Sunday 24^th November, 2019 2000

Yes, on Thursday that class were given both barrels. I rather hope the main reason they were subdued at first was not because I had blasted them but instead, because they had betrayed me. They and I now have to make the best of a bad situation.

I had a touch of luck on Friday. Not thinking for a moment they would have any after my last visit a fortnight ago but needing more smokes, I went to the big China Tobacco. To my delight they had enough to keep me going for a month. As long as I can keep getting my preferred option I pay 500¥ a month, the alternative is 1,000 or 1,500¥ and for cigars I don't even like. It is however a royal pain because the round trip on the bus can take up to three hours. Mr Jing Jo has been notably absent for a month now. His wife and son seem quite chipper so I don't think there's a marital problem. I am guessing perhaps his mum or dad are on the way out. I've met them both and they are indeed quite frail. I do need him back, sourcing my habit!

I was recently moaning about the weather here which of late temperature-wise has been hovering above and below the basline line day and night whilst Chizhou has enjoyed 20ºC higher and Alice in Guangzhou boasted they were still in T-shirts in the deep south. Today I read that Beijing met office had issued a blue alert (meaning temperature drops of ten degrees or so) and dismissed it as being too late, it had already happened here. Then I saw that the UK was even colder!

Tuesday 26^th 1130

Yesterday afternoon Dean Liu's big boss (ergo mine as well – there seem to be an awful lot of chiefs here!) was lurking outside my classroom before the start time. A couple of minutes before we commenced I invited him to come in and observe my teaching. It was not bravado, this was the better of the non-English major classes with five Uzbekistanis and a Philippino, a few of them being quite active. I also knew he would refuse because he can't speak English. He duly did but I discovered later he was on a mission to catch the foreign students skipping classes. The only one who misses my classes is Caleb the Kiwi, I exempted him from attendance as he's a native speaker and am quite prepared to justify it if confronted.

In the evening I found that Mr Jing Jo is back at last. Don't ask me how but we actually have conversations despite neither of us understanding the other's lingo. The problem is his father. He showed me a video on his phone of him spoon-feeding his old man and then x-rays showing what appeared to me to be evidence of a massive stroke. I somehow doubt at his age he will make much of a recovery.

After this morning's class it was ATM time (the campus ones are still out of order), a trip to the opticians to collect a gold granny strap for the specs (initially they only had silver) and then BHG for a shop and to make the cashier on Till 7 very happy by making good the payment on her undercharge last week.

I shall have a nap in a while, sleeping has become problematic lately, what with waking up far too early and not being able to drop back off, leaving me knackered. I hope I have the energy to attempt to bake a ginger cake later.

Due to a request received I have photographed the eyepieces. Apologies for looking dour in the one of me wearing them but I was concentrating on taking a picture of myself when I couldn't see if I was in the frame or not!

Wednesday 20^th November, 2019 1845

So what's happened since the last post?

Alice news first. As you know there are two of them, Alice Wuhu and Alice Peili. Well the Wuhu one has been feeling down of late so I suggested she come and stay with me in spring festival. She has pre-booked her train tickets (on the slow train, rather her than me at over a day's travel!) and Ctrip should procure them for her once they come on sale. In China you cannot actually buy train tickets more than 30 days in advance of travel. But it will be nice to have some company and with events in her life lately I think maybe she will enjoy getting away from it all – not to mention she loves my breakfasts (which I never cook for myself!) and my lasagne.

Alice Peili came to visit me on Sunday with her mate Lillith, a short visit of an hour. I couldn't offer them dinner as I wasn't expecting them and a roast breast for one was already on the go but they were eating elsewhere anyway. The reason she was in the area was that she had been to the Peili campus doctor. She has a pustule on her leg that needs treating and doesn't trust the main campus clinic. The usual TCM treatment and the advice not to drink anything cold or eat anything spicy. It doesn't matter if someone is pregnant, has cancer or a heart attack, Chinese doctors always say nothing cold to drink and no spicy food!

