Thursday 15th June, 2017                       1300

The cheese and onion thing was edible but not something I shall repeat unless I remember the tomato and also have cheddar to hand. Gouda simply doesn’t have the commanding taste needed to transform what in reality is rather a bland dish. Worth trying again though but with the right stuff.

My wine girl wasn’t there in the supermarket yesterday and the one who was there kept trying to give me a dozen bottles in six, two-bottle paper bags. It took some time to convince her to let me have two half-case boxes which I could get transferred into large carrier bags. I use said bags for rubbish and the boxes are handy for sticking the empty plonk bottles in. Also, seeing as they won’t allow me to take a trolley outside the shop, it would have made the walk to the taxi place rather difficult. I think I bought almost the last of that wine so I hope my girl is there next week - I reckon I will need her to point me in the direction of another special offer. Shops here have a habit of not ordering any more when they run out.

The deep fryer is certainly getting a spanking, omelette and chips again last night! Amazingly I am still running on the original oil, which is still clean and clear. Admittedly only chips have ever been cooked in it but the reason I bought a dry fryer in the first place was because I thought they cost a fortune in oil. They don’t.

I think I may have another job. Georgina, who works at a new start-up (in China at least) based in Beijing and whom I have been helping clean up their English for their website, asked me if I would be interested in being interviewed on camera for their site. They are an agency for ESL teachers to obtain work.

As I delved deeper I discovered the girl who would conduct the interviews is in Rome. Sensing that her company would hardly splash out on return trips to Rome weekly for me or the reverse for her, I guessed it would be online webcams. Correct. I ended up with an email conversation with Rome and it confirmed it, also she wants short videos about life in China. That’s a problem with no camcorder and a basic phone. My camera can shoot videos but I would need to learn how!

I did point out though that the one thing I can DEFINITELY do is write. That piqued her interest, especially when I told her I had over 2,000 photos from my time here and my blog goes back to before I came to teach. Could I write on suggested topics? Certainly, sling them at me and I can write about them. She offered a few suggestions so I threw one back about the first ever lesson. Yes please.

It took me about an hour to knock it out and email complete with a few photos. This was the response.

“Thank you Steve. you are awesome! I’ll give it a read tomorrow as I’m filming right now for publish!!!

Cheers man!” (sic)
Let’s see if she likes it. I am now left wondering if this is unpaid or not! Nothing thus far has come of the proof-reading of theses but Georgina has said she will speak to her boss re the writing. If they want what I was asked, an article once a week, then I do expect some sort of reward.

I am currently sitting here waiting to see whether the bread I am baking will turn out to be edible. If it is then tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunch are sorted. Boiled eggs with bread and butter for dinner (yes I know but here for me it is a rare treat!) and sandwiches for work. Knowing my luck though I have made a housebrick, hence I am waiting before going out. If that’s the case then a frittata will have to be made for both.  

My Facebook feed has recently become over-populated with pictures of firefighters exhausted after tackling the London blaze. The posters are extolling the virtues of the emergency services and lauding them as heroes. Why?

Why is it they are suddenly heroes at one tragic fire? Why suddenly were the police heroes in Westminster? They are heroes 24 hours a day, we shouldn’t need reminding.