine. I sincerely hope that is the case tomorrow morning and that I don’t for the first time develop white coat syndrome. I never have but there could be a lot riding on this so one never knows. As Prof Fang wants to see our reports before the foreign affairs office gets them I really want it to prove to her that what I told her last year about it being perfect and then she can relay that information to the axemen. Lucy was here as I typed this and I tested her for a comparison. She is slim, young and fit and returned a similar reading so I reckon it might be accurate.

Eventually the missing dog food was “found” although Yvonne is convinced the receivers had to order a replacement because the docket on the box was addressed neither to me nor her, in four months when I need another 40kgs of litter it will be interesting to see if they are still willing to deliver it to my door…….

Fingers crossed, I have now partially solved my cat sitting problem occasioned by Yvonne’s change of plans but Flora (and possibly one of her room mates) can only stay for July. In early August they will both go on a four week course in Hefei where they will study for the exam which will enable them to do a further two years at school, thus upgrading a diploma to a bachelor’s degree - they are 3 year students and only 4 or 5 years sees a BA at the end. The hunt is now on for a student who is staying in August or who is willing (for a consideration and travel expenses) to perhaps return when I go to summer camp in the middle of August. If I can’t then it will present a logistical problem of shifting the zoo which I would far rather not confront. I can leave the cats for three days but baulk at the thought of four.

On Tuesday I was sitting outside the sweet pork place having a cold bottle in the glorious warmth when I saw a first. My first real fight in China.

Two young lads, presumably students at our place, had a very public argument which escalated into violence. This started about fifteen feet from me. The problem was, neither of them knew how to throw a punch! Instead there was slapping, kneeing, kicking and hair pulling galore. The commotion of course caused all passers by to stop and observe, along with all the shop and restaurant owners (including a bank security guard!) who came outside to stand and watch the spectacle. I’m pretty sure the spat was about money rather than being over a girl and one of them (the one I think who was owed the money) was ever so slightly besting the other.

This was all good, clean family fun until the slightly better of the two decided to pick up a brick. At this point I seriously considered getting off my backside to go and suggest the brick be dropped but then noticed that everyone else, in typical Chinese fashion, was completely unconcerned so I stayed put, resolving that if the kid actually tried to use said brick then I would simply have to do something rather than idly allowing it to continue. In the event it was simply used as a threat and after some time they parted company, at which point the presumed debtor went into the bank to get some money with which I assume to repay the lender later whilst the lender (with only one button left on his shirt) departed in the opposite direction with some friends of his who had appeared from nowhere. Show over, I returned to campus.

Never a dull moment!