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.....