I meant the drinking water...

Our drinking water from the dispenser ran out the other day. Normally it's not a problem as you just call up the number on the bottle to get a new one delivered a few minutes later. But this bottle didn't have a number on it, so I called Ling Ming but he didn't answer so I tried Tan, who didn't know who to ring. Then she called me back to tell me to go down and ask the security guard, and that she wouldn't come back if there wasn't any water. I wondered why she couldn't just pick up a couple of bottles on the way back - and why did I have to tell security if I couldn't get a drink of water? Then it dawned on me and I called her back to tell her it was the drinking water that had run out, not the utility variety as she had thought.

It was fair enough though, the water had gone a couple of weeks ago and Tan and the kids had gone to sleep at Waipo's rather than live without a shower. I had manly stayed smelly, working and guarding the house. Actually, we've been pretty lucky with the utilities so far - we've only had one power cut, and that was only for an hour or so - and outside of my work hours. On the other hand, Waipo's house has been subjected to two or three power cuts, and as they're on the first floor it gets a lot hotter there.

Tan called me at eightish to ask I wanted to have some free food and drink at the Ming Dian hotel. I hadn't had a break from work so I decided to go to see her and the ladies an hour later for some pickled cucumbers and moon cake. The free drink was "wine". It did look like red wine, but it was pre-mixed with lemonade and was luke warm - about the worst thing you can do to good red wine, meaning it wasn't.

Looking a bit too serious!

On the way back I stopped off at Ma Laoban's computer shop as I hadn't seen him for a while and wanted to pick up a pair of speakers. His shutters were half down as it was gone 10pm, but I knew he'd be in. And indeed he was, with a number of friends, drinking tea as usual. I spent the next 30 minutes in conversation with them and the charming two year old daughter of one of them before remembering to buy the speakers and get back for a meeting.

A lovely break for a couple of cuppas with Ma Laoban and friends

Maybe it was the tea, but I just couldn't get to sleep, even after 100 in German. I didn't want to disturb Tan by turning on my phone (even in night mode) to learn to count in another language and finally ended up sleeping some time after 7.49am.