Guangchang singing and more football

Somehow I got up at 8ish. It was a bit late for table tennis but I've been neglecting exercise recently so went for a walk in the guangchang. It's been a while and I'd forgotten how many people not that much older than me go out and sing in the morning sun. It's not like they have much of an audience so I suppose it's a form of mental exercise. I can barely get the confidence to sing in a private room after a couple of beers let alone be in a public square with a loud speaker.

Guangchang by morning

Singin' in the guangchang

I had a portion of jiaozi at the usual place and got one to take away for Leilei as Nezha was already up and out. Apparently he'd slept from 6pm yesterday to 6am this morning. Here's hoping he's adjusting to the time here finally. I also bought my first watermelon juice this year to take home to put in the door of the fridge, and of course as soon as I opened it again it fell out and painted the floor pink. Damn. 

Watching the water deliverers while waiting for my jiaozi

I will miss my portions of jiaozi and lajiao for 6 kuai

So annoying to have to clean this up in the heat

Then Tan pinged me to say the new owner of the flat would be back in Pingguo on Tuesday and would send my tea table "Running Dog" and that I would need to be home to pay the deliverer. Ok, this is something quite important. It's sad we no longer have the flat, and that we weren't even able to choose what to keep. But the three most important things we do have: the guitars, the Wii, and soon Running Dog. What the hell I'll be able to do with a tea table here I really don't know though. I guess it can stay here for a while, but I did make an enquiry on allcargoexpress.com to ask how much it would be to send to the UK. I somehow doubt it will be worth it and doubt much more that Tan would appreciate it in the house but it is unique and I'd love to have it there so not yet giving up all hope.

Running Dog 13 years ago with two exins barely recognisable now - justifies getting it back

Today was to be the second and final home football match for our stay, so we'd managed to get tickets by buying clothes yesterday. I went and got a couple more tops for friends from the same place in the afternoon before getting to the stadium by around 6.30pm. As usual it was very busy and fun to be there. I double-checked with security that we were not allowed to bring in our own drinks and the bloke confirmed. I then saw that Leilei and Nezha had just purchased litre bottles of water each. Typical. I let them queue up first and get past security before handing them their bottles as they walked up the stairs just like the other week, before doing security myself. It doesn't seem the most strict security really but hey.

Do you need to look that angry Nezha?

The match was a pretty boring affair, and I sat down quite a lot more than the first one. I moved to sit with a friend for the second half in order to speak more Chinese and give them their football tops, and was glad to hear the final whistle confirming the 0-0 bore draw. Afterwards I was meant to see Lu zong but I didn't hear from him, and instead got a weizhi from another friend that I'd met after the meal with Teacher Ling so thought "why not?" and drove on down to the same bbq place as that night.

There were quite a few people dressed in football colours and I was greeted by more cheers than I deserved. The food was good and the company was too, and it didn't take too long to descend into cai ma and I did fairly well again. Somehow 10.15pm turned into well after 2am by which time I was flagging so carefully took Jiuma's dian dong che back home to be asleep by 3am.

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.