Wednesday 22nd March, 2017                         1840

I do have lazy days, as previously admitted. Yesterday was a particularly fine specimen for I never set foot outside my door to take the rubbish bag out or even go to the beer shop. The only thing I did was bake some ham and have ham, egg and chips for dinner and my, was it satisfying!

I had of course intended when I went to sleep on Monday night to go shopping for western food on Tuesday but I am sure many may empathise when I say that there are some days when if you don’t have to do anything that’s precisely what you feel like doing. And what the hell, if you can get away with it then DO it!

Buying cheese is a half-day outing.

Most readers will doubtless be able to walk two minutes or drive a mile to a corner shop if they need half a pound of cheddar. Not so here. I did have a terrific supplier on Taobao who sold really mature cheddar quite cheaply, the stuff that was a little crumbly. However on the last two occasions I used them I got sub-standard weak and rubbery stuff so now I prefer to source the decent vintage stuff even though a pound costs over £10. One day maybe Chinese traders will realise the value of repeat custom and that you only get it by delivering consistent service.

But that involves an entire morning or afternoon. I could I am sure go there during a lunchtime from school, it’s certainly not far from where I teach but I wouldn’t want to go back to work afterwards. Probably most won’t understand the psychology wherein if I go to do something classed as leisure (a meal, shopping, whatever) I really don’t want to go back to work because my head says I have left - hence I normally don’t leave campus during the 2.5 hour lunch break because I won’t want to come back! I walk outta dem gates and my brain says I am finished for the day. I have more or less always been like this. I may though have to break with tradition on Friday or next Monday because I have singularly failed to find a flowerpot and earth and a bribe of a Japanese lunch may come into play to get a student to accompany me on my break to help liberate my mint babies.

So today at two I set out on the 15 bus to Qingyang Road and the Baian shopping centre where I felt sure I would find my flowerpot. Stupid boy. In the supermarket which sells a few western items the security guard spotted my Ice Tea bottle and made me leave it with him. Because it was a warm day (tomorrow they forecast cold and snow!) I had my Lucky Jacket on so the bottle poked out of the pocket. Now my Ice Tea bottles only ever held Ice Tea once in their lives - when I bought them and proceeded to pour the contents out. Disgusting stuff. The bottles get rinsed and the contents replaced with half a litre of jing jo, which looks like Ice Tea, albeit a bit darker. What the hell, I was only going to shop for ten minutes.

Had it not been for the fact I was almost out of cheese and besides spaghetti I was completely bereft of pasta, I could have saved a complete afternoon. Half a kilo of cheddar, quarter of cream cheese (I can use that in wraps for school lunches in my tortillas), conchiglie and fusilli and I was done. A bit early at 1545 for dinner but I wanted a Gar-Lee at I-Coka, the place I had a steak last time and the one I realised was the same chain as the curry place up the road underneath Pizza Hut.

Now. you go to Pizza Hut, MsDonald’s, KFC or wherever and you expect within reason for the menu to be pretty standard? Well not necessarily in China because there was no curry, although they did have an electronic menu which was also in English. I ended up with a pizza. Oddly, I noticed stuffed jacket spuds were slightly more expensive but only after ordering. Maybe next time.

I still do my cheating on the buses, going back to the same stop and travelling three stops to the terminus, popping another yuan in the bus driver’s machine when we arrive and telling him/her I am going back - all to guarantee myself the seat of my choosing. I mean really, who wants to stand on a bus for 40 minutes unless they are young? And anyway, how could I drink my Ice Tea when  I am fighting for my life to stay upright in big city traffic???!!!