Dustbin snake plus I am not a fan of VAR

Yay it was Saturday...no concerns about finishing for the day at 10pm being too early. Tan was planning to order crappy fried chicken for lunch, which was incentive enough for me to get out of the house with the kids to the yumi tang place for our standard order of sweetcorn soup, fried egg, and fried rice. In retrospect maybe not that much healthier than the other option.

Surely the healthier option...

After that I dropped off the kids at A Xia’s. While we walked down into the underground shopping centre we all noticed a large snake rising out of a bin at the bottom of the stairs. Almost as quick we realised of course that it wasn’t a boa constrictor but rather a balloon, but it is like there is something ingrained in our genes to be aware of snake-like objects, and those that didn’t have it in the past just died from snakebites or being crushed. It reminded me of those videos of cats eating and the owners leave a cucumber next to them and most of them jump to high heaven when they finally see it. We’re basically cats.

It only doesn't look like a snake when you focus on it

At A Xia's shop in the underground shopping centre...they have the AC turned rather low

An hour later I got a call from Xixi to take her back as she was bored. Then evening dawned (or at least the pm equivalent) and we went to the guangchang for skating again, which is a rather healthy habit. I left them to see racist Huang and have a bite to eat, then went to pick them up again at 9pm to take them back to Huang. This time at least Leilei talked a bit to the people on our table, which made me more relieved than proud. I know he has it in him but he doesn’t show it much. But after a few mouthfuls the kids clearly weren’t in the mood to stay so I took them back home and came back by myself to Huang’s where we ate and chatted till midnight.

Silly girl got her hair caught up in fan

I got back in time to watch the City - Spurs match. We were fantastic but as VAR and luck would have it it ended 2-2. I wasn’t as disappointed as I would have been in previous years...the performance was what counted. But VAR has started to kill the game for me. You really can’t cheer any goal any more. It’s only been around a bit but every bloody goal is checked so you’re constantly worried. Football used to be about fun and included human error on the part of referees. Now that they’re trying to take out the errors (and I believe they are) they are sucking out the soul of the game. This is why I find winning the Premier League so much more important than the Champions League. The former can only be done with skill and some luck, the latter makes the luck proportion go up too much for my liking. Hopefully if we play the way we did today we’ll have a decent chance, though Liverpool are looking ominous.

I guess I had a bit of adrenaline after the match so stayed awake to chat with Mat and Awl for a while...Sunday tomorrow so doesn’t really matter what time sleep.

Flat finally paid for

Lunch of beef and salty biscuits again but I didn’t want to waste working time as I’d been invited to drink tea with some friends later. Luckily this time tea really did mean only tea. While I was there Tan called to ask if I had removed Lin Hong from my friends list in WeChat? Well no I hadn’t and is there a context for this question? Apparently she needed to call me for some mortgage business but couldn’t find me. Maybe it was because I had changed my picture that she couldn’t find me but I hadn’t changed my name. I mean fair enough I often go by people’s avatars as I can’t always read the characters but she can and 彭多明 has not changed. I was a bit concerned as no news is good news regarding the mortgage, and this was news. Last time it was to tell me we still had a month outstanding to pay. So I found Lin Hong in my contacts (by name, no less, though it took a while), and rang but she didn’t answer. It can’t have been that important. I let Tan know and then she told me the kids and her were about to get on a train back to Pingguo from Baise. So I finished my tea and went back to tidy up the house in sweltering conditions. Just doing the dusting got me sweaty enough to wash the floor, and as soon as I’d grabbed a shower Tan called to open the door downstairs for the kids as she was sorting out the mortgage with Lin Hong, and then arrived half an hour later with the deeds in her hand - officially the flat is paid for!

At 6.30 I took the kids to eat chao fen again at the guangchang. Instead of just the 10 kuai portion the kids shared last time (and actually nearly finished - meaning the cheapest meal for a long time) I also added a portion of ribs and some kong xin cai, but immediately regretted it as the kids only had most of the chao fen leaving me with two complete other portions, which I manly managed in the next 20 mins while the kids took themselves off to skate.

A rare sight - Leilei actually helping Xixi to skate

When I said "hold my beer" I didn't mean drink it! The two portions I had to finish in front of me...

I allowed Xixi the decadence of candyfloss and she taught me a new word: mian hua tang "cotton sugar"...pretty much translated from the American

After that I took them on a short MMT to find some places we’d never been before but that was difficult. We looked for the big wheel place but didn’t find it so surmised it must have been taken down, which wouldn’t be surprising due to the few people who ever used it (we certainly didn’t). So we left popped in to Li Kun’s which was rammed with people practising music. We drank tea for 15 mins then went as the kids were bored and it really was too busy to have a conversation. At home after shower a mate from a couple of evenings ago video called me to come over to the music pub I went to with Li Kun on the night we arrived. I really was not massively in the mood - it was getting on for midnight - but I somehow told myself I’d regret it if I didn’t so I did.. The singers were bloody good though, if loud, and I recognised one of them as someone I’d jammed with a year or so back. Then the mate tried to force me to get on the stage to sing and I was having none of it. The place was at least three times as big as the place I sang at last year and we’d just had great renditions of songs by semi-professional artists. It was for the second reason mainly that I politely refused, and no amount of beer would change my mind.

He's actually an arts teacher by day. There was no way I was going to attempt Sounds of Silence after this...

Another charge, another photo