Back to piano practice and bbq with kids

As it was already nearly 5.30am I heated up the last of the bbq duck intestines and had that as a sort of breakfast before sleeping in till the early afternoon. Luckily, the jiaozi that Yangwen had made be bring back yesterday were a suitable lunch for the kids, and avoided the typical fast food delivery that has become the norm here.

Xixi modelling her new Pingguo Haliao shirt while eating yesterday's jiaozi

At 6.30pm I realised it had been a week since I last did any piano so went over to the place I used to practise at by Guanmart. I know some people find going to the gym addictive but I just don't get that, but the feeling of exercising the hands and mind by the ivories does give me a bit of a fix. Even if the piano is pretty badly out of tune, there's something about the physical action of playing it that does it for me. I'm still getting there with Mozart's K304 but even so. I guess my biggest challenge will be learning to read music properly, rather than doing it from memory. It's a bit like my next steps in Chinese. I'm going to have to focus properly as it won't just "come".

Back home I managed to get Xixi to come out with me to get some bbq at Tan's "uncle's" place. He says he's a genuine uncle but Tan disagrees. I don't really know what counts as an uncle any more. But even Leilei joined us after a few minutes as his tummy ache had gone, so for 100 kuai we gorged on pork and beef and sweetcorn, and still had some left to take home. More importantly we had some decent time together.

Tan's "uncle's" bbq place

In the evening it was back to football mode, so I stepped out to the place I was at last night and the same blokes were there, so I sat down with them to watch Ukraine Belgium. For some reason they were drinking beer incredibly slowly. Literally incredibly, like I've never experienced before here. And I was quite in the mood for a couple. But you can't really do much about it here as you always drink a mouthful at the same time. So by the end of the (rather boring) match I was as sober as a judge, and couldn't leave to go elsewhere as it was heaving it down. Well we stayed 20 minutes but it wasn't going to let up so one of the blokes just got in his car and I told the last bloke there that I'd walk back as it was only water, and said maybe we could meet back up for the England match Sunday night. If we do I'll make an effort to pay for it for once. Back home of course I couldn't sleep so watched Czechia v Türkiye and found I'd been mispronouncing both countries since they became known as they are now. Mispronouncing being a bit of a common issue with me, I'm told.

Waiting in vain for the rain to deplane (ok it doesn't make sense but it rhymes)