Sunday 28^th February, 2021 1815

Just one more week of leisure left.

After a fortnight of ever-increasing temperatures, today we had small snow flurries. Having not gone there yesterday, I had to visit the jing jo shop in case they sent out a search party to find my body. I wore simply a short sleeved shirt and the thin unlined jacket that has been all that is necessary of late.

I froze! It was back to the case of walking in the door and the glasses instantly steamed up. With a fair few things I want to do next week before term starts I really hope it will warm up.

Has everyone been enjoying the 6 Nations? Well, apart from the Italians and the English! I actually stayed up until nearly 0300 this morning to watch our painful performance. Notwithstanding that the referee (they should never, ever appoint French refs when England are playing!) has never forgiven Agincourt, we were so awful it seems a miracle we beat the Italians. Scotland and France tonight should be good though.

2230

Arrgghhh! Just found out the French are diseased and the match is postponed! Oh well, back to my downloads.

Tuesday 2^nd March 1630

Having had precisely zero information from the school I thought it best to stick my oar in. I mean, they haven't even actually told me we start again on Monday, if Jody wasn't here I would be blissfully unaware.

So I sent an email pointing out that nobody ever tells the foreigner anything and asking when we start and am I on the same timetable. So far Lynne from translation has replied saying she will find my timetable. Nothing as yet from Sue in the foreign language dept. It is once again a bloody joke. They know full well that now, at my age, I have certain requirements and if they screw up with those at this eleventh hour I will nonetheless squeal and as I have them over the proverbial barrel someone or other may need to sweat over rearranging classrooms if they cocked up.

You know, I actually don't like needing preferential treatment, I would love to sprint from floor to floor and class to class like a mountain goat but I damned well can't any more. So it really makes sense for them to fix my timetable first before anyone else's and then juggle the rest around me. Everyone else is two, three or four decades younger than me and I am the decaying corpse still plodding along claiming a salary. In so many ways they show me great reverence and respect due to my age but then screw it up by having the same thinking the supermarkets do – oh, this sold well, we have none left but we won't buy any more. You know, it has been two years since every supermarket in the city was selling expensive Italian sausages (which I loved) and then poof! They were gone, never to reappear. Bit like McDonald's saying oh, we've sold all our hamburgers but we won't get any more. To the western mind it is incomprehensible. So it is with the old foreign teacher. Let's forget about him until suddenly we need him and he's not in class. I am convinced that had I kept quiet Monday would have arrived and they would have panicked because I was at home.

So that's me, waiting with bated breath for my timetables and praying for no 0800 classes (that's an 0530 alarm clock). Classroom conflicts I will simply refuse, they are all aware of my limitations and the fact there are no lifts.