Wednesday 24^th February, 2021

A week and a half left of the holiday that just felt like time off work. And still I have not officially been told my start date or my timetable! Am I surprised? No. The Chinese teachers get their timetables about a decade before but the foreigner always gets his/hers half an hour before start of term.

Now it may well be that I have retained the same timetable as last term (doubtful) and whilst the late night finishes were a pain in the derriére then, with the light evenings I can handle it – along with the long lay-ins in bed!

So we have done huge shops in Metro and today in BHG, I just need to make sure the wine lake is topped up sufficiently to only need one box per week once I am working. And of course get to work making my sausage rolls for any lunchtimes I am stuck at school. What I wouldn't give to have a Greggs nearby or even; as in Shanghai; western delis where you can get proper bread and ham and salami and all things nice! I get bread that tastes of battenburg and ham that never saw a pig in its life unless I make it.......

I know I have sort of tried half-heartedly to avoid the Covid thing and I know I was never barricaded in my home as some news sites showed happening in China (with people who were actually infected and couldn't be trusted to isolate) but a year ago it was pretty dismal here before the rest of the world cottoned on. Sure, I could come and go at will but only for a walk (that's a laugh, me? Walk?) or to the supermarket. It was damned boring and being the only foreigner here with students on a distant campus who in any event had gone home, it was to all intents, isolation, and my only relief was my daily trip to see Mr Jing Jo. Now if we could speak to each other then maybe I would dwell awhile and quaff a can of Snow but it will never happen. So yes, at least I had a “wife” but one whom I have been married to for 80 years and talk to as much. Like two minutes a day.

So of course I was peed off with the lockdown, coming as it did right in the holidays. I bore it and also accepted my summer Yangtse cruise was off (and given it was to be the MV Anna with Zhu Anna as my companion that was a blow). This spring festival my travel plans were blown again. I could have gone but had anything happened I would have been out of favour to say the least. If they try to stop me in summer I will go bonkers. We will take that Yunnan trip, I'd also like to go and see Joan again and then there's my Haj to Shanghai -where I do rather hope to lodge a new passport application. I get jittery when there's only a year to run.

But watching British TV makes me want to call the Samaritans! Every second advert is about what the Halifax is doing to comfort their customers, the “new normal” crap and the one with the guy and dog social distancing (God how I hate that phrase!) and then to top it all, the look them in the face and tell them you are doing everything one!

If the UK had done what China and other countries did at the outset? I carry a mask and wear it on average 5 minutes a day. Jody sees her friends and I see Mr Jing Jo and family and we are bare-faced. We may get it but maybe not, it's been over a year.

But the one that annoys me is the mental health one. As if a few are going through it when the whole world is! God almighty, what would the people who lived through two world wars think of the people today? I know what I think. And the Chinese people are not included, they just carry on and keep calm -even without the coffee mugs.