Well there’s nothing quite like being impulsive, is there?
As the weekend was mid-autumn festival I decided to mark the occasion, I can’t really go anywhere during the golden week starting on Thursday because Kevin will arrive back then and we have arranged to go out for dinner on Friday.
So on a whim I decided to go to Hefei. I made what could be considered a somewhat odd choice of travelling companion in that I invited Mulan. My reasoning however was sound, it was to pay her back for her and her siblings looking after me when I had my most recent accident.
We were forced to take the bus there as there were no train tickets left. Fine by me because the bus takes three hours and the train five but Mulan feels queasy in cars and buses, yet surprisingly not on trains.
Again I was offered an upgrade of either a superior room or buffet dinner package and again I opted for the better room as I planned to have dinner at Bitburger. Sadly Vivian couldn’t meet us this time as she had a prior birthday dinner to attend. Nonetheless we had an enjoyable dinner with escargot to start, she a steak and I a pizza which I deliberately ordered too large so there was some left for the train back yesterday.
This time I never took my laptop but I was able to watch the Italy v Canada game on TV and was asleep by the time the other two matches were played. Annoyingly, not one of the sports or news channels reported the results the next morning so I had no idea until Ollivier ruined everything by sending a text whilst I was on the train. Given that I was in a news blackout I had intended to watch the game on iPlayer as if it was live last night but being informed we had lost rather put the kibosh on that plan.
At breakfast we were presented with a huge plate of French toast (I had taken my maple syrup) and as a result the leftovers also got taken on the train. A nice relaxing weekend except for the travelling.
Still no sign of the South African teacher and as far as I know still no hint of a job for Andrei, although I haven’t spoken to either him or Juliette for a few days.
And it would seem I have found out the truth about the number 29 buses, thanks to my students. It appears the vehicles were all actually owned by the Hunan provincial government and they wanted them back! The local buses are all government owned and from what I can gather the Anhui government racked up a debt of seven million yuan to Hunan, hence they “repossessed” them. An incredible state of affairs when the government of a province which is slightly larger in area than England cannot pay a bill the equivalent of £700,000. I am being told that we will be getting nice new comfortable buses in due course. I suspect that will please the drivers because the ride on the others is rough and they are manual, the other type are hybrid automatics.
I must remember I have food defrosting in the kitchen before I leave for class at 1330. Last night I went into my freezer to get a pie from the bottom and on top there were three baking trays, one with macaroni cheese, on top of that a cottage pie and atop that, leftover macaroni. All three are frozen solidly together! A lesson learnt there!!
Tomorrow I will boil what will hopefully prove to have turned into ham. It’s been curing now for ten days, the longest I have left it, usually a week is fine. Fingers crossed.
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