The western meal on Thursday seemed to go quite well although the only person to invite a student was me, Juliette having invited two teachers instead.
The wings disappeared in short order and although the macaroni cheese could have done with being a bit more moist it seemed to be well received. Unfortunately Andrei was unable to source gelatin or rennet in time so his cheesecakes didn’t have the right consistency but nonetheless they were delicious. I look forward to tasting them when he makes them the way he prefers.
Last night the owner of the small school invited all the foreigners for a meal and by pure chance Kevin has come back for the weekend. We all sat down to a generous meal and of course the object was to try and persuade the new teachers to come to his school. He got no joy but I think his mind had something far weightier on it. He has just been told his kidneys are failing (he’s only about forty) and will soon have to start dialysis. I was very sorry to hear such bad news because for all his faults he is a friend and he is generous in always inviting us to his special dinners. I do hope if necessary a transplant can be found and hope that, by being an accountant by profession, he has adequate medical insurance.
Sunday 8th 1730
Well tonight I have tried to make something I never have before - toffee apples. Not for me of course but the recipe looked so simple I thought I would give it a crack. Of course, nothing is ever that simple and I found myself having to add more and more sugar to try to get a decent consistency. Even so it looks as if most of the toffee has slid off the apples onto the trays! Still, they look almost the way they should. Fingers crossed they actually set.
As the weather is now freezing cold, by which I mean into single figures, most of today has been spent closeted at home. It has also been raining a little so I took to pondering on the trip north in January. I have a gut feeling that the Shenyang to Hefei flights won’t come down as the date nears. They normally do around a fortnight from the day you want to fly and you have to watch the prices like a hawk but as this is spring festival and the China West flight has already sold out and there is only the early morning Schenzen Air flight left, it was looking increasingly likely our mode of transport would be the train.
Then I looked at flights to Anqing instead. They were even more exorbitant so I thought some more and wondered about Nanjing. I did a search fully expecting that to be a no go
too seeing as Nanjing is a very popular tourist destination but to my astonishment at the moment if I had the money I could book for 530y plus taxes. If the price holds until payday this week then I will snap it up, cancel the hotel in Hefei and book another in Nanjing. I have found one with an airport shuttle which is just over a mile from the train station and a few hundred yards from a Pizza Hut - no point going on holiday in China if you can’t at least have some form of western food!
So a cold week ahead by the look of things, summer is apparently over.
Oh yes, I will also include a picture of the sight that these days greets me in the mornings when I want to use my bathroom.
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