Wednesday 21st January, 2015                         1615

Considering I am on holiday I have had remarkably little time to sit down and type this diary. Nothing much exciting happening but enough things to keep me occupied pretty much.

Every night bar one since I last made an entry I have cooked for Anna and Joan, the exception being Sunday when I took them and met up with Christina (a girl I met last summer) and we ate at Love in Town. As I stated on my Facebook page, never ever let girls take charge of ordering from a menu. They managed to order fifteen dishes for just the four of us! Joan’s dormitory mates were all asleep when she got back but as soon as she whispered that she had a load of leftovers (and there was a huge amount left) apparently all the lights went on instantly! She showed me the photographs of them all in their pyjamas tucking into their midnight feast. She said they all commented on how lucky they are to have one of my “wives” as their roommate because she is always taking good quality food (either from restaurants or western Wednesdays) back for them. I really hadn’t thought of it that way.

I have introduced Anna to the McBreakfast and taken her twice so far. Both times she has opted for the big breakfast and on the first occasion she was still hungry so I had to order a sausage and egg combo Mcmuffin as well! However, I was appalled to see her spread strawberry jam on the hash browns - it fair turned my stomach. On the second occasion it was no better, she put the jam on the muffin and then proceeded to dump scrambled eggs on top of the jam! When my invitation for dinner at Buckingham Palace arrives, somehow I don’t think I dare take her as my plus one……

I believe yesterday the last exams were taken, certainly when we went on the bus (Joan came too) very early - I had suggested we leave by eight as the exodus would start and the buses would just become enormous suitcases - there were students with luggage setting off for home. Today presumably was worse and tomorrow will be impossible. I was thankful the temperature was reasonably moderate given the time of year, so I rode to town, giving me the chance to do a small shop and run the bike to the repair shop to get a new (well actually I don’t think there was one when I bought the bike) nut for one of the bolts securing the passenger back support. That is now fixed and rather than do any proper cooking tonight (I was going to make a lasagne), instead it will be chicken pieces and chips, nice and simple. I don’t mind cooking but when everything for a week has been from scratch (no ready meals here that I can find other than foul tasting pizzas) it gets very time consuming, hence the lack of a blog lately.

As I am not going anywhere tomorrow I can do the lasagne. There will only be Anna and myself, Joan left at ten this morning and should be home in Suzhou or Chuzhou (I forget which) in about ninety minutes. Once Anna goes home I am certain I am going to miss having them here in the evenings very keenly indeed. That’s despite the fact one tortures me daily and the other drives me to distraction!

Thursday 22nd             2045

Chicken and chips was a disaster. Anna took it upon herself to peel and chop the spuds before I got back with Pepsi. Her intentions were good of course but my dry air fryer is not conducive to French fries, they need to be chunky for them to separate when you toss them during cooking. Never mind, we got up ridiculously early again for a Mcbreakfast and another shop.

Even early, the bus was full of suitcases and indeed when I came back from my evening sojourn two hours ago there were still queues of people with luggage. My hopes of a sort of lie-in tomorrow were dashed when I was told I had to attend a meeting at 0900, which turns out to have been called by the police. It’s their annual visit except they didn’t come last year. Seeing as the meeting starts that early it seems highly unlikely that we will be treated to lunch afterwards. All that has stopped since Beijing issued the no use of public money edict.

Anna leaves for home in the morning too, it’s going to get very quiet around here. I am just wondering when all the local businesses will shut down, leaving me just one watering hole nearby.