Meal at Zhang Hongping's and more football shirts

A bit of a normal day, though even normal days here don't feel normal yet. More normal in the sense I don't feel the need to take photos all the time, but still a very much heightened sense of awareness that makes me so much more sensitive to "normal" things like going to shop in the supermarket. But even that is starting to become normal and it's surely a good thing. I can and I can't imagine living here full time. Knowing that you'll be leaving in a few weeks or a couple of months puts a perspective on things that doesn't exist when you're properly living somewhere. Yes, I pay bills and do shopping and in many ways mirror life in London, but in London I know I'll likely be in London for years, and don't treasure the time there in the same way. I treasure the ever less time I'll spend with my kids of course but that is almost independent of the country I'm in. Having said that I can't wait for Xixi to arrive and hope she will spend some time with me as Leilei is pretty much out with Nezha all the time now.

Apparently I got to sleep at 12.23am according to my app but I was texting Tan at 1.30am so it can't be that accurate. And up at a reasonable 10ish in the morning and tried to doze for a while but in the end thought better of it and would be better to get an early night later. Lunch ended up being one of the boxes we brought back from the wedding the other day which comprised (of?) monkey nuts and seeds and some biscuits that weren't healthy but hell it was more of a light snack anyway as Zhang Hongping had pinged me to go to his place for an evening meal and I'd finally got in contact with A Wu just to confirm that we hadn't planned anything for this evening. In fact he said we were to go to a place to slaughter two pigs and eat them but when I mentioned I'd been invited he seemed to think that was ok. I mean I've been out with him about 3/4 of the evenings so far anyway.

So at 3pm I woke up Leilei to let him know we'd be going for 6pm and at least he acknowledged me. So a few minutes before 6pm I got the call from Hongping and told him we'd be a few minutes. Nezha was not to be seen and I dread to think what time zone he's in now. So as we now had my dian dong che Leilei was able to be my passenger for the first time in four years. It actually felt like having a boy-son rather than an adult-son for a few minutes until we found Hongping's house fairly easily. I'm getting a lot more used to the characters here and was able to ask the security guard where his apartment was and got found it without having to make any phone calls.

Of course Leilei didn't want to be there but I've already explained part of being an adult is doing things you don't really want to do, but trying at least to make the most of them. So he ate and he spoke enough to make the others happy and I let him go 45 minutes later at 7pm. It was actually nice to eat in a friend's house, and more people came as the evening wore on. Except for one woman everyone else was was drinking 22% white alcohol and one woman on 53% stuff, and of course this had its effect. I was totally sober and made my excuses to go and pick up our football kits and tickets at 8.30pm, on the promise that I'd return within half an hour.

Lu, Hong ge, me, Hongping

Ah it was a nice break from the boring beer and increasingly boring company, so I walked the 5 minutes home and picked up the dian dong che and 5 minutes later I was at the shop and of course the shopkeeper chastised me for not bringing my son and a foreigner. She still made me take a photo in my sweating body and I changed in front of her and a pretty girl as I think that's pretty much ok now for men at least. A couple of photos were taken and I said I'd try to bring the boys back tomorrow to do another shoot. But now I had the clothes and the tickets so we should be sorted for tomorrow. I just needed to withstand another hour or so at Zhang Hongping's.

I duly got back and of course they were more inebriated than before, and the father of the child that was here before was now trying to get off with a rather plump lady who'd been on the 53% white alcohol. I didn't want to see the results and made my excuses at 10pm as Leilei wanted me to get hair oil from the supermarket. I don't even know what hair oil is other than the literal translation but after a couple more ganbeis they let me go at 10.07pm and 5 minutes later I was at what has become my favourite supermarket. I was slightly ashamed to pick up a bit of gin as I'm still scared they may want to interview me tomorrow at the match, and picked up more boiled eggs as they have become my staple lunchtime diet if I'm not going out. At home I remembered to take a melatonin for the first time in many days and had a relatively early night.