Tuesday 26^th March, 2019 1015

I hosted dinner last night for Alice and Annie. Pre-made spring rolls (Annie actually asked if I had made them myself – I'm not that good!), followed by Mediterranean mince and aubergines, or at least my take on it. Dessert was strawberry fool. The mince wasn't quite as expected, I only had tomato pesto and not sun-dried. It was still well received nonetheless.

It was during dinner (and the main reason for mentioning it at all) that the difficulties of finding another job at over sixty years old was discussed. Annie had a brain fart as she suddenly remembered the school next to our main campus has a married couple teaching there who are both 67. Would I like her to ask if they are recruiting? Silly question.

Before bed last night I had an email outlining rough job specification details, in particular an upper age limit of seventy! More than enough for my purposes. This morning I have been telephoned already and a copy of the contract will be emailed to me later for perusal. They are interested in hiring me.

Ok, so it's still in freezing Lanzhou but it's a job. It's also Gansu Agricultural College, which sounds like a step down but isn't – Chinese colleges have a tendency to call themselves universities anyway. I think (but have never truly found out) that to be a “proper” university they need to be authorised to bestow Masters degrees and Doctorates. I haven't worked at anywhere such and I doubt that outside of the Tier 1 cities there are many that fit that description. They go as far as Bachelors.

The pay is more too and moving home will be considerably easier. With luck, unlike last time, nothing will be broken in transit. I will try to hire a man with a van for the task.

Fingers crossed my problem is soon to disappear.