Saturday 13th February, 2016        1910

You just KNEW it was going to happen, didn’t you?

For the fifth year in succession I got caught.

Feeling extremely lazy, in fact inexcusably so seeing as I have frozen meals and still two gigantic Papa John’s pizzas in my freezer, I decided not only to go shopping (nothing wrong with that) but to do so relatively late (definitely wrong) in order to have an Angus (Trading Standards would have a field day with that one) steak dinner into the bargain.

Now actually the steak was decent considering it was from a perfectly circular cow and given that the weather has now turned wet and cool again, it was a pleasure to while away ninety minutes on my own whilst dining. Naturally I would have preferred to have Joan with me but nonetheless the experience was enhanced by the fact the fuyuans now recognise me.

As I emerged it was apparent it had been raining again but had by that time had stopped but rain is merely an inconvenience when walking in town as opposed to an outright annoyance when riding. Into RT Mart to buy staples (wine. Jing jo and Guinness) and because I knew I would be too knackered by the time I got back to boil some pork for Mum, a whole ready cooked duck. I thought the price was 23.8y for half a kilo but only on my return did I realise it was for what was on offer. She had better eat it because at that price, were I to repeat it every night, I would be spending 20% of my earnings each month on her! Come to think of it, for half that I could coax her inside and make her my pet and feed her. Too big to ride the bike with me though. Whilst in there I was accosted by a woman with her son. I didn’t know her from Eve but I recognised the boy, he is the lad that has been at the summer charity mountain school every year I have been there and Jesus, has he shot up faster than bamboo! He has to be over six feet now and as teenagers often are, he was mortified by his mother’s ambush at the meat counter. It saddened me to think that I may never go and play games at that school again. I dread the phine call from them this summer when I may have to refuse them.

Anyway, now that all my hip flasks have either been ditched because they sprung leaks or in the case of the final one, the pin holding the levered screw top perished, I have been searching online for “man sized” replacements. I have found an 8oz one for a very good price and may well buy it when Joan is here to be able to shop online for me. However for a couple of weeks I have been glancing at the Zippo shop right at the foot of the escalator as you exit RT. You just know everything they sell is going to be expensive but bolstered by alcohol I decided to ask to see a hip flask I had seen in their display case. Not leather-bound but it simply stood out for its size. As it happens it is a 7oz one.

I was right about the expensive part. It was 168y but fool that I am, having asked for it to be taken out and viewed, I bought it.

So I just made my outing expensive. Little was I to know it was to become a trifle more so.

As I sat in the bus shelter surrounded by hordes of locals it finally dawned on me that at six o’clock there were going to be no more buses. I did actually laugh out loud at the fact that yet again I had been stuffed, just when I thought I had mastered the art of spring festival travel. The locals gave me odd looks until I gaily told them “mayo buses!” and then consternation consumed them. We had all been waiting at least ten minutes and not a one had passed by going north or south.

The battle for taxis was now on. Personally I toyed with the idea of just going to a bar and having a drink, after all, if I had to pay for a taxi I may as well make the most of it, right?

That was until a group of people (two women and a man my age plus a late teens boy) approached me and started talking in Mandarin. I had no idea what they were saying to me until I picked up “laoshe” and “Chizhou xue yuan”. they clearly knew who I was and where I was going. My detective skills suggested to me that they wanted to share a cab and I was right although I had no idea from  whence they knew me, I assumed perhaps from my bus trips.

So we procured a taxi, I sat in the front and the four of them in the back. Illegal of course but this is China. Millionaire that I’m not, I asked the price. Normally 30y but of course in spring festival it goes up to 40y. Riding solo I would have paid thirty in any case so I told the others that’s what I would pay and they could cover the shortfall. Agreed. They all got off about half a mile from the school and I am still none the wiser as to how I know them because I don’t recognise any of them from the local shops or restaurants. Who knows, maybe they saw me on TV?

Talking of the buses, my fame knows no bounds it seems. For the last few months I have had the drivers honk and wave at me as they go past the college when I am waiting for a bus going the other way - even when they have seen me out and about on the bike - but today when I got to town and was crossing at the “pelican” (not really one because they will still run you down even on a green man) I heard a tooting of a horn.

Well, nobody ever pays attention to car/bus/truck horns in China because they simply mean nothing - take away all noise making capabilities from vehicles here and people would be incapable of driving.

This one was so insistent though, and of course being British, I turned to look. It was a 29 bus saying hello! God knows what the other pedestrians thought when they heard and saw a laowei and a bus driver hailing each other but that, my readers, is why many of the drivers endeavour to stop theirs so the doors are right in front of me when there’s a queue. Even in China they clearly appreciate a ni hao as you board and a xi xie when you leave. It is a lesson in life we should all remember, including me.