Thursday 21^st January, 2021 1730

Well now. Yesterday at 0930 there was an insistent knocking on my door.

I happened to be up and at my desk reading the news and drinking a coffee so that didn't bother me. I waited to give Jody time to hide away before going to the door.

You know how normal people knock on doors? Maybe knock knock knock? Then they wait to see if anyone comes to open it? You know, normal.

I knew exactly who this was at the door and it wasn't the police. I took him to task about it months ago and he clearly hasn't learnt. He just knock, knock, knock and knocks non stop. That really gets my goat. He's lucky he's so nimble on his feet. The doors here open outwards so as quickly as I could I released the handle and swung the door open, hoping to clump him with it but no luck.

He wanted electricity for the pump they were using for the sewers. No problem, I don't pay for it anyway so we cracked a window and plugged in their extension. But that screwed up my trip to BHG because I waited in all day for them to finish, only to realise at 1800 they'd cluttered off, left their electrics outside my window with nary a word to me!

Worse, Jody saw a dark lump on the floor of the living room, picked it up with toilet roll and for some reason smelt it. It was a lump of human shit he must have brought in on his shoes. Can't have been me, I was in slippers all day.

Now I was fuming. I fired off an email to Brenda. My two complaints were the uncivilised knocking and the shit and also requested that if they were coming back today could they please leave it until 0930. She said she would email their boss.

Boss never saw the email until later this morning, that much was obvious when I was awoken by an uninterrupted knocking at 0830. I enjoined Jody not to answer the door, bugger them. Now of course I couldn't go back to sleep so I broke the ice seal on the window using my backscratcher and plugged their extension in. And then emailed Brenda again.

The workmen now hate me.

No idea what sort of a bollocking they got but they have now said they will use electricity from someone else in future and stated they were doing the work for the community. All I ever asked was that they didn't come too early, knocked the door the way the rest of the world does and that they don't deposit lumps of excrement in my living room – is that too much to ask???

So anyway I never got to BHG again today. I did though make it to the chemist for a much-needed top up of supplies. No idea how much it cost, I paid ¥180 for another six months' worth of fish oil (continued long-term use of which has been the only thing to alleviate the gammy hip and for some strange reason not chargeable) and the rest went on Jody's medical card, the receipt for which was indecipherable to me. I used to have one of those in Chizhou, it was great because they took a little of my salary to put on it and the school put on a lot more. And in Chizhou, anything the pharmacy sold could be charged. It covered my medicines with more to spare. No such luck here for the foreigner.

By the time I had finished any thought of cooking chicken and chips had fled, so today's food is cheesy biscuits! I'm really enjoying this holiday.......