Thursday 26th March, 2015                       1830

And the slow progress continues.

On Wednesday morning I actually stood under the shower, which was bliss. Certainly I had to sit down to do my legs and feet but that was a hell of a leap, not to mention being far less painful and time-saving.

In fact yesterday was a bit of an innovation day, for when I left to go to class I found myself “walking” with the crutches instead of performing the usual swinging motion. After I parked my bike under the teaching building I had to suppress a chuckle as I “walked” towards the stairs. It crossed my mind that anyone approaching from behind would find my movements rather bizarre. My current gait is not too dissimilar to that of a gorilla when it walks, and if one envisages the bottom of the crutches as the great ape’s arms, my knuckles were grazing the ground.

But it is faster, so much so that I can now get from the bottom to floor four in ten minutes. That’s not bad considering it used to take five minutes anyway when I was normal - I always took a breather halfway!

These improvements, though very welcome, are in fact I fear far too slow for me to be able to contemplate my trip away at Qing Ming next weekend. I will make my decision on Monday but I am not hopeful and indeed am almost resigned to trying to ensure I can take the trip in the Labour holiday at the beginning of May. It would be nice to at least be able to have Pepsi back for next weekend though so I can take her for a “crutch” around the block of an evening. She surely by now believes I have abandoned her and I dare not even visit her because that would be too cruel, she would be convinced I was there to rescue her. Even now I sometimes find myself laying down in bed at night and saying goodnight to her as she lies on her bed at the side of mine.

Today Anna was supposed to come at four-thirty to cook for Joan and me. I asked her to buy a red or green pepper, everything else was already in my home. There is only one place close by that you can get vegetables now and that is the fish shop. Not only did she arrive an hour late (and both her and Joan had an early Communist Party meeting following dinner) without a pepper because she couldn’t find the shop - which is less than a mile from my home and she has been here two years - but she didn’t even ask me for directions.

Needless to say Joan ended up cooking it, Anna staged a grand entrance just as it was about to be served sans pepper and at least had the decency to appear humble. Dinner was a cheesy frittata and I asked for a moderate portion, told the two girls to take as much as they wanted and anything left I would take with me for lunch while I rot in the classroom tomorrow.

It was a fairly sizeable frittata (10 eggs, two potatoes, onion, tomato, cheese etc) and when Ollivier came I offered some. By this time the girls had stolen my bike to go to their meeting. He didn’t want any but said he would take some for his son Adrian. When he went to the kitchen he found there was nothing left! If you ever think of adopting, give Chinese children a body swerve unless you are wealthy!

As for the campus shops and restaurants, finally I learnt why they remain resolutely closed. The greedy landlords, not content with increasing the rents the minute they took over the lease, hiked them again during the winter holiday. The result of course is that all businesses bar the supermarket have basically said “stuff you” and by now I assume have made alternative arrangements. This is a prime example of some of the thinkings of Chinese businessmen and has backfired spectacularly. Can you see them even recouping their initial outlay of ten million yuan over the next five years off the back of one small supermarket? No, neither can I.

Ok, now it’s time to write out my shopping list for Ollivier, who is very kindly going to town at the weekend with his car and will bring everything back for me.