Tuesday I finished my class at 0950 and went to collect my glasses. Well I would have if they were there. Delivery delayed due to “singles day” shopping madness. Come back tomorrow (today). Did my shopping and buggered off home to make a batch of sausage rolls for dinner and freezing for campus lunches.

This morning Alice Peili gave me the news that she has signed a contract for a job in Zhejiang Province (neighbouring Shanghai) as a “learning arrangement person”. I had no idea what that entailed either! Basically it is a sales job flogging classes and my heart sank. Having spoken further, although I don't think she will last selling school courses (but it is apparently “forbiddened” to break your first contract after graduation) at least the basic salary will see her able to live day to day and who knows, she may actually make a good salesman?

So early this evening I picked up my glasses.

Maybe I need time to get used to them but so far I am not impressed. They did warn me they would not be perfect and certainly, distance vision is vastly improved but so far the reading part is not up to much. Watching films on the laptop is slightly improved. I have a feeling that if I make it to the UK next summer I will be visiting Vision Express for some proper binoculars!

Oh yes, this evening I received a call from someone who couldn't speak English. Not unusual and I ended up hanging up. Afterwards I had a text from the cashier at BHG and didn't really understand what she was saying. I asked her to call Alice. I then found the BHG receipt from yesterday. Where I buy 6 bottles of wine for the price of 3 she had charged me for one bottle, ergo, if I don't cough up the difference will come out of her pay. Of course I will make good the deficit next Tuesday when I go again but twice now in the past I have been charged for 6 instead of 3 and never bothered to complain. I shall not repeat that mistake!

And so first thing tomorrow I have the class that prefers to sleep or play on their phones so they drop me in the shit with the Dean. The one that will get no more films. Going to be interesting and woe betide anyone who steps out of line.

Saturday 16^th November, 2019 1600

Well after a somewhat fraught week it was good to get to my three-day weekend.

Thursdays take so much out of me that I don't want to do anything at all on Fridays, hence I now do my weekly shop after my Tuesday morning class. I had however arranged to meet Pat in the evening and treat her to a Japanese meal and so that's where we went last night. It suited her as the restaurant is way on the other side of the river but considerably closer to her home than her dormitory is, so she ended up going home for a weekend of Mum's home cooking and generally lazing about.

We had the usual seaweed-wrapped rice and tuna (one of my favourites), barbecued king prawns, butterfly prawn with cheese, sashimi and I let her choose the sushi. What is it that makes girls pick the pink sushi? (see photo). It's far too sweet to eat more than one, even for the females.

And I had a bit of good fortune, the bill was a mere 154¥ (less 10% for using my VIP card) and I thought maybe I had enough residual balance on the card so as not to have to actually fork out cash, handy considering the ATMs here where I live are still out of order.

Not only did I have enough but I still have 202¥ left, enough for another go!

Today I went on a desperate cigar hunt all the way to east campus. I would have had nothing to smoke at all halfway through Monday otherwise. Firstly I thought I would continue in the vein of gourmet dining by having a Big Mac meal. BK would have been infinitely more preferable but A) I need to take taxis to get there and B) I have no idea if there is a China Tobacco shop nearby.

Unsurprisingly, they never had my brand - or at least my model. To get me through to Tuesday I had to buy some smaller versions and five Churchillian ones for 110¥, two days supply for the price I would normally pay for five days. Feast or famine here.

I gave Pat a letter to post to the MNOPF in the UK for me. Her initial text was to ask if 220¥ was ok for EMS? Was it ok? £25 for a letter??? Could you please just ask for normal airmail, it should be about 20¥? All done and guess how much it cost? 20¥! Not a bad guess.

Tomorrow I could go cigar hunting again but I think I shall probably have a baking day. Sausage rolls for school lunches, either a cake or some Chelsea buns and I quite fancy a roast dinner, probably chicken, even though we are still in the grip of crap potato season. I can always search for lardies on Tuesday after shopping or throw in the towel and buy yet more expensive ones from the shop adjacent to BHG.

I might even be able to see them if my glasses are ready!

Thursday 14^th November, 2019 1730

I have already said I hate Thursdays this term. Now I positively loathe them.

