Friday 16th December, 2016                      1700

I wasn’t too pleased to be getting up at 0830 this morning. Foolishly, I stayed up later than I should but still left myself with a theoretical seven and a half hours sleeping time.

However, since being in Lanzhou, my skin has become more and more desiccated and ever more itchy as I have previously said. It is at the stage where, if the sheet touches certain parts of my back it wakes me up.

As you age, so sleep becomes interrupted anyway at the behest of your bladder but couple that with feeling as if you want to rip your back off and well………..

Even better, I now have water retention in my ankles which is causing scaly skin! Is it heart disease, you may ask? Not a chance, I have a medical every year and anyway my ticker will just peg out all of a sudden when the time comes. Nope, it’s the new tablets , the ones to stop the irregular heartbeat, beta blockers. The cure for water retention is normally to take diuretics but I have gout and the last time a quack prescribed them I had an attack within a week!

It’s a good job I don’t care!

I was collected by car at 1130 this morning by a driver, a mum and a son and driven to the Pizza Hut Janet took me to once before. Having feasted on a rather large roast pork dinner last night my appetite was scanty and Janet is like my Mother only worse. Did I want this, this or this? And that was after I had already ordered escargots to share (just for the hell of getting Chinese people to eat something they might not like seeing as they do it to me all the time) and topped bruschetta for me. They even suggested I had a steak at 200y a pop, something I would consider if they weren’t plastic and anyway I didn’t want to waste food when someone else was footing the bill. I did though take a forkful of someone’s lasagne and was most gratified to confirm that mine is far better.

So I now have another “job”. The lad, Rico, is in high school (Dad died 6 years ago but the family seems to have wealth from a development business he set up) and next September wants to go to study for a degree in California. He actually seems a nice lad, smokes but of course Mum doesn’t know and when away from her he tells me he likes having a beer or six. This could be good.

After lunch we went to campus to discuss terms. Had Janet or Mum spoke decent English and had good aural facilities (and weren’t too busy gossiping between themselves) they would have already known  Rico and I had already struck a deal. So when the question as to my fee arose I simply said speak to Rico.

Oh mum liked our arrangement! Which is, he invites me out to lunches and dinners, wines and dines me at western restaurants or upmarket Chinese ones and I don’t put my hand in my pocket. Cheaper than paying me 200-300y an hour perhaps but probably tax deductible through the company but more importantly, as my contract states I cannot work for anyone other than the university, if I am asked I can say with honesty I am not on anyone else’s payroll. And by heck, am I going to get Rico to take me to the best restaurants and bars! For that he will get two or three hours of tuition which will be far more effective than sitting opposite each other at a desk.

So yes, we hit it off and I reckon we will both have some good times. I am even thinking of inviting him to the Christmas party seeing as his English at 18 years of age is better than all my students combined and ten times better than Janet’s.

I waited until 1445 before I left. As anticipated, nobody turned up for my class so I simply cluttered off and caught free buses home, early enough to get seats on both the 12 and the 15. I now feel absolutely no guilt over suggesting I play Santa for the kiddies next Friday.

To finish, yesterday Kevin told me his sausages hadn’t arrived so I asked Suzy to find out where they were. I had been given an incorrect phone number for Kevin’s student, the bangers had arrived already but nobody answered the phone when they called to alert them. Kevin’s student then called and rearranged delivery and they arrived at noon today. His comment? They look amazing.

I hope he thinks that of the taste.

The views on my public blog are now becoming astronomical. I used to average at about 38 a day but I just checked and yesterday’s count was 496! The vast majority of these hits are from Russia and I am seriously intrigued as to what has happened. So, anyone in Russia who is reading my blog, I would be grateful if you could leave a comment as to why (if you know) I am so popular there all of a sudden? My best guess is that a school has latched on and instructed English classes to read but I would honestly like to know the truth. It is highly flattering of course and do please tell all your friends