Two lunches and two evening meals

The nice thing about waking up too early here is that there are things to do and places to go. Today was 6.30am so not as bad as yesterday. Tan and Leilei would not be up for hours so I had a quick bite to eat and a decaff again and set off for three hours of table tennis. I met some more people for the first time and had a great time catching up and showing how I'd improved. I think I actually beat a sexagenarian woman three games to one! I stopped off at A Wu's office at 11am on the way back and Tan and A Ni were there too so we had a few cups of tea together. Tan told me off for drinking tea without having had breakfast even though I'd had a small cube of sticky rice crispy cake at 7am. Tan and A Ni were going for brunch, even though they don't have a word for that in Chinese, so I showered and met up with A Wu a tad later for lunch.

Except before lunch he, A Ni, and I went to a shop underneath our block "Jun Lin Tian Xia" where three generations of a family were at the same time eating, babysitting and running the shop. The owner was feeding his father who is elderly and recently had a fall, while the mother was preparing some food for her few-month old daughter who was being looked after by the grandmother. A Wu brought a couple of melons and some more fruit as a present. I think it was a belated present for the "new" arrival. Normally there is a special feast to celebrate the baby's 100th day but apparently it wasn't that. The family took delight in the fact that I could speak a few words of Bangxunese and taught me how to say "smile" ("lou di") and suddenly, after no expression at all, the old man broke out into a smile himself! And this had the infectious effect of making everybody else smile and all was good for a while and I was told I could come back to learn some more Bangxunese. But by now I was hungry....

The cute baby daughter and her mum at the shop under our house where I learnt a little Bangxunese

To my minor delight we went to a cheap noodle place with no air-con where you sit on a dirty table and choose a couple of chopsticks from a cup (they are not even in individually wrapped pairs). The noodles with roast duck were delicious but I ate the meat first as A Wu had passed on some of his in order to attack the noodles. As I was about to make a start on the noodles, and as A Wu had just finished wolfing down his, he got a phone call and immediately told me to stop eating. It transpired that two Nanning people were in town now (that we should have met the other day) and we were to go to Li Jia He Xian for a formal meal with them. Ha! That will teach him to eat too quickly (I doubt).

So yet again we were in the premier restaurant. The two blokes were bank managers from Nanning and I didn't ask the specific purpose of their visit, though I did glean it was their first time in Pingguo and they were leaving after the meal. I also introduced myself to their driver, who was also sitting at the meal and he told me we'd already met twice before as I shook his hand. That's really embarrassing. I couldn't even rip out an excuse like his hair was different as I didn't know if I'd met him this year, last year or a decade ago so I just apologised and said "of course" as if that made it better.

The meal was excellent but unfinished after an hour. I sensed A Wu's conversation wasn't as flowing as usual and was punctuated with silences that I brought myself to fill with non work-related topics such as: how come they can't tell where I'm from by my accent? I mean I can tell the difference between a French and German speaking English but the amount of times I've been asked if I'm French or German it seems there is either a Chinese accent (of which there are many) or a foreign accent. Or more likely it's just that exposure to foreigners speaking Mandarin in this part of the world is so infrequent that people are unlikely to build up enough experience to be able to tell. Food for thought, but enough idle chatter. I was very tired now and as we left the restaurant to go to A Wu's office I said my farewells before a quick nip of G&T and a nice siesta. I'm down to one can of tonic water now and have scoured the supermarkets for any sign of fizzy water with no success still.

Tan called at 3pm just as I was opening the doors of the land of nod to tell me to close the windows in Xixi's room at there was a mighty storm. I'd totally missed the sound of that, partly, I expect, as a result of living in a place with constant noise 75% of the time. But Tan was right, I've never witnessed such a wind and the rain coming down in near horizontal stair rods. If I hadn't been half asleep I would have poured another G&T and enjoyed the display but Tan had also said that Lin Hong had invited us for a meal at Li Jia He Xian again so I really needed my beauty sleep.

Refreshed after a couple of hours of uninterrupted snoozing, I showered and walked over to Waipo's to see the kids for the first time in many hours. We all walked the three minutes to Li Jia He Xian at about 6pm for what must be our fourth or fifth meal there this week. There were about five people there when we arrived, and another eight or so came soon after and we had a really enjoyable time talking with many of Tan's ex-colleagues which made up somewhat for the other night when Tan was in Nanning. I did the rounds of gan bei'ing, firstly with Lin Hong as a thank you for inviting us for the meal. The kids ate ok too, before being whisked away after an hour or so.

Xixi showing a flowery carrot...

