Grapes and Flowers

I did wake up at 8.45am but for some reason I thought I was in Belgium so it must be 7.45am UK time, which didn't make any sense at all but it did make me think I had an hour in bed till we had to go grape picking. But half an hour later A Hua was on the blower telling me she was waiting downstairs in the car for Leilei and me. I made some half-arsed excuse about Belgium, realising it was poor, and promised to come down in five minutes. Which meant waking up Leilei who'd gone to sleep late and was in no mood to do so. But we managed to get up and have a bite to eat while A Hua called us a couple more times.

A convoy of two cars started off from our house at 9.30am and made the half an hour drive to a small patch of land by the side of what will be a road to Liuzhou in a couple of years time. Apparently A Hua had got there at 7am and had just come back to pick us up. There were a few kids in our group and we had some fun under the vines picking the grapes at nipple height (for me). This was certainly different from my grape picking experiences in France. It had looked like a scorcher and for the first time in years I actually put some sun tan lotion on myself as well as Leilei but from nowhere the heavens suddenly decided to open and deposit part of the reason the grapes here are so good. There was a panic to rush back to the cars and we left the owners of the land to finish off the picking. A couple of minutes later, back at the owners' place we weighed the two punnets of grapes and I have no idea what it came to but in price it was 360 kuai - about 40 quid - a bit pricier that I would have imagined. The owners very carefully put each bunch of grapes into a few cardboard boxes and then we drove to He Hua for lunch.

Grape picking Chinese style - the bags are to keep in moisture and protect from insects

He Hua has become a famous place in Pingguo as it has millions of river flowers (at least that is what He Hua means). People come from all around to walk among these flowers (in special walkways so as not to drown). A Hua knew the owner apparently so instead of having to leave the cars in the car park we were granted permission to drive right into the ranch, or whatever you call a river flower place. Lin Hong had said she would meet us there for lunch with Xixi but when I called her she said she'd not get there till 3pm. Fair enough. Lunch was relatively simple and even Leilei reached out to have some gno mi (sticky rice with meat) rather than having it forced upon him. It was accompanied by a few warm beers which didn't really go down that well after having spent all morning in the boot of the car. Also in the boot of this car was a crate of water bottles (quite normal) and a crate of small cans of Nescafe coffee. The kids seemed to enjoy these though I did tell them it wasn't a great idea.

Also at the meal I bumped into 2-1, one from a group of friends from two or three years ago who I hadn't seen for a while. He was working in the outdoor restaurant where we had our meal so I guess he somehow missed out on the riches that appear to have come across my other friends. But I got his new phone number and we agreed to meet up for a beer sometime soon.

After the meal we planned to walk among the flowers, but I didn't have a hat or umbrella and the early afternoon sun had burnt away the clouds to reveal scorchioness, so we all decided it would be better to take a couple of photos and get back. Phew. Leilei wanted Nong Kaicheng to come to our place and A Hua said it would be fine, so I said they could as long as they were not noisy as I needed a siesta. They were pretty good and played on the ipad and munched some crisps as I enjoyed a couple of hours of shuteye again.

Friends by the river flower place where it was rather warm

At 4.30pm Lin Hong called me to tell me we were going for a meal in one hour with ex-colleagues. Fair enough, nothing, it seems, is planned more than a quarter of a day away. Leilei and I showered and were ready for 5.30. Lin Hong arrived soon after six to pick us up and we stopped off at Waipo's to get Xixi. She was happy to see me and said goodbye to Chuan Chuan, who had taken her out last night.

Xixi showing how to break in to Waipo's apartment complex

The meal was at a restaurant I'd been to a few times before, near the complex with the olympic sized swimming pool. There was a wedding meal going on and a lot of people were waiting outside, but Xixi took away a lot of the attention before we went upstairs. I hadn't expected a huge room with four tables and about 50 people. I thought we'd gone to the wedding banquet by mistake. Tan reckoned she wouldn't be back till 8pm which was a pity as half the people here knew her from the bank. It all started tamely with some nice conversation at my table, which was almost exclusively female. But I knew after we'd had a bite to eat I'd be introduced to the other tables and sure enough after 15 minutes I was gan bei'ing with various heads of banks.

One of the bank managers I gan bei'd with

Thankfully, A Ni came to pick up the kids and take them out to play as they were getting bored and I don't blame them. So the adults continued to chat and gan bei for the next hour or so. I did manage to get home and let Leilei, Nong Kaicheng and A Da into the house when they called. Then I realised they had organised a sleepover unbeknown to me but why not indeed? Tan finally came back from Nanning at 11.30 which meant I could go for some bbq and beer with A Wu and another friend, which quite frankly I did not need. Getting back at 1.30am I thoughtfully slept in my study.

Three young men not even pretending to be asleep