Wednesday 8th July, 2015                          1800

I’ll tell you what - the east gate is nowhere near open and even when it is I very much doubt the students will use it. I did go to find out where the buses were disappearing to and I rode so far I thought I must have missed it. I had already gone to the north of the college (and there’s bugger all there except forest) and so turned back.

Stone me if a minute later a 29 bus appeared! Ok, wait until it passes and then turn around and follow. I WILL get to the bottom of it! Where they stop is a long old way from south gate and to my surprise there is a mini terminus tucked away with parking for perhaps half a dozen buses - there were three in there when I arrived.  Of course I won’t be going there much but when the student exodus hits full swing I definitely will unless I am taking the bike to town. No doubt there will be some jobsworth who will object to my leaving my bike but that’s small beer. I have never forgotten the time I waited as four buses came and went before I could board the fifth and then only because I used my bulk to block off the doors to stop the hordes with their suitcases. And they were the nursing students! The “caring” profession!!

Bloody McDonald’s. can someone please explain to me how a place can introduce new products and promptly run out (and stay run out) of them? I went for breakfast yesterday and couldn’t have the ham one - out of ham - and again this morning. I am bored with the gristle burger they call a sausage, at least the ham is soft. And the attrition rate in respect of staff is unbelievable. Not a visit goes by without at least one new face in a McD uniform. Considering they appear to be (surprisingly for China) very friendly towards the disabled - many deaf mutes have worked there over the time it has been open - nobody stays very long. I know it’s hardly a meteoric career path but there are higher management positions and of course in any country there will be people taking stopgap jobs but even so…..

Last night I cooked for Anna. I tried ready seasoned “western black pepper” chicken wings. She has already had my own world famous ones and I was lazy. Actually they weren’t bad seeing as all you have to do is pop them in the oven. To follow I also gave her something she had never ever heard of - roast potatoes. The Chinese simply have no idea of what to do with spuds and as a result whatever they do to them it is invariably a waste of perfectly good veg. Now, I introduced her to chips (not authentic because I have a machine which dry-fries them) but she knows the French fries in KFC and McD are not English proper chips. She doesn’t of course know that when you get them from a chippie they are invariably soggy!

So she asked the question (that girl has more questions than answers) “So it’s like chips but bigger?”

How can you answer that except to say, “sort of but different”? I didn’t see any left on her plate this morning, she did mention she would have a “midernite snack”.

Tonight (and I really should get on it) she is about to be introduced to jacket potatoes. Incredible that she has never had one (only yams or sweet potatoes) and although I was going to top them with baked beans and cheese I have bowed to her wish for prawns so some thousand island and we will be away. I think I have enough chilli frozen to provide for us and Kevin via enchiladas tomorrow.

Of course, now we are on the cusp of becoming the school with few students, ergo everything will close that opens for business with the students. In fact the barber I have been using has already pulled down his shutters and yesterday I had to get shorn elsewhere. The restaurants shutting doesn’t bother me because mostly I either cook for myself or go to town but it does rather limit the watering holes. And I will only have one minimart to get my liquids from.

I have of late been investigating travel options within China over the holidays. Not easy given that I am of an age where I like my creature comforts and although I never stayed in a youth hostel in my life, the days where at a pinch I may have done so ended many years ago. Travelling this summer there certainly will be, rest assured, starting with the kids’ summer camp on the 19th in Hefei. In the meantime most of my ideas become pipe dreams due to lack of funds, flights too expensive or no soft sleepers on trains left on trips of 24 hours or more.

I will travel though.