Wednesday 8th February, 2017                      2200

Strewth, I really need to get my body clock back into kilter. Whilst it is great for not nodding off during the 6Nations matches, it plays havoc with my intentions for the day.

It was afternoon before I surfaced today so the intended morning supermarket shop went out of the window before I even left the bedroom. It’s not so much to do with recent events as what normally happens in spring festival when I have nobody to play with - I stay up all hours watching films and videos on the computer.

So anyway, with a shopping trip looking more and more likely to coincide with people finishing work for the day, I decided I wouldn’t cook but instead would go to the restaurant near BHG. I suddenly had a craving for sweet pork in pancakes and the more I thought about it, the more I salivated.

I was delighted whilst sitting here to receive a text from the bank telling me I had been paid because I suspected it may have been late due to the holidays but I cannot fault the school. Great, now I could go and get some cash (I could anyway, psychologically if you are trying to save then dipping into the target is disappointing) and think about maybe making the marathon monthly bus trip to get my monthly smokes tomorrow.

So I duly withdrew cash from the cash point and immediately I did that the bank sent me a text to tell me I just did - for this service I am charged 2y a month which is well worth it. I never looked until I was on the bus and to my consternation, despite having withdrawn 1,500y it said I had 2,000y more than I had even before the withdrawal!

It took some minutes to cotton on to the fact they must also have paid me my travelling money. In Chizhou it was 2,200y a year, here it is 3,500y. On checking at a cash point near BHG it proved the case. Slightly irritating as I hadn’t asked for it and wanted to save it until the summer, now I shall have to be careful not to spend it.

So then I went to get some sweet pork, I was ravenous. Arrrrggghh! Still closed for the holidays! That was more than irritating because I didn’t know anywhere else to eat around there where I might like the food. So I went wandering and came across a Dico’s. I went to one once near here and it was awful but I had to eat and I knew I wouldn’t cook tonight for myself, so I went in. Dico’s is a bit like KFC and I thought I would end up with a chicken quarter and fries but they had little flyers showing the menu in Chinese and English so I picked one up.

The print was not only minuscule but it was in yellow against a white background so anyone who doesn’t have supersight can’t read it (although the price is large enough!). Hmmm. Crispy chicken curry and rice with lotus and spinach soup. Also what they called a shrimp bun but surely must be either their equivalent of McDonald’s filet’o’fish or a prawn burger. In the end I went for the curry which filled the hole but I am sure I will sample the other at some point now I know it is there. I would have eaten in the underground at the BRT stop but they also are closed still.

Then it was time to shop and come home. 235y later I unpacked what I had bought. I had to laugh when I realised that although I had bought the most important stuff -wine - and stocked up on loo roll and soap, the only actual food I had bought was another salmon fillet! I may need to go again on Friday!

Talking of McDonald’s, last night/this morning I watched Founder. Initially I thought it might be a maritime catastrophe but is in fact all about Ray Kroc. Very interesting and heck, didn’t he turn the two brothers over. Nasty piece of work indeed.

So the plan is (and don’t hold me to it because I may not be able to get to sleep early enough) is to do a cigar run tomorrow. This is going to cause problems during term time because unless I want to work extremely long days to get two days off rather than one during the week, at least once a month I will need to devote a day to that. As I abhor food shopping at the weekend there will be a conflict.

But then I suppose it is good to actually have these trivial problems, isn’t it. I could be housebound or skint.