Friday 20th May, 2016                0330

I really shouldn’t be doing this at this time but I am off until 1600 Monday so I am only damaging my sleep pattern for now.

Catless life is taking some getting used to. Not having to close every door for starters and of course Dumpling is happy because suddenly her cleaning job here is a breeze. It was unbelievable the mess they made but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of them for the past couple of days. It is warm, they will get used to living free and I hope will be well used to it when winter rears its head again.

Wednesday night I cooked chilli enchiladas for both Dumpling who had had them before and Alice who hadn’t. Whilst they both loved them it was disappointing that ten minutes after they finished they left together! Admittedly it was partly my fault because the meal was late by Chinese standards (1945) but that was because my oven packed up and kept blowing the breaker. I had earlier left the frozen chilli on top of it to defrost and of course in the warm temperature there was condensation which must have overflowed from the top and into the switch electrics.

I am not that practical when it comes to such things but having figured out what I thought it was, I decided I should dry the oven out. But how? I may not be the brightest spark but I figured if it had infiltrated the controls at the front, if I could get the water away from them it might just work.

Cue me lifting the oven at a 45 degree angle and leaning it against the wall and voila! The breaker never cut out and I was able to run it on full heat for ten minutes until the water evaporated and I was able to cook a dinner that I thought I was going to have to abandon.

Yesterday I sent a text to Daniel when I got up, asking him where he would be before noon. I wanted to take the bus before the lunchtime hordes of students turned out of class. No reply so I got the bus just before twelve and did a small shop for my salad tonight (which I have to say, whilst simple, went down a treat and I ate loads of it) but en route he texted and we agreed I would go to his office after two.  Well it was always going to be after two because I was going to my office for a couple once back and to kill all the flies.

When I got to his office it was locked. He was elsewhere in a meeting. He would be an hour. Sod that, tomorrow instead. As I was about to leave the Dean came out of her office and asked who I was looking for. I explained the situation and also said that I heard she had tried to intervene on my behalf with the foreign affairs department and I wanted to thank her. I said it hadn’t worked but at least I had another job offer. At that she seemed surprised and wanted to know where it was, how much the pay was etc and then she asked did Anthony know? Did the foreign affairs department know? Had I signed the contract yet?

Well that last question piqued my interest no end. Why would she ask that and also did foreign affairs know? She said she must ring them now and disappeared into her office, only to return seconds later, telling me she had to go to the administration block. I could wait in the teaching office. Well what would you think?

I know what I thought. She was going in to bat for me to stay here. Of course you don’t know everything that was said but believe me there was nothing stupid about my coming to that conclusion. So I waited. For three quarters of an hour. When she came back she said was I still waiting for Daniel? No, I was waiting for you, I thought you had gone to speak to Director Xu and Miss Yin. No I had a meeting. Right, I’ll go home then.

I had spent the best part of an hour hoping against hope that I would remain here and all because the head of the foreign languages department can’t actually speak English particularly well, or if she can, not in a way that communicates clearly. My hopes were dashed and to be honest I would rather they hadn’t been raised in the first place.

Later today I will see Daniel, depending on what his wife says I may go to hospital to see what medication I can take for the palpitations (there are options) but as for the tachycardia, besides Beta Blockers the options seem most unpleasant and Betas are not an option for me as I was on them for years but they stopped working and I had to be switched to Alphas which are absolutely first rate. Why is it that you are pootling along nicely without a care in the world about your health and then some doctor has to throw a spanner in the works when more as like you will be fine?