St Valentine’s Day, 2017                                    1815

I’ve just continued being lazy lately, so much so that tonight my last bottle of plonk will disappear down my gullet. That of course will force me to go shopping tomorrow. I never cooked yesterday and instead went to Buddy’s for fish and chips, armed with my malt vinegar. One of the waitresses took a look and asserted that they had this. Really? Off she went to search for it, only to return with a huge bottle of balsamic salad dressing! Full marks of course for spotting the correlation between “vinegar” on each bottle but zero for not knowing there are loads of different types. I gave her a taste of mine and asked her if she would put it on her dumplings. This elicited a horrified response and I pointed out that I would feel that way were I to put balsamic on my fish. Sadly, the quality of the food there is dependent on whoever is cooking and the batter was overdone whilst the fish was slightly undercooked. They don’t actually have a cook there, merely young men doing the basics, mostly out of boxes or packets. It’s a pity, I have many suggestions.

When I returned on the bus, in the square there were the usual old people dancing but there was a rather curious group which I went to investigate. They had no music, merely a leader who may have been 70 and they were following his lead, bending over and slapping their legs all the way down and all the way up again to his count. I suppose it is good exercise and of course in China they think looking like a prat is normal but I couldn’t help smiling as I walked away from this truly wonderful spectacle.

Today I haven’t even gone to the jing jo shop. By the time I thought about getting dressed I decided I didn’t actually need to, it can wait until tomorrow. And anyway, it would mean what with going to BHG I would need to go to the cash point a day earlier than I budgeted.

I was idly checking my survey rewards earlier. In particular one I have been doing for six years and never redeemed anything. You can earn airmiles with your points and I checked out I had 10,000 airmile points with Air France or KLM. Well I don’t want to redeem for a return trip to the UK seeing as the school pays for it once a year if I want to go (or gives me some cash if I don’t - although not as much as the flight would be) but I checked it out, thinking Shanghai-London return would be about 12,000 miles and 10,000 points would be 10,000 miles.

Wrong. A return trip will take 80,000 airmile points! That means in just another 40 years I might have enough points! Bizarrely, if I combine my Hilton points with the survey points I have enough for ten free nights in Wuhu or about 8 hours in the Hilton in Pudong! I must investigate the other companies I do surveys with further. If they give cash I take that but some give vouchers and I always take the Amazon ones, even though I can only use them in the UK. Now if they do travel vouchers as well…………..

Janet finally gave me my timetable for next term. I have six different classes, none of which are going to Cyprus, and will have each class for two periods per week back to back. Great, actual working time 9 hours a week. But. They have scheduled me for six periods on Monday and six on Friday. So, with a 2.5 hour lunch break it makes for a long day because I will rise at five and get back at six in the evening. They will be very long days, however it only means a maximum of 4 hours on the free bus per week as opposed to eight and I have the weekends plus Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off!

Whoopee! And the best of it is, I only see each class once per week so I shouldn’t run out of ideas. Apparently the course book should arrive at the end of the month which is perfect because I will need it around 6th March.

I haven’t cooked per se today, when I was scratching my head as to what to do for dinner (went for noodles on Sunday) I hunted in the fridge and to my delight found two containers of frozen chilli so it’s enchiladas tonight. I really must get around to making macaroni cheese in bulk before that cheddar turns, it’s starting to get a few green spots and with the price of it here I hate to waste.