Well, this the last blog from Postgrad Junk Mail. Tomorrow the holidays are history and the new academic year commences. Am I fully prepared? Certainly not. Am I capable and up to the task? Definitely.
I suspect Juliette may be experiencing a touch of nerves tonight because at 0820 she will walk into her first classroom ever when she is the teacher. Five years ago even I at my ripe old age had last minute jitters going up the stairs towards the classroom. She on the other hand is young, no older than some of my students and that could under some circumstances present a problem. However, she is blessed with good looks and my guess is the boys will drool while the girls turn a funny shade of green. She will be fine as long as she remembers not to pretend she knows it all but acts as if she does. I do enough of that for all of us.
The second bread pudding was, well, better and worse at the same time. The extra egg and less milk made a big difference but I used too much sugar and spice. Still perfectly edible but not quite perfect, a bit too sickly. The next one will be and at the rate Joan is gobbling it up, that will be tomorrow night!
Yesterday was an unmitigated disaster. Having altered the dinery from the barbecue place to the restaurant at the very end of the 29 bus route, the first thing to go wrong was that Joan was detained late at her teaching job by students (kids) wanting to have words with her. That in itself shouldn’t have presented a major problem once I had pointed out there was no need for her to come all the way back on the number 7 only to go into town immediately on the 29. I suggested she take the 7 to the railway station and then took the 29 to the restaurant. Fine so far.
Andrei, Juliette and I hopped on a bus in the full expectation of being deposited a few paces from where we were to eat, with Joan joining us soon after.
That didn’t happen.
They have changed the bus route!
We were chucked off at the foot of the flyover that it used to cross only a few months ago. Now I have no idea where it terminates but it’s nowhere near where we wanted to be. We went halfway across the flyover on foot (after an abortive attempt to take a short cut which was sealed off) but then had to stop. Joan had no idea where the restaurant was, I was the only one, so we waited for her bus to turn up. And we waited. And waited.
I tried calling her to no avail, her phone was on silent “mood” but eventually she sent a message. The number 7 she had boarded experienced a flat tyre so she had to disembark and wait for another, then the 29 was rammed full and not only proceeded at a snail’s pace but stopped at every opportunity.
It was eight o’clock before she joined us - late in China for dinner.
Anyway, we hoofed it to the destination, only to find they had no food. Or at least from what I can gather they could only rustle up two dishes. I asked if they could call us a taxi, which they did and in the meantime everyone admired the antiquities on display around the place - a model of a ship, old army field telephone, gramophones etc. I give it six months before that place goes bust - the nightclub did and now people won’t go there because they need a car or a cab. I doubt whoever altered the routes considered the effect on the businesses there.
We reverted to the original plan, which was the barbecue place. For a journey of less than two miles the sodding driver ripped me off for 10y but I was so annoyed that we had been thwarted I paid without demur.
By now it was nine (very, very late for dinner in China) and the barbecue restaurant didn’t have everything by way of food available. It was that or McDonald’s so we stayed. There was enough but disappointingly no sushi and we never got a discount. They also informed us they would stop serving at nine-thirty! Everyone bar me loaded up their plates with plenty of food and I think everyone had filled up by the time we left.
That was at five to ten. I thought the last bus was at ten-thirty (it is FROM campus) but Joan thought the last one back was at ten. We were both wrong. It’s nine-thirty. Taxi time. I love it when a plan comes together.
Today I went shopping, just that. I won’t want to go tomorrow so I needed stuff for an evening breakfast tonight plus more bread pudding tomorrow. When I got to the bus stop to come home, the first 29 to arrive was basically overloaded. I sat back down in the shelter and a student quizzed me as to why I wasn‘t getting on. Why? I wasn’t standing holding a heavy carrier bag. But nowadays…..she started, and I said not always, nobody gave up their seat the other day for me. I caught the next one and my luck held, there was one seat empty.
I sit here now, having realised I forgot to buy bacon. We can’t have a breakfast consisting solely of French toast, poached eggs and grilled tomatoes so tonight Matthew, I will have my first ever crack at spam fritters. The only problem is, I have some white powder in a container and I can’t remember if it is flour or cornflour!
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