The first class of the day at 0800 is the worst, the brain dead, the detritus of academia. The class I have to expend twice as much effort in than any other.

This is the class that Dean Liu spied on through the door window two weeks ago, saw many playing on their sodding phones and came in during the break to remonstrate. That hacked me off a trifle as it shone a bad light on me but to be honest, short of purchasing a signal blocker I would spend most of the lesson confiscating the damned things. I let that slide, foolishly thinking a ticking off from their Dean would have the desired effect.

Today after the class she called me to find out where I was. I was outside sitting in the watery sunlight having a smoke before my next class. What did she want to talk to me about? She had spied again through the window and seen some students on their phones and others asleep at their desks during the film I showed in the second period. On this occasion I was otherwise occupied at the front of the classroom and so never policed it. When after I had left she questioned them and they told her they couldn't understand the film. It was Ice Age, a cartoon. What is there not to understand about a cartoon regardless of language? Blame the teacher, in China it works every time.

Suffice to say I restrained my response to her remarks. I never mentioned that her little “pep talk” hadn't worked and that my carrot and stick approach to lessons had worked perfectly well until she poked her hooter in. And much else I could have but didn't say. I defended my methods and resisted the urge to tell her to stuff that particular class up her backside. She then proceeded to go to my next class before it started to give them a bollocking when they had done nothing wrong! That class and the subsequent one entreated me to still show them films because they were learning and enjoying them and I will not change my style now after nine years. If I need to, I will contact the Agricultural uni!

Except for one class. The first one on Thursdays.

Am I angry? You bet. Will I work harder on them? Don't be daft. They've had the last bit of light entertainment, at least from me, ever. And oh boy, are they going to work! If they think for a second that I will be doing all the talking for an hour and a half they are much mistaken. They will now be given twenty minutes in period two to write on a topic I give them and prepare a talk for the class and I will choose random students to deliver said talks.

I'll give them “blame the teacher”.

Belay half the last post - Bill has been in contact, just Geoff to hear from. 

Any of my HMSC contacts heard from Geoff Woodland or Bill Fenton? The former being in bushfire territory, the latter in HK Combat Zone. 

Wednesday 13^th November, 2019 1930

I remembered two decades ago demanding spectacles from an optician and him telling me I didn't need them. I responded by saying I could no longer read the bottom line of his chart, my sight was failing. I was told that nobody is supposed to be able to read the bottom line but I always had. He also said that what I thought was flawed eyesight was still better than most people have ever had in their lives. Bit like telling Superman to be happy because he can still lift a thousand tonnes when he used to handle a million.

But I remember my prescription from back then. It was -0.75 and -0.25. Now it is -1.75 and -3.25, a huge difference. No cataracts though but I am wondering exactly how long it will take to get used to wearing my new encumbrances, I am thinking quite a few days.

So today I had the Royal visit by the Dean. And no, I hadn't forewarned the class. And as suspected, when I had finished my intro re 11/11 (what it means to them with singles day and what it means in the west) and my lament over what I had spent with Mr Zeiss, I asked for their “homework”, which consists of each class, each week, giving me three or more tales they found interesting.

Nothing.

Oh boy. I was both annoyed and happy. She was seeing the battle I face. And fair play to Delia, she stumped up a story after berating the class for being so reticent. Delia earnt herself a sweet and suddenly, now that my new innovation of bribery was revealed, I had no problem getting three more tales! In the end the class did me proud but the Dean now knows the truth.

She only stayed for the first period (normal) and then I had feedback in the break. All good I am happy to say but then I am probably the most humorous and “fun” teacher in the university, even if I do say so myself!

On the bus coming home (yes, I refused English corner, having attended last week) it was unusually busy but I did manage to get a seat. Two stops on, an old lady boarded, laden with no less than five shopping bags. Nobody offered her a seat, not even those sitting in the old people seats. However, the stop after, two boys (aged maybe ten) who had been sitting together, bade farewell as one of them got off, leaving a spare berth.

The old woman moved to stand close to the remaining boy who now had two seats. I watched as the boy studiously ignored the fact she was there, laden with more goods than I would carry these days. Nothing.

