Friday 22nd January, 2016                                  1145

While I was sleeping more white stuff descended and hasn’t stopped as yet. Where cars have been it looks ok to take the bike. I will investigate after my shower and if safe, I may well take a trip to town. I don’t fancy a walk because my footwear will end up soaking.

Late last night Helen texted me to say that Saturday is cancelled. I had been wondering. The Education Bureau has decreed that children are prohibited from attending school until the 25th, effectively meaning they are now finished for this term. I wish I hadn’t bought the prizes yesterday now!

As I am sure many reading this do, I review hotels I have stayed in and restaurants I have eaten at on Trip Advisor. This is not in order to look good and you can’t sell the virtual “badges” they award you, but particularly for me here in China, it is a useful tool for me to use when selecting a place. I ignore the Chinese reviews because they expect different things from the establishments, so western opinions are of infinitely more value to me.

I endeavour to be as fair and balanced as possible and where a review is going to be less than complimentary I do my best to highlight anything good as well. The Orange hotel in Nanjing would have fared a lot better had their housekeeping been up to scratch but that failing earnt them a poor report from me. There are however drawbacks in reviewing places in a foreign country, especially when you are probably the only foreigner to have stayed somewhere in weeks even if your monicker isn‘t your full or real name.

My phone rang this morning. A girl with very limited English started speaking and asked me if I could speak Chinese. I said no and that if she was trying to sell me something perhaps she would like to terminate the call and try another number. Oh, this is the Orange hotel and you………….she struggled, so I helpfully completed the sentence with “wrote a poor review?”. Yes, she said.

Here we go, I thought.

To my surprise, instead of being berated, she then thanked me for my suggestions and said they were very helpful! Maybe after all they will put a bomb under housekeeping’s backside.

This place seems more of a ghost town than it did last spring festival for some reason. Not as bad as my first two years when apart from the guards I had the place entirely to myself. That said, the new flats weren’t built and there were far less teachers living on site. Richard is as far as I know staying in Changsha with his girlfriend for the duration (he left more than a fortnight ago) but Andrei and Juliette are staying here. They did say to me that they may  go somewhere for a few days later but I occasionally hear noises from above so they are battened down against the blizzard. Their moped (the one purchased from Richard) hasn’t moved for some time (yesterday it was piled high with snow) so my guess is they decided it has been too cold of late to ride to town for the 0630 Tai Chi classes they have been participating in!

I really think I will give a trip to town a crack in a while. My concern is that while I am away some serious snow will fall, thus preventing me riding back. Lugging shopping uphill is not something I relish.

1600

Barring a couple of slippery patches on the way to and from south gate where I had to deploy the stabilisers (my legs), my trip to town was successful. I bought some things I had forgotten yesterday (new shower soap dish seeing as the cats hid the old one, for one) and the doings for macaroni cheese. Also a baguette which was delightfully crunchy yet soft inside which will do for my dinner tonight filled with bacon and cheese. Well not cheese really, it will be emmental. Leaving aside the weather, taking the bus is bliss now there are always seats but it rather irks me that during the best period to bus it the price is double. Ok it’s only 2y or 20p dearer but it all mounts up. At least I am saving because I don’t need to cheat……….

Kevin has tried to taunt me from Hong Kong by emailing a photo of his full English whilst confessing he is hotel-bound due to heavy rain and anyway  he can’t walk far as he took brand new shoes this trip and they are killing him. How the other half live……..

Let us see what havoc the weather will wreak for tomorrow. The forecast is for cloud and sun but no snow. The Chinese love a good panic and I suspect the suspension of all schools is one such (Vivi has time off because of it and she intends to use it by staying in bed throughout) because far from being the horror story predicted it has instead been a slushy squib. If I can ride my bike up and down gradients then seriously, little is amiss.