Exercise and beer

Awoke at 6.30 knowing I wouldn't regret it if I got up to do some exercise, but still lay about till 7 in case I changed my mind. No, I'd do it. I found my shorts and socks and badminton top, filled a plastic bag with two bottles of water, a towel, a half used pack of tissues that also carried some cash, and my ping pong bat and phone. Two minutes later I was at the old people's leisure centre but other than a couple of old ladies playing croquet on the newly laid plastic lawn, no-one else was. I'd like to have gone for a jog but I couldn't very well do so laden with stuff, so I went for a walk instead around the guangchang. But it didn't seem very tiring so I decided to climb the steps to the Chairman Mao statue - that did the trick in terms of sweat. I noticed a new path going down the other side of the hill and took it to find that more building had been going on in the last year or so - it looked like quite a nice peaceful place where elders might sit and talk of an evening but that would probably be taken over by smoking youths.

The view while waiting for the lift has changed yet again, but the style of scaffolding hasn't

Back at the leisure centre there was more life now and I was immediately recognised by a couple of people when I walked in, and ushered into practice. I had the good excuse that I hadn't played for two years, but I neglected to mention I'd played a little in the UK. The first bloke I played against was actually about as good as me, unless he was really holding back (which they often do), and we had a good session until my friend Zhang came.

I met Zhang a couple of years ago - he's originally from up North so a bit of an immigrant like temporary me. He's blooming good at table tennis but definitely toned down for me. I got some pretty good smashes in and only lost the first game 11-5 and the second 11-9. Then to my surprise I won the third game, but I'm sure he was doing a good job of letting me win as he easily won the decider to pinch it 3-1. At least I hoped it would be the decider but "best of five" means "five" here, so we had to play out the dead rubber which of course I lost.

Then another bloke who wasn't so good at toning down came - he used spins to great effect and beat me 3-0 but for some (appreciated) reason this time it really was best of five. I was pretty knackered by now but had to practise with another bloke I'd known for some time. And then finally one of the old women finished me off. I'd lasted nearly 90 minutes. But my back seemed fine. Pretty much the first time it has felt like this here in three years! I just hope it stays like that.

I woke the kids up at 10am to get breakfast, but by the time they were ready it was getting on for 11am and Tan said we were to go to Waip's to eat. We did at least get five cups of soya milk from the dou jiang place, and some you tiao. Which was a good thing as the kids didn't eat much zhou for lunch (which all in the house were already eating when we arrived at 10.45am). Er Jia and Lao Pang wanted to bring the kids to Baise and they seem up for it although they'll want me to go. I said we'd first go to the supermarket and Tan would sort their clothes. Obviously as soon as we were in the supermarket Er Jie called me to hurry up. We were on a mission to find pillowcases and ice cube trays though, so I said I'd be a few minutes. We were successful in finding the pillowcases to replace the old rotten ones that wouldn't wash out the years of neglect, and found one type of ice cube tray. I sort of find it strange that they don't do more in the way of ice cubes for such a warm place. Though on reflection, they just cool their drinks in the first place so probably don't need them. I guess if space was at more of a premium then ice cubes might be the practical way forward - worth buying shares in?

I also found fizzy soda water in this supermarket by the market, so got a couple for good measure even though they were 5 kuai each. I can't find the blooming top of the soda maker I got a couple of years ago so can't screw down the CO2 cannisters to pierce them and thus carbonate the water, which I'm pretty peeved about. So this will do to test the sugar-free tonic cordial I've brought with me this time. The dian of the dian dong che was just about gone by the time we got home so we went to the basement to charge it for the ridiculous price of 5 kuai - not that it's expensive but I still can't get used to the inflation - it was 1 kuai until 2014. Er Jie was ringing again and I said they could come round to pick up the kids rather than us going there. So she did and five minutes later was upstairs pecking like a chicken as Tan was getting the last things ready. I added some sun tan lotion, or suncream as it is known now, and waved goodbye to all, and noticed Tan did too. Ah, I thought she was going too. Actually it's probably a good thing; they're getting lazy with their Mandarin and need a spell where they can't use English so much. I think they'll be back in a couple of days.

About to leave for Baise with their newly acquired sunglasses

It was the afternoon and Lao Su had not come around to fix the hot water, so I gave him a gentle ring and he said he'd come around around 2.30pm. That was a little over two hours and could spoil any thoughts I had about a siesta, but I needn't have worried as I fell asleep a couple of minutes later and awoke before 3 to the sound of the doorbell. It wasn't actually Lao Su but some work bloke who had a spanner and some plumbing tape, plus a spare thing that controlled the water input. Well he changed it but it didn't do the trick. I was worried that it was the heater itself that was blocked but he seemed quite sure it was actually the part that plugged into the heater, rather than the part that plugged into the wall, that was blocked. So off he went to get a replacement and half an hour later it was changed and finally we had hot water! Or at least we had the means of making it as I needed to actually heat it first by turning on the boiler. I thanked the bloke and asked him how much - 50 kuai - I don't think there were any labour costs.

Er Jie sent me a pic on WeChat to show the kids were having fun in Baise

By now it was getting on for teatime. I decided to call Li Kun, whom I've known since 2004, and guess what? He said he'd pick me up in 20 minutes in his new car. Well that was a welcome window to try the new tonic as the soda water had been in the fridge for a few hours now. It said 20ml of concentrate on the bottle for a litre of tonic, so I carefully poured 5ml into a glass. I added a splash of Beefeater gin from the quarter-full duty free bottle I'd thoughtfully left last year, and poured in some soda water. By golly it was strong, and that was the tonic rather than the gin. I took a couple of uncomfortable glugs and poured the rest of the soda water in until it became more drinkable. It was hardly Schweppes but it was better than the Sodastream equivalent I had a couple of years ago.

Li Kun called right on cue, and I picked up my bits and pieces to meet him outside our building. I'm not sure what brand it was other than it was Chinese, but it was a nice new automobile in the SUV format, though only two rows of seats. We drove to a new restaurant not far from his house on the south side of Pingguo, which specialises in fish (the restaurant, not the area of Pingguo).

We chose a nice non-private table and ordered. Li Kun told the waitress that there would be six of us, which was a bit of a relief. Then, breaking with tradition a little, he ordered a six-pack of the 500ml Li Quan 3.1%ers and cracked one open. We may be going to wait for friends to eat, but not to drink. As it was, three of the party were his elder brother and wife and son, and the other was A Wu, who arrived so late we'd already started eating.

But very nice it was too - there was a sort of large pot in the middle of the table where they cooked a smashing fish soup. Well they put the ingredients in, covered it, then put an egg timer by it, saying it would be ready when it ran out, which it duly did about five minutes later.

As the meal wore on, various blokes walked past - one was the boss of the place, another apparently was also the boss of the place, then a couple of blokes who emerged from the private rooms around stopped for a bite to eat and a drink. The beer was flowing rather too easily so I tried my trick of playing cai ma to slow it down, but this time, maybe as I'm still getting used to it, it backfired, and despite being only 3.1% I got rather tipsy.

Li Kun on the right, his big brother next to him greeting a boss, A Wu sitting down

A Wu's back on iphones after spending a couple of years on Android - with the genuinely first world problem of having to carry two around with him as iphones apparently don't do dual SIM versions as his Note 3 and 4 did

Of course we went back to someone's place for more drinks after then meal at around 10pm, but I wasn't back home that late in the end, but late enough to know I'd better stay in Leilei's room.