The biddy was going to be Chinese and say bugger all. The kid was opposite me. I could have done nothing but I tapped his upper arm and indicated he should shuffle over to make room. He did so, no doubt internally raging at the laowei, and the old dear took the now vacant seat. Not a Xi Xie came my way and I wondered why on earth I bother. When someone gives up their seat for me I never fail to thank them profusely but the elderly Chinese by and large just seem not to. It is almost enough to make me appreciate why the younger generation hog seats whilst geriatrics stand – I'd be pissed off giving up my seat for no display of gratitude!

And people wonder why I travel to termini to guarantee myself a seat, otherwise take a taxi......

Tuesday 12^th November, 2019 1200

Well the ATMs were out again when I went so I had to find another one at a different bank to mine, annoyingly being charged to withdraw my cash. I could have gone for a haircut but the forecast for today said a high of 4°C and (amazingly) snow, so I thought better of it!

Yesterday morning it happened that I was on the same bus as dean Delia but neither of us noticed until we alighted. On the walk to campus she hit me with two things: firstly a gift of a 30Gb USB stick – always handy – and secondly she was coming to observe my class tomorrow.

I suppose there are some teachers who would contact the class monitor to pre-warn them in order that the class (and ergo the teacher) could look good but I am not doing that. If they aren't active it won't be for lack of trying on my part and it will reinforce what I told her, this year's crop are barely more animated than corpses.

Later in the morning I had an email from dean Liu, the head of the translation department. She invited me, Eli and Khloe to her home for dinner and in true Chinese fashion, it was a same day invite. Well, I wasn't doing anything else and dinner was going to be a chicken burger and chips in Dicos otherwise, so I agreed. Along with we three there were two translation majors, the dean herself and the vice dean of foreign affairs (deals with the international students). The latter was there because he could cook and dean Liu cannot, her husband (who is away) does all the cooking. Side dishes were ordered in from a restaurant. The beef and potatoes were lovely but a spinach dish blew my mouth off and started my eyes running after one leaf and later at the end, the chicken soup had an odd taste. I thought it was ginger and indeed some was present but there were some crunchy things which I made the mistake of biting. They were whole peppercorns and the effect was similar to having just paid a visit to the dentist, my lips lost all sensation bar a tingling! The food also went straight through me this morning, I was fearful of going to work (with only squat toilets to hand) but having arranged to meet Pat and go to the optician, I chanced it.

I am now reeling.

I don't have any glasses, they will take about a week to be made. If Pat's translation was accurate, the diagnosis was astigmatism, which would explain why all aspects of my vision have deteriorated over the past year.

Between a rock and a hard place, I knew I wanted varifocals (hope that's what I am getting!) and after the initial shock of the lens and frame prices, I decided on Zeiss lenses, the second-lowest imported price with the additional cost being for “computer fatigue”. Total price with discount? 2640¥!!! There were other lenses that would have seen me paying thrice that and there is apparently nothing that can restore perfect vision across the spectrum but to be honest the 66 bus will now appear as 66 and not 666 or the 15 not the 155.

They'll take some getting used to, I felt nauseous just wearing the test goggles for two minutes.

Saturday 9^th November, 2019 2330

My bone-idle weekend started well on Friday when I did absolutely bugger all and continued until this afternoon when Andy my cleaner arrived. He was very happy earning £6 for twenty minutes just sweeping and mopping the floor (I do sometimes give him more to do but not that often) and then I went out. I must clear one of my tables that is covered in flour one day.

The plan had been to go and buy a shedload of sweets as bribes for my classes, get my monthly drug supply, daily liquid requirements and get dinner in the restaurant near home.

The room housing all the ATMs was in darkness and the machines were off. I had about 20¥ in my wallet so my only options short of travelling distance to get cash were to go to the jing jo shop and tell them I would pay tomorrow (decided against as I have plenty of stock) or have dinner and use my Bank of China debit card.

I had dinner. The place is expensive for me but only because the portions are enormous. Two or three eating and it is reasonable but I have absolutely no chance of eating even just one dish. I had butterfly prawns with some Chinese noodly stuff and managed half. If only they did children's portions I would go there more often.