...and how it was made (a bit cheating if you ask me)

Nice meal with Tan's bank colleagues and a scary ghost that popped up

Earlier in the day I'd called Uncle Yellow and we agreed that I would call him around 9pm in the evening to meet up for the first time this year. But A Wu had also called me to go and eat with him and some friends on the river. So at 8.30 I left Lin Hong's meal and took a san lun che to Jiang Bing Lu, the road by the river that has lots of bbq places. I got off at the wrong end but it was a nice digestif to walk down the road until one of A Wu's friends came to meet me in the street. We walked down to a restaurant I really like on a boat on the river. The remnants of the meal were still there and I was warmly greeted by a dozen or so people including some women I gathered must be wives by their ages.

The perfunctory gan bei'ing began but I realised I'd already been through one lot at the previous meal a few minutes ago so I challenged them to cai ma, which was readily accepted. When I realised it was already 9pm I asked if it was ok to invite my mate down too, which of course it was. Uncle Yellow turned up 10 minutes later and we spent the next half an hour there chatting gaily. As I had invited Uncle Yellow to meet me rather than a load of other people, A Wu and I left for the guangchang with Uncle Yellow in hot pursuit in his micro yellow car. When we arrived A Wu said he had some matters to attend to at his office so I went to look for a table for some bbq but straight-away I was motioned towards another table where I saw Tan, A Ni and another friend who appears to have joined their group, presumably to replace Chen Mei who is now living in Nanning.

Uncle Yellow was arriving so I thought we might as well sit with the ladies as he knows Tan and A Ni anyway. It transpired he also knew the other girl too so we all shared some bbq while the boys shared some beer and had a pleasant night without going to excess. The owner of this bbq place had just opened up recently, and I think is the wife of the Police Treasurer, whose house we visited last year for a great home-made meal. She wouldn't let us pay at the end (would have been around 300 kuai I reckon), so I said farewell to Uncle Yellow and walked back home with Tan, remarkably hand-in-hand, which isn't something shown that much in public at least among our generation.

Table Tennis and KTV

I woke up at 6am and that was it, no getting back to sleep, so I made a decaff coffee and read the news for a bit and just watched the traffic outside at one of the most peaceful times of the day. I had pretty much decided it was pointless going back to bed now so thought what to do. Then it dawned on me that obviously I must go to the Old People's Leisure Centre to say hello to my friends again and get some table tennis in. I had had a bit of practice in the last few months so hopefully wouldn't be as rusty as previous years.

I got there pretty early at 7.30am but there were some familiar faces there that bade me come and play in the upstairs room that is normally reserved for the best players. It felt really really good to be back here, sweating buckets but holding my own better than previous years. The good players then came in to practise, and after watching for a bit I retired downstairs to the room with three tables and within a minute was whipped into a game. I can never understand if they mean best of five or first to five but this time three losses seemed to suffice. I say losses, but losing 11-7, 11-5, 11-7 is more of a moral victory for me. A sprightly old chap turned up, under five feet and skinny as a willow branch from which you would not swing, with sunken eyes but a smile that showed the sparkle of youth that did not go with his obvious advanced years. The others, mostly a generation below, were obviously respectful of him and told him to give the foreigner a game. I felt if I smashed the ball and hit him I would damage him but I needn't have worried. He was the epitome of brains over brawn and used the whole of the table with drop shots (that no-one does) and sharp angles that made me run more than with any other opponent. We didn't play for points, but had we done I don't think it would have been a moral victory. When, later, the others gleefully pointed out that he was 83 years old I genuinely don't think they were trying to rub it in, but they were just proud of counting him among them.

It was 10.30am by the time I left and I must have sweated a good deal more than the litre of water I'd taken with me. But this is sort of necessary when coupled with the food and drink intake of a typical evening here while in your first week back after a year.

I most certainly was zoning in on an early siesta but needed to eat lunch. I popped in to A Wu's office to see if he wanted to have something simple and he said yes but first needed to get some money from the bank. As I also needed to go to the police station to register our stay I went with si ji (driver) in the car while A Wu waited in the office. But first we had to go to the bank for something. I couldn't easily count the number of zeros on the withdrawal request but expected to need a suitcase to hold that amount of money in 100 kuai notes. But for the first time I found out this was a purely electronic transfer. I think it was about £100,000.

1 million kuai transfer (I've tried to pixelate any dangerous details)

Si ji at the VIP room making the Very Important transfer

We got to the police station before they stopped for lunch and the woman there remembered me and called another employee who knew how to use the computer to come around and help. Although the whole process took around 45 minutes it was made easier in that most of our details had been saved from last year. That didn't stop copious mistakes being made on Leilei and Xixi's papers though and reprints needed. In truth it might have been quicker for me to fill the forms in in Chinese as in previous years but I'm sure this process will become more streamlined in the future.

