Re-wiring the flat and making Pimm's for the ladies

In the morning Lin Hong called as she needed our new house key to give to someone who is doing the electricity. This is something I find annoying about house-buying here. You are in a bleeding hot place, every house is going to have air-conditioning, and they don't wire the place with sufficiently thick wiring so it all has to be removed by digging it out of the wall. Why can't you just pay a little extra and just get the proper stuff done in the first place? It's a bit like the gas - we're going to pay an extra 2000 kuai just to have the pipes fitted in properly rather than having them clamped on the outside at a later date. Having said that there is the option to go with gas bottles but for future-proofing I've opted for the installed pipes. Actually the 2000 kuai is for registering with the gas company, the work will be extra.

When I got to the house Lin Hong was waiting with the worker - a middle-aged woman carrying a number of 12 foot lengths of pipe I gathered were going to contain the wiring in the walls. There was no way they would fit in the lift so she started trekking upstairs. It would have taken her a month of Sundays on her own so of course I stepped in to help. It's not very comfortable lumbering of 14 flights of stairs on your own in late June in Pingguo. I was dripping by the time I finally got to the top, but it was good exercise. I saw that work had at least started and the wires had indeed been taken out of the walls. Then noticed that the lift wasn't working anyway so made the slightly easier trip back down to meet Lin Hong, where she handed the worker 5 kuai for her efforts (probably more than an hour's normal wage).

Got a phone call from Tan asking me to come to A Hua's beauty salon and make some Pimm's for the ladies. Fair enough I grabbed a shower, put the kids on the bike and went off to buy two large bottles of "shui bi" (lemonade, think it's 7-up), two apples, an orange, a cucumber and a large jug. Found the ladies eating chicken claws and spicy dried beef as you do so joined in for a bit. A Hua had had the foresight to prepare some ice, and also had some home-grown mint so I had all the ingredients I needed. Ten minutes later it was served to the delight of all the ladies. I left them on their third glass with instructions on how to make more. I understand they got rather tipsy during the afternoon.


Pimm's on a summer's afternoon

In the evening I took the kids out to watch the fountain display in the guang chang. The climax is the centre spout that gushes up nearly 90 metres into the dark sky. Strangely, about 20 seconds after each gush, we felt a strong blow of wind. It felt like it was coming from the hills, but it must have been due to the fountain because it happened every time. I don't yet have much of an explanation for it as the water was being push straight up, not sideways. A few seconds after each wave of wind we then got rained on by the droplets which was a bit fun at first and then slightly annoying, so I tried to get the kids to go home, something that took longer than it should when they are both running around like lunatics.