Sunday 6th December, 2015                         1400

As I finally succumbed to sleep in the wee hours this morning I couldn’t suppress an inward chuckle over my comments regarding Richard. It suddenly dawned on me that Kevin, Ollivier and now my new colleagues probably thought/think exactly the same of me! Perhaps this is payback…………

Afternoon nap yesterday notwithstanding, it was a damned struggle to rise this morning. It was exacerbated by the fact I don’t want to do it anyway but I hauled my carcase into the shower which made me feel marginally more invigorated - marginally, mind.

That early on a Sunday morning I never needed to cheat to get a seat on the bus. The first class comprised seven kids and a parent I cajoled into joining to make up the numbers for a team game, ensuring she and her daughter were on opposing sides. It went well although their lack of English frustrated me most of the time.

One down, one to go.

Three kids this time so how do you make two teams? Rope in another mum! My biggest problem though was they were kindergarten age with stuff all English to their credit in my opinion. I did the best I could and there was one boy who was as sharp as my pocket knife (in Chinese though)  and kept guessing the answers correctly, miles ahead of his classmates and indeed the mum.

This school has a reward system where they get Uncle Sam tokens, save them and then claim gifts depending on how many they have. I don’t give any out, I leave that to Kevin’s ex students who are the teachers.

I am terrible with kids. Never had any and definitely can’t eat a whole one.

This aside, I was completely unprepared when, five minutes from the end of the lesson, the bright boy erupted in tears, my guess is because the other team came up with “elephant” a nanosecond before he did.

Were this of vital importance or a tied competition then I could well understand this display of pique but the fact was, because of the crybaby his team were 6-1 ahead immediately prior to that. With little time remaining there was no chance they could lose!

The teacher called time a few minutes early to comfort the winner (I know, I don’t understand either and I shudder to think what happens when he loses!) and I left, professing that it was nothing to do with me to his concerned mater as she rushed to the classroom.

Every now and again life delivers me a timely reminder as to why I never made any babies!

The good thing was, I was finished before noon and had time for a quick foray in RT Mart and Yumeic for scrumptious goodies before taking a bus the wrong way to catch one going the right way.

Dinner tonight will be the rest of my cottage pie because Joan wants to eat college canteen slop when instead she could have had an English breakfast or bangers, chips, eggs and beans. No matter, it simply means the pie will not have to be dumped. When I asked if she wanted dinner tomorrow and offered the alternatives aforementioned, I don’t think she paused at all before blurting out “chips”!

Siesta time…………..