So, finally officially residing here, I got back to A Wu's office and the two of us went to a fairly simple place to eat aubergine and pork mince with rice and a fried egg. I got home around 2pm but fairly easily managed a siesta until A Wu called me again at 5pm to say we were going for a meal. I do miss having the dian dong che this year as it means I'm stuck with getting lifts with A Wu or taking a san lun che - nothing wrong with either except control. I asked A Ni and she said it was at her mum's house and available but I get the impression Tan doesn't want me riding it as it's old. I will find a way. Anyway we passed Boss Hu's office on the way to the restaurant and I suggested giving him a ring, which A Wu did and arranged for him to come too.

There were about 10 blokes and one woman waiting for us in the room and all greeted me with handshakes and looked quite excited at the prospect of eating with a foreigner. Than gan bei'ing started earlier than usual, before much of the food had been noshed. I did the rounds over the next half an hour and made sure I missed no-one out, even the two non-drinkers. Boss Hu was very embarrassed as he explained he had to stick to water as he was on medicine but that was no problem. The meal finished before 9pm and A Wu and I got into his car and drove back to near where we live. But we didn't stop there and instead went to the KTV. Ah - the first time this year. As he was the host we were the first there and ordered beer and bits to eat. The blokes from the meal then started to come in, and as usual some young ladies too.

Aluminium bosses and a lady and Boss Hu at another sumptuous meal before KTV

I went through my limited repertoire of You Are My Rose, and Friend to the delight of the others, and had plenty of gan beis before the night was over. I learnt later that the blokes were bosses from the aluminium company on the outskirts of town. I don't know what relationship they have with A Wu but he does seem to treat the slightly more menial workers well, if indeed they work for him.

Meal at Bak Sec Zhai's house

I woke up late at 9.30 with a bit of a head. But there was no time to worry about myself as Xixi had a temperature and wasn't looking her normal chirpy self. Normally we have tons of Calpol but this year we haven't brought any and Tan said she didn't trust the Chinese medicine. I did argue that it was only paracetamol and let Xixi have a couple of sips of my Lemsip.

I stayed with Xixi while Tan went out later in the morning and she eventually fell asleep holding me like a baby, and I managed to get some kip too until Tan came back to take her to Waipo's. She seemed a bit better and cooler after the rest. I went to A Wu's office where Tan and A Ni were drinking tea with A Wu's new secretary. I suspected a bit of jealousy as she is a rather pretty creature, and apparently she'd just finished her interview with A Wu with the girls in attendance. I suppose one of the important tasks is making tea and she seemed to manage that ok.

I'd been told we were going to Bak Sec Zhai's place overlooking the guangchang at 5.30pm but we didn't leave till 6pm. Although it would have taken under two minutes on foot we had to take the car. A Wu let me drive and it took me a little time to get used to the handbrake which was little more than a switch. It's also strange getting used to not trying to look out of the tiny slit at the back of the car that passes for a window and instead focus on the screen in the dashboard with a full colour picture of where you're driving together with projected trajectory based on how much you have turned the steering wheel. When we'd parked A Wu was concerned that we were close to an area of curb that had been lowered to allow bikes to gain access to the pavement, and that therefore it would be possible for such vehicles to scratch his car. So instead of moving somewhere else he just backed up the car even more to completely block off this entrance. I didn't try to argue.

I took it for a spin and it was remarkably easy to drive

Piggyback Chinese style on way to Bak Sec Zhai's

I greeted Bak Sec Zhai with a hug as we are quite good mates and I've known him for eight years or so. Leilei and A Da were also there but kept amused by the latter's ipad. I was asked to call and invite A Wu's elder sister's husband, Jie fu (literally elder sister's husband) who I also know well. So I did and asked him to come over straight away with his wife and he obliged almost as if he was expecting this.

The meal was all home made and mainly delicious, with his daughter and mother in attendance together with another friend, Jie fu and his wife, A Wu and A Ni, and the kids who barely ate anything. I was a little worried when Bak Sec Zhai produced a crate of beer and said no-one was going home before they were drunk. But I had a plan. I would use reverse psychology and actually drink quickly making him drunk and wanting to stop. Unfortunately it seemed he had the same plan and was also able to put it away with ease. So I had to change tactics half way through the meal and resort to playing cai ma as this normally slows me down. But A Wu challenged me and rather annoyingly won 80% of the time.

