Thursday 13th November, 2014           1130

I did indeed go for breakfast yesterday, it is becoming a regular thing. I think they should serve breakfast all day then I wouldn’t need to get up early. Mind you, the bonus in this weather (as I now tend to use the bus because it’s warmer) is that in the mornings there aren’t so many people on the bus.

After I got back I sent Anna a message asking if she was free for dinner. She never replied so by four o’clock I had resigned myself to staying home and having a cheese and pickle baguette instead. Then she responded, her phone had ran out of battery earlier and yes, she was free. Change of plan. Ok I said, invite your friend (meaning Carol). I thought there would be three of us but Anna ended up inviting Carol AND her friend Holly! I had to chuckle at this latest language mix up, not that it mattered because the bill would have been the same as for three anyway. I finally got to go to Love In Town restaurant with a view to using the discount voucher Ollivier gave me.

I arrived at the south gate with Ollivier on the back seat of the bike. I had arranged for him to take my bike home so that when we got a taxi back I could get it through the gate and deliver the girls to their dorm. Unluckily as soon as I left campus the bus departed. Luckily, a taxi pulled up to drop someone off so I hailed that and en route we overtook two 29 buses!

The place has a different layout to the one I went to in Anqing and rather disappointingly we were given a sheet of paper printed in Chinese to order from. I got the girls to ask where the little computer thing with the menu and pictures was. One was produced and I was able to see what I was ordering even if I couldn’t read it. The food was fabulous. The girls ordered a big bowl of crab with soft shells which was divine but sadly for me I couldn’t eat much of it because it took five minutes each time for my mouth to recover from the heavy spices. The Thai king prawns were also delicious and in fact there was nothing I didn’t like. However the star of the show was most definitely the sweet and sour pork. Proper sweet and sour too. Anna and I wolfed down the bulk of that one! I will certainly be going back again.

Kevin arranged to give us a lift on his way back from town but whilst Anna was fully aware he was waiting downstairs, she didn’t bother to tell me so I was taken aback when he appeared in the restaurant! Embarrassed at having kept him waiting, when I went to pay the bill by card I completely forgot the discount voucher! Once the transaction was processed it would have caused great problems to reverse it and deduct 40y so I asked them to give me another voucher  with a longer shelf life. I now have five coupons for 40y discount and intend to try my best to use them all. If Yvonne agrees I would love to go there again tonight for the sweet and sour!

1800

Well it’s steak and kidney pie and hopefully some of Ollivier’s dauphinoise potatoes. Yvonne was busy and the other wives I invited all have evening classes. I don’t know if I am imagining it but it seems as if my freshmen this time have an inordinate number of evening classes. It may of course simply be that previous intakes were not invited out by me very much as I always took Kiki or Joanna. It is probably better I have the pie anyway, at least that way I will be able to get an early night. I have the least classes I have ever had but am the tiredest!

For some inexplicable reason, Mum has moved out of block two and taken her pups to “live” underneath an airconditioning shelf on the outside of block eight, which is behind mine. Something must have happened to make her think her babies are threatened there, indeed one disappeared at a very early age when she had her first lot so maybe it is related to that. She likes the Pedigree biscuits though so that will be my good deed each night until she is up and about and foraging herself. Last night when Pepsi approached for a sniff of the puppies Mum became very protective and Pepsi shot away in fear but she was quite happy for me to pick three of the little ones up. I would like to let them stay in my spare room but I don’t think Mum would take to it. I just hope her litter survive the cold nights, because it is getting very chilly now.

This afternoon whilst having a pijou in my new office I saw a novel way of defrosting a freezer. The owner’s wife, faced with three inch thick ice in sufficient quantity to have threatened the Titanic, decided to do it the quick way by hacking at it with a meat cleaver and a claw hammer! I assume it still works.

At long last the laowei food website company has stock of pies. At lunchtime I ordered a load of them. They come in very handy when I am pushed for time or can’t be bothered to actually cook. I will be sure to stock up on them for the spring festival - just the ticket for cold winter nights and the signs are that this winter will be a cold one indeed.