Flat progress

Back in December last year Waipo's younger brother died. He had been ill for a long time and it wasn't particularly unexpected, but we didn't tell her anyway as being stuck in the UK may not have been the best place to mourn. Waipo was talking about it the other day and how no-one had told her in the UK, and I didn't know if she was in some way scolding me or just mentioning it. But her main point was that one evening Xixi was throwing a massive tantrum which is not like her. Waipo did something really weird; she lit a piece of paper and let it burn on the floor in the hallway, then picked up the smoking black remains and tried to smear it on Xixi's forehead or neck. It looked a bit voodooish and didn't do the trick and she was only consoled when I held her in my arms (Xixi, not Waipo). Anyway, Waipo told me that that was the day her younger brother had died, and that Xixi's behaviour was an indication of that....

Anyway after leaving Xixi crying in school again I later went to meet Tan and the girls for lunch at the Ming Dian Coffee Language Hotel restaurant. The weather has become properly hot now, though not as humid as when the clouds were ever-looming. Now the streets are emptier during the middle of the day, except for a tall foreigner who insists on going out on his electric bike. I really like the meals they served in the Ming Dian last year and the year before in what looked like a bento box. I asked Tan if they still did these boxes and she said "yes". Then the waitress came and Tan found that they don't do the boxes anymore. What is wrong with "I don't know"?

I asked Tan if Lin Hong had the house keys as I wanted to keep an eye on progress but she said today she was busy at work and didn't have any time. So after lunch I rang Lin Hong anyway and she said she was on her way there: "zhun bei dao le" (just about to arrive). Ten minutes later she did come and explained that she had just picked up the keys to her house today as we had ten days ago, and she also wanted to check our house. So much for busy at work.

Well there certainly were changes. Unbeknown to me there were now railings all the way to the ceiling on all the balconies. This gives the place a bit of a prison feel to it but it is done purely for safety as there will be kids around. More predictably there were lots of pipes around the place. The floor was littered with water and electric pipes stemming from the mains and going to all the rooms. There was already some electricity built in but I guess we were expanding it. All this will be covered in concrete soon so I managed to get some grainy snaps on my phone camera first.

This is a pile of stones to be used for making concrete for the house, and was donated to us by A Wu. Thank you A Wu

The full-length bars we now have on all the balconies

Some of the pipes that will soon be covered by the floor. Green for water, white for electricity

Back home I had a little nap and when I woke up to get ready to pick up the kids I found that some bastards had hemmed in my little bike between theirs. If I had knocked one of theirs over there would have been an expensive domino effect so I had to be careful and only set off two alarms while slowly getting it out.

Tight squeeze

As there was no space to park in the appropriate zone when we got back I just left the bike near the door, out of the way of anyone else. Later when I popped out I found I had a sticker on it saying something I didn't understand, but along the lines of "Don't park here!". As yet I don't know if there is a fine. I decided to go to the old people's place to play table tennis as I hadn't done so in a while. Boss Yang was there along with some mates, one of whom was probably the best player in Pingguo. I sat mesmerised by the quality of play and was sadly aware how far I was behind. It didn't stop them wanting to play against me though and to my credit I did score a couple of points on returned smashes that got rounds of applause.