At one stage when the beer was flowing Bak Sec Zhai started talking about government officials and asked me if I wanted to be a politician. I didn't know where this came from so I opted to throw back the question to him. He said "no way" which was funny as I thought he already was. I then remembered the time in 2006 when I asked a question about politics at 2am to some drunken friends of A Wu's and they suddenly appeared to sober up in a second and say that they didn't talk about politics. So I used this to my advantage and in order to avoid possible embarrassment I said that we didn't talk about politics at meals and everyone seemed to heartily agree and have another round of gan bei. Lucky I didn't bring up religion....

I then learnt something new about Chinese drinking culture: you are not supposed to chink people's glasses holding yours in your left hand. I asked why and was told it was because it was awkward for the person on your left. Fair enough but what about, I asked, the person on your right? Oh it's ok to use the left hand for them. So it's not ok to use the left hand to chink the person on your left with your left hand but it is ok to chink the person on your right with your right hand. I realised I was looking in to things too deeply but was then told you should try to chink other people lower down on their glass than they do on yours. This makes for an interesting game when gan bei'ing as you try to chink them as low as possible before hitting the base of your glass on the table. Unfortunately while attempting this I managed to get my glass dirty by gan bei'ing above a dish of black pigs trotters or something similar. A Wu had a cheating way to "win" by using one hand to hold his opponent's arm up while chinking his glass. How come it took me 10 years to learn this? Luckily the boys had gone out with A Ni by now but we left around nineish anyway. At least Bak Sec Zhai got his way about no-one (no man at least) leaving sober.

We probably had some tea at A Wu's office to wile away some time before deciding to go to wash head. It was gone half 10 so I wasn't sure we'd find anywhere but of course we did and fell into that blissful 50 minutes I need to do more of here. They said we could have had longer if we'd come earlier but I wasn't complaining.

A bit sobererer, A Wu and I drove to some boss's office where we met Lu Wen for more beer and some bbq. A Wu left soon after midnight but they asked me to stay and I ended up getting a lift back after 1am in the boss's smart new Range Rover. Tan was asleep with Xixi so I didn't bother them and slept in Xixi's room and fell asleep just as England won the second game of the ashes.

Grapes and Flowers

I did wake up at 8.45am but for some reason I thought I was in Belgium so it must be 7.45am UK time, which didn't make any sense at all but it did make me think I had an hour in bed till we had to go grape picking. But half an hour later A Hua was on the blower telling me she was waiting downstairs in the car for Leilei and me. I made some half-arsed excuse about Belgium, realising it was poor, and promised to come down in five minutes. Which meant waking up Leilei who'd gone to sleep late and was in no mood to do so. But we managed to get up and have a bite to eat while A Hua called us a couple more times.

A convoy of two cars started off from our house at 9.30am and made the half an hour drive to a small patch of land by the side of what will be a road to Liuzhou in a couple of years time. Apparently A Hua had got there at 7am and had just come back to pick us up. There were a few kids in our group and we had some fun under the vines picking the grapes at nipple height (for me). This was certainly different from my grape picking experiences in France. It had looked like a scorcher and for the first time in years I actually put some sun tan lotion on myself as well as Leilei but from nowhere the heavens suddenly decided to open and deposit part of the reason the grapes here are so good. There was a panic to rush back to the cars and we left the owners of the land to finish off the picking. A couple of minutes later, back at the owners' place we weighed the two punnets of grapes and I have no idea what it came to but in price it was 360 kuai - about 40 quid - a bit pricier that I would have imagined. The owners very carefully put each bunch of grapes into a few cardboard boxes and then we drove to He Hua for lunch.

Grape picking Chinese style - the bags are to keep in moisture and protect from insects

He Hua has become a famous place in Pingguo as it has millions of river flowers (at least that is what He Hua means). People come from all around to walk among these flowers (in special walkways so as not to drown). A Hua knew the owner apparently so instead of having to leave the cars in the car park we were granted permission to drive right into the ranch, or whatever you call a river flower place. Lin Hong had said she would meet us there for lunch with Xixi but when I called her she said she'd not get there till 3pm. Fair enough. Lunch was relatively simple and even Leilei reached out to have some gno mi (sticky rice with meat) rather than having it forced upon him. It was accompanied by a few warm beers which didn't really go down that well after having spent all morning in the boot of the car. Also in the boot of this car was a crate of water bottles (quite normal) and a crate of small cans of Nescafe coffee. The kids seemed to enjoy these though I did tell them it wasn't a great idea.