So tomorrow if I have the energy, haircut, sweets, medicines and cooking. And of course only if I can get bloody money from the holes in the wall.

Tuesday is my early day, ergo my shopping day. This coming week it will also be the day I cave in to blindness. There's a large opticians close to BHG. I want varifocals and so in preparation used a translation site and copied the simplified Chinese - 变焦 – I was rather happy when my cleaner could actually read and understand my “handwriting”!

I have a “date” next Friday with Pat. I did actually invite her yesterday but she said she had already gone home. You will have seen her in previous photos from my dinners, she used to clean for me too. Turns out her home is close to the Japanese restaurant I will take her to.

Much more interesting was the revelation that Jacob was a bit of a shit.

Jacob, you may recall, was the Peace Corps volunteer who did a bunk at the start of his second year due to a “family emergency”, resulting in my having extra workload and ultimately commuting to all three campuses? And oddly, the emergency was so unexpected his little dog had already been shipped back to the States.

Well, when he was teaching Pat I was nothing to do with her campus and we hadn't even met but now she has told me that he asked her out for dinner. I suppose on ¥1480 a month that's a big deal for the Peace Corps people but she refused. If Pat is to be believed – and I certainly do – he threatened to fail her at oral English.

Can you imagine being a young person in a position of inferiority who needs to pass in order to graduate and being told that?

I never knew her then but by God I wish I had. And Jacob would have wished he never met me.

I have had run-ins with my students but I keep that to the personal side and never, ever have I allowed it to affect my evaluation of their performance.

She knows full well he wanted to sleep with her, equally she knows I would love to as well, the difference being that I know it will never happen!

He never did fail her (no idea what her marks were but she scored 96% in my exams) but I am guessing the prat realised failing the girl who won the speaking contest two years running being failed would raise questions. In fact this year she didn't enter and entered the writing contest instead. I am proud to say I helped her and she came top in that too.

In a rather childish way I wish Jacob was reading this to not only know what a dick he was but also that Pat quite happily comes out for dinner with me.....

It's amazing what comes out of the woodwork over time, especially in China and when you are a “caring” foreigner.....

Friday 8^th November, 2019 1700

Well on Tuesday I found myself locked out of the campus internet. I only lug the laptop on the days I am stuck there over the two and a half hour lunch break, which this term means Tuesdays and Thursdays. Luckily a Chinese teacher was sitting using his phone in the classroom I was to teach in after lunch, hence I used it to eat mine. He kindly logged me in with his details and I promptly complained to Brenda.

For some unknown reason she enquired as to why I need the internet in school. Read the news, reply to emails, the usual thing! All credit, it was sorted for Thursday, apparently there is an expiry date on internet access for all teachers. I am guessing the validity is three years since it hasn't happened before. I now wonder if that wasn't also the problem I had at home.

The classes are slowly improving. In China you will never, ever have students as active as in the UK, the bulk of them will simply sit there mute but if you can get a quarter of them contributing you have achieved something. I am getting there.

I have been thinking of the idiotic things celebrities say and the imbecilic phrases they coin as if they are changing the language for the better. There was “conscious uncoupling” by that psycho Paltrow, as if you can break up in your sleep as well. Now I read that my being single means I am now supposedly self-partnered! Maybe now the police will send out solo patrols and pretend they have their partner with them? The 11^th November in China is known as Singles Day each year and sees the biggest one-day internet shopping spree in the world with billions of dollars spent by singles bagging online Taobao bargains. I wonder if they will now call it Self-Partnered Day?

I remember the days when I could board and alight buses with ease and even as late as five years ago that was still the case. Sadly, not so now. I need the grab-handles. Unlike the UK, here when a bus arrives it's not boarding in order of your arrival, it's scrum down and stuff everyone else. After all this time I am reasonably adept and heavy enough to ensure I secure a position close to the doors and no longer have any compunction in pushing in. However when I attain the doorway I need to extend one or both arms to grasp the handles to haul myself up. Every time, I end up elbowing a Chinese or two who seem to think they are skinny enough to be able to get on the bus alongside me when they aren't. I can only assume they understand the reason I blocked their passage with my outstretched arm when they see I don't leap like a mountain goat. Didn't stop a young girl yesterday of about eight who tried to dodge underneath and found herself squashed against the door! Might be interesting if I see her at 1630 again next Thursday!

