Friday 28th November, 2014                         1600

Yesterday was miserably wet. When  I left before eight for my first lesson it was overcast and dry but when I came out of the classroom for the break it was raining and then shortly afterwards the thunder and lightning started. My class were not best pleased for only a handful of them had brought umbrellas with them. They were lucky because by ten when we finished it was merely spitting.

Being utterly drained because I slept badly, I managed to grab forty winks before the afternoon class which of course screwed me up for sleeping last night, resulting in me feeling worse today than I did yesterday. I have resisted the temptation to take to my bed this afternoon though.

I would have done but for the fact that the school owner in town has coerced me into judging both the morning and afternoon sessions of his singing contest tomorrow, when initially I had agreed to just do the afternoon. Due to Pepsi that means I will have to travel in and back twice. In the hope that it will be at least dry tomorrow I am charging the bike, if not it will mean bussing it. I sincerely hope I will be treated to a free dinner afterwards.

Today has been dry despite the forecast, although it is getting pretty cold now. My pork was ready, having been curing for a week and has now been boiling for two hours so I hope the resulting ham is good. This time though I haven’t dumped the cure, because of the expense of the ingredients I am going to try an experiment and re-use the cure for another batch. If it works, fine, if not all I will lose is some pork - and that’s one of the cheapest bits or the process!

1900

Just back from my little trip out with Pepsi to the “office” where Ollivier joined us. Kevin is currently in Shanghai collecting his new passport because they don’t bloody courier them any more.

Ollivier is rather excited about Wednesday and his cheese fondue we are going to eat. In fact there is little else he is talking about. I for once don’t actually have to lift a finger if I don’t want but considering I have never had a cheese fondue before and the fact that I think just cheese and stale bread will be too “samey” I am going to buy and prepare an English type salad (ingredient availability depending) for everyone to either eat before or use as an accompaniment to the cheese. This had better be good because for the first time ever I am going to have to buy wine! Normally I pay for the majority of the food and the others provide the grog.

Following a chance remark by one of my students, I now have the school video of our summer concert which if memory serves was staged in May. I - or rather my laptop - spent 24 hours uploading it to YouTube and if you would like to watch you will find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FodcIZ7nKDc

The vast majority is in languages other than English but if you like pretty girls dancing and the like you may enjoy it. It lasts one hour and you can also see me getting called a silly little man. Come to think of it, that wasn’t in the script so maybe someone deserves a good thump!

Now though it is time to cook myself a chicken and veg pie, mash and peas with gravy and then an early night. The ham seems to have turned out very well indeed so fingers crossed.