Also at the meal I bumped into 2-1, one from a group of friends from two or three years ago who I hadn't seen for a while. He was working in the outdoor restaurant where we had our meal so I guess he somehow missed out on the riches that appear to have come across my other friends. But I got his new phone number and we agreed to meet up for a beer sometime soon.

After the meal we planned to walk among the flowers, but I didn't have a hat or umbrella and the early afternoon sun had burnt away the clouds to reveal scorchioness, so we all decided it would be better to take a couple of photos and get back. Phew. Leilei wanted Nong Kaicheng to come to our place and A Hua said it would be fine, so I said they could as long as they were not noisy as I needed a siesta. They were pretty good and played on the ipad and munched some crisps as I enjoyed a couple of hours of shuteye again.

Friends by the river flower place where it was rather warm

At 4.30pm Lin Hong called me to tell me we were going for a meal in one hour with ex-colleagues. Fair enough, nothing, it seems, is planned more than a quarter of a day away. Leilei and I showered and were ready for 5.30. Lin Hong arrived soon after six to pick us up and we stopped off at Waipo's to get Xixi. She was happy to see me and said goodbye to Chuan Chuan, who had taken her out last night.

Xixi showing how to break in to Waipo's apartment complex

The meal was at a restaurant I'd been to a few times before, near the complex with the olympic sized swimming pool. There was a wedding meal going on and a lot of people were waiting outside, but Xixi took away a lot of the attention before we went upstairs. I hadn't expected a huge room with four tables and about 50 people. I thought we'd gone to the wedding banquet by mistake. Tan reckoned she wouldn't be back till 8pm which was a pity as half the people here knew her from the bank. It all started tamely with some nice conversation at my table, which was almost exclusively female. But I knew after we'd had a bite to eat I'd be introduced to the other tables and sure enough after 15 minutes I was gan bei'ing with various heads of banks.

One of the bank managers I gan bei'd with

Thankfully, A Ni came to pick up the kids and take them out to play as they were getting bored and I don't blame them. So the adults continued to chat and gan bei for the next hour or so. I did manage to get home and let Leilei, Nong Kaicheng and A Da into the house when they called. Then I realised they had organised a sleepover unbeknown to me but why not indeed? Tan finally came back from Nanning at 11.30 which meant I could go for some bbq and beer with A Wu and another friend, which quite frankly I did not need. Getting back at 1.30am I thoughtfully slept in my study.

Three young men not even pretending to be asleep

What did you use to wash the kids?

It was very agreeable to have woken up at a normal hour, and it gave us time to sort out the rest of the clothes and wash some of the ones from last year that have become a little musty. A Da called and Leilei went out to play with him while Tan took Xixi to Waipo's. I hung up some clothes to dry and it dawned on me it's not been so exciting in a way. But in a good way, as here does feel like home now. We do similar stuff except eat out more and hang clothes in a different way, and probably a good deal of other non-similar stuff but the point is it doesn't feel like a holiday.

One of the first things Tan did when she got up was to go to our en suite bathroom and ask me what I used to wash the kids last night. This is difficult to answer if you know the tone of the question is accusing and you weren't able to read the label on the orange bottle the night before. It was too late to lie, not that I would anyway, and I admitted that whatever was in the orange bottle was used to clean our kids' hair and bodies last night. I got the look of scorn when she told me it was washing up liquid but even though she didn't show it I like to think she saw the funny side. At least that explains why it didn't lather up.

A Hua called me mid-morning to ask if I wanted to go grape picking tomorrow with her son and Leilei and other friends. My initial reaction was to say no as I wanted to be free to sleep, but it's wrong to turn down a new experience so after she said we'd go at 12 midday I was fine. 30 minutes later I got a call from Tan saying that A Hua had decided to leave at 9am instead of 12pm. Had I known I would not have agreed to go; I am jetlagged and changing such a time is a big deal. Anyway I still agreed to go.

A Wu rang in the late morning to tell me we were going for lunch. I went to his office and proceeded to drink tea with him and a couple of bosses for half an hour or so as you do. Then we went for a meal at a restaurant that belongs to one of the bosses, Boss Shao. The five of us only got through six cans of beer during the whole meal but I still began to feel woozy. So much so that back home I barely managed 15 minutes before I was in the arms of Morpheus once again for a three hour siesta.

View from our house 2013

I got a phone call at 5pm from A Ni telling me to come to A Wu's office, from where we'd go to eat. I said I'd be there by six and I got there at five past but it was all closed up. Then Tan rang to say they couldn't wait so had gone, but they would pick me up. I found it a little hard to believe but A Ni turned up in A Wu's black Toyota from last year and I