Let sleeping shopkeepers lie

Back to work after a full weekend. Annoyingly for at least two mornings this week we've had drilling again in one of the neighbouring houses. I'm starting to wonder just how many apartments have actually been sold, and how many were sold but with no intention of "decorating" them any time soon. I mean, they've had two years now. I'm trying to think of a rule/penalty for house-owners that do not decorate within a certain amount of time as it's a very noisy business. Maybe for every day beyond one year that you haven't completed your house you need to pay 100 kuai to a central coffer that goes to the other inhabitants who already have finished, and have to put up with that bloody noise.

Having said that, it's only been for an hour or so for two or three days so it could be a lot worse but it doesn't half make your siesta a bit slower to arrive. I still wonder when the four undecorated apartments I can see from our balcony will ever be done.

Since Ling Ming has had his new set of wheels he's not needed his dian dong che. This means Tan has appropriated it. It's newer, and accelerates better than my old steed, but I am not jealous. Now, the daily routine, as per recent years, of getting the kids to school in the morning has been shared by Tan (although I still do it most of the time). On getting back I'll typically make her a cup of coffee and give her a sticky rice krispy type cake for breakfast before checking emails and getting on with some work. Come midday I'll go and get some jiao zi and bao zi from the local place around the corner and Tan will typically go out. I once went out at 2.30pm to get my lunch and found that the jiao zi woman was alseep in a wooden chaise longue. I thought I'd give her a couple of minutes after I couldn't rouse her by talking to her, so went to get some milk tea for Leilei and some friends, who at that day were at home. But the bloke on the counter there was asleep too. I spent the next five minutes going from place to place feeling too awkward to wake either of them up. Eventually I sort of shouted at the young bloke in the milk tea place until he stirred - I reasoned he'd feel worse if he lost business due to sleeping on the job but I could well be wrong. With the tea in my hands I did the same thing to the woman at the jiao zi place and got that too. I did take a video of myself trying to get this stuff but it feels too rude to upload sleeping people.

The late nights had not allowed me much freedom to go out, though I did occasionally do some bbq after midnight. But on Thursday I finished early at 11.45pm and A Wu had invited me to go to "sing song". I wasn't massively in the mood but needed to get out of the house. It was the same place I've been to a few times now, just outside of the town. There were about 10 blokes there and one woman. I was as sober as a judge and they were as sober as judge Pickles. I can really appreciate how off-putting it must be for women to have alcohol-smoky-sweaty stink forced in your direction when a pissed bloke is shouting in your ear as the music is so loud. It was almost as if my right ear had an olfactory lobe.

I did do a few gan bei's just to be sociable, but A Wu too was not too impressed by the people. Within half an hour we'd left, and A Wu was saying we shouldn't have mixed with those poor blokes (poor as in not rich). I didn't push the point that he had invited me and just left it and we ended up going to have some bbq outside the guangchang until A Ni came and a had a reasonably early night at 2am.

On Friday I called A Wu around midnight, after work to confirm that we were going to Nanning tomorrow. There was music in the background, and it transpired he was at a KTV place in Tian Dong. He said he'd pick me up at 11am Saturday but I had a smidgeon of a doubt.