Friday 20th January, 2017                      0130

What can I say from China? Very little as it happens, life has been reduced to that of a housebound pensioner who gets to the shops once a week!

Ok, of course I can go out, I simply choose not to.

I have no timetable for next term yet nor any information as to whether the school will get the books I requested. Can’t remember if I said this before but feedback was that they were too difficult, which they probably would be for those who don’t study English. My response has been that it’s my job to make them understandable and the students’ job to understand. If they fail to provide me with books then although of course I can construct my own lessons, I shall need to seriously consider whether to start looking elsewhere for next year. Flying by the seat of your pants is fine for a while but without any clear objective to obtain, well………….

Regular readers will know that I am not fond of upheaval (or the cost of moving!) but to be honest I have to weigh the extreme latitude afforded me here along with my own locked office against not being given every facility to actually improve the students. I mean, which of you out there would like to be a teacher knowing nobody would learn?  I need to start pushing - everyone is now unfortunately in holiday mode.

I have been going to bed too late and waking too late since Alice left. That matters little in the grand scheme of things but it does affect my eating. Even that’s no great problem seeing as once a day is normally fine but what is happening is that because I sit on the computer checking the news everywhere after I get up, by the time I am ready I know the buses will be in rush hour mode and even if I have the ingredients to try something new, the light is fading. Ever tried cooking in a kitchen with one of those low-voltage bulbs? It’s a bloody joke, you can’t even tell if mince is browned - not even when you move your shadow out of the way - I get more light from the inside of my little oven.

So I panicked a little today. I realised that next Saturday is Chinese new year which means next Friday will be appalling and is to be avoided as far as shopping goes. So in the morning it’s a biggish shop with a follow-up next Wednesday. I need my wine, enough to see me past the big day (still haven’t noticed any fireworks for sale although to be honest I haven’t been looking) and at the moment the stalls around the corner show no sign of shutting up shop yet.

Talking of the stalls, yesterday I went to the one I often get my eggs and veg from. Talk about awful timing. Unless I am very much mistaken someone had just selected a live chicken not five minutes prior to my arrival. The man and wife team who run it were clearly delighted at my discomfiture upon coming upon the scene. The poor bird (and yes I eat chicken but couldn’t actually despatch one) had already had its throat slit, been plunged into boiling water and the husband had already almost denuded it of feathers. The only good thing I noted was that today there were no pigeons in the other cage, in fact there was no other cage. If there are any on new year’s eve and they are open I pledge I will buy any birds that can fly and let them go.

Hypocritical? Definitely, as I have eaten rabbit, chicken, beef and all sorts in my time and I am not averse to selecting my own live lobster from a restaurant tank. But seeing birds I would normally feed in Trafalgar Square caged ready for dinner? I think I would go berserk if I ever saw dogs but thankfully so far I have seen nothing of the kind. Then I would be opening a gofundme or crowdfund thingy so I could buy them all and open a refuge.

Silly really when my dad was a butcher and we kept chickens. When they stopped laying they became Sunday lunch, bit like Chicken Run. But then I never had to watch the deed being done.