Tuesday 22^nd May, 2018 1700

I indulged myself with a lazy weekend doing nothing but regretted it the moment I awoke on Monday morning, knowing if I was to produce our weekly western dinner I had to go shopping. It was raining.

Funnily enough, when I sat at the officials' table for the closing ceremony on Friday I gazed up at the sky. In the UK I was pretty accurate in forecasting the weather by looking at the cloud formations – any deck officer reading this will also be able to do likewise.

In China however, Chizhou in particular, I gave up because Chinese weather never seems to conform! But as I watched, bathed in glorious sunshine, it crossed my mind that rain was coming. Not in the short term but I guessed later that night. And I was right, it arrived late on Friday. I never saw Monday on the cards though but of course I was inside and never looked at the sky. This intrepid chef nonetheless braved the elements and duly produced passable green pea soup and spicy cottage pie. Dessert was ice cream cubes coated in strawberry or raspberry flavour white chocolate. The girls (Alice couldn't come, she was having dinner with her friend recently returned from the USA) adored them, I have yet to try one, white chocolate is not my cup of tea.

Before I started cooking I learnt from Alice in Guangzhou that the agency had not applied for her UK visa yet. I was furious. Why? Because she is not going until August so the embassy wouldn't process it quickly! Not only that, they actually said she stood a better chance of getting a visa if she had been to a foreign country before! Yes, that's true but you have to have been abroad and RETURNED to your homeland! Blithering idiots. They think the rest of the world operates the way China does, with each official interpreting the rules as they see fit. The embassy are dragging their heels SO much that she already has an appointment to go for fingerprinting (and presumably the interview too) on Thursday.

I don't think she quite grasps the mechanism of flight prices outside of China, the fact that hotels fill up in summer and there aren't hundreds of highland tours in Scotland should the planned one be full. I really need to be booking all these things sharpish.

So tomorrow it's off to Tianshui. As I suspected, it is not going to be all gas and gaiters, if anything I think for me at least it will be simply a shorter but equally gruelling version of last summer. I have to get all the way across town by 0745 tomorrow for an 0800 departure.

Not for us the hour and a half on the fast train, nope, a bus taking four and a half hours! I should have guessed, we will need transport once there so we shall take our own, I pray hey stop for a smoke break. The only real touristy things on the menu are Maiiji mountain (I'm staying firmly rooted to the base!) on Thursday and Fuxi temple on Friday. A science and technology park sounds absolutely wonderful, as does meeting students and teachers at a university plus a night-time “cultural activity”. I wonder if Annie is quite as envious now........