I constantly see western news outlets telling tales of Chinese woe and wonder if I am in a different China. We have had the Trumptions supposedly crippling the country but all I have observed is that the States are suffering. Now we have the swine flu epidemic. Admittedly it has hit pork prices (maybe costing me personally an extra £1 a week) but I haven't seen any change in shoppers' habits. It's still the most popular meat. I do sometimes wonder whether their reporters are based here. It's the price of salmon that gets me, especially when legally it could be sea trout labelled as salmon anyway.

Oh well, it's the weekend, it was payday today and I managed to save ¥2,000 last month toward the summer. Now I'm not catering for the hordes every week I hope I can do that every month........

Monday 4^th November, 2019 1900

Isn't life wonderful in what it throws at you?

I was so tired when I finished today and with not a lot that would be swift to cook and not a lot of time to do anything else, I decided to get off the bus early and have some KFC chicken nuggets just to fill a hole.

Ok, so the concept of fast food is wonderful but I rarely complain about the speed of the food arriving. I do however, complain when I don't have a lot of time, get the hump when after ten minutes my order still hasn't even been taken.

And it was longer than ten minutes before someone deigned to come and serve me. Oh, thank you so much for coming! Two portions of chicken nuggets please, and I placed 11¥ on the counter as the menu on the counter said a portion of five was 5.5¥. Understandable?

Apparently not. The idiot behind the counter professed not to speak English (more on that in a moment) and pointed to a bit on the menu in Chinese, which I explained I couldn't read and asked him using body language how much did he want? I was treated to his phone telling me “special price only available on Friday”. So why the hell was the Friday menu out on a Monday? Ok, how much do you want? Special price only available on Friday. Three more times this was repeated on his phone and on each occasion I asked HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT and my fuse shortened until eventually my internal Semtex blew.

Admittedly I am not entirely blameless in what followed because I said, sotto voce, you are f*****g useless, you w***** and turned to leave. He didn't understand English remember? Fuck You! He shouted.

Suddenly the alleged monoglot was fluent enough, having not been able to simply tell me how much money he wanted for two portions of chicken nuggets – even in Chinese would have been fine, I do understand numbers!

Well, he'd already pee'd me off and although the younger me would have reached over and dragged him over the counter and beat him to a pulp, this more decrepit version gave him a “look”, told him “No, eff YOU – malagabee!”

No idea how it is spelt but malagabee was given to me as the worst possible swear word in Chinese. From what I gather it involves your mother and intercourse. Only the third time in nine years I have used it (twice before directed at drivers trying to kill me) and God on this occasion was it gratifying!

He just looked at me aghast and made no response as I departed.

I half expected to be attacked from behind but I reckon he was so shocked that I knew the expletive, having treated me like an ignorant laowei, that he needed time. I was not happy, dinner tonight has been madeleines and Japanese Pocky sticks. One thing's for sure, I shall never visit that KFC again as long as I live and quite probably any KFC store in the world. Never liked them particularly anyway, unfortunately they are popular with the Chinese.

However, I didn't have too bad a day with my classes. I have not been happy so far but just maybe I have cracked them a little. They are getting the message that the more stories they give me, the more I can reply with a tale of my own, the more time it takes and the less actual work we have to do before they get a film. And nobody can complain they don't get the chance to practise. They are getting the message I set the curriculum and nobody else. I may learn to love these classes yet.

Oh, and in the break they turn on the computer and screen in the expectation of a film!

Saturday 2^nd November, 2019 0100

My heating came on last night and when I awoke this morning I had no internet.

Being China, you automatically wonder if it's your connection only or everyone else too. Sadly, the upstairs neighbours either moved or changed their password for their router which I used to use to see if I needed to unplug and restart. However I did find a router that was not password-protected and tried that throughout the day to no effect.

In the end I called Brenda to ask if there was an exam, and precisely as I knew, she said no, they take place on Saturdays. She got the really short bald chap to come to see me, the one who couldn't connect me when I first came here but is now the only IT teacher nearby. Coincidentally he also has the wife I have a bizarre attraction to! The plain Jane but with the most wonderful smile that lights the day on the odd occasion she does smile.

Anyway, hats off to the diminutive chap, he reset my router completely (albeit three times) and got me back online – sadly after the Wales v NZ match had finished.

A slight problem is that he never knew the difference between passport, password and router name so my visible name for my router is now the same as my password, meaning should anyone twig, they can log on and use my internet. Aside from speed it matters little though, the internet is free.

Not sure what is wrong with me lately. I cannot sleep for long – going to bed in good time ready for an early alarm yet waking two or three hours before I need to and not being able to drop off again – and then feeling lethargic all day.

Hardly been cooking (I bought baozi for dinner last night!) and as for the walking to and from the buses to work, it kills me lately even more than usual. Sure, I still have the joint problem but that's just pain and pain is an old enemy I have fought all my life but this is damned ridiculous. I am not going to self-diagnose like a hypochondriac and say it's MS because A) No way will I allow that and B) I have no idea. I did get told by a quack many years ago when I complained my “thermostat” in bed saw me sweating one minute and then cold the next at night that it was a slight thyroid problem. And I thought that was confined to women! Could be that I suppose but I shall soldier (Sailor!) on.

I was doing my usual daydreaming earlier, assuming I would be in the UK with Joanna next summer. All too brief due to her allocated holidays but I want (for her, not me, I can stay in the same pub all week!) to pack as much in as possible. I thought I should at least make it two countries and we could go to Glasgow so not only could she say she'd been to Scotland but I could attend a Wednesday lunchtime old shipmates session in the pub. Then I started thinking about three countries. Bloody hell! Have you seen the prices of the trains??? And the time it takes plus up to FOUR changes to get from Wycombe to Bangor?? I had entertained the notion of showing her what used to be my old school HMS Conway but that's definitely out.

I then considered London-Belfast which is possible but the flight prices one way are stupid, given that a return LHR-GLA is seventy-five nicker apiece. If it comes off I reckon it's two countries and a visit to Oxford. I really DO want to go to Scotland, I have hankered after Lorne sausage in morning rolls for the last decade! No ketchup or brown sauce, just the square sausage in perfect morning rolls that you don't see in England. Put two or three of those in front of me and a full English and I will guarantee nine times out of ten the sassenach will buckle!

And that reminds me of my college days in Glesga, my breakfast and morning breaks saw me eating vast quantities of the bloody things, cholesterol be damned. But on phase 2 we lived in rented accommodation in Rutherglen and nearby the patriarch of Gartland's Rolls had his baronial keep.

He will be long dead now but I remember his Jaguar XJ12 occasionally sweeping majestically past where we lived. He was old then, I thought he was 150 but I was only nineteen so probably he was about seventy. One day I was outside trying to sort something out with my first car, an Austin 1800 Mk II land crab and his lovely Jag came whispering past.

Have you ever heard a V12 Jaguar of old, before ABS, doing an emergency stop? Huge tyres, locked and screeching on the tarmac?

Well of course I had to look.

A police car (no sirens or lights) had come up the hill leading to the road, failed to stop when it should and appeared in the path of old man Gartland, causing him to halt suddenly.

Well I have never seen anything like it and at that age I couldn't believe what I was indeed seeing! Gartland leapt (as much as a pensioner can) out of his car, the police car was stopped inches from his bonnet, and he proceeded to bawl the copper out like nobody's business!

I stood there dumbstruck, thinking he would be arrested but of course the old bill were in the wrong and all but kow-towed before, rant over (and it really was some rant) old man Gartland got into his car and purred away regally.

Sadly I just searched for Gartland's Rolls and it seems as an entity they are no longer. But they did make exceedingly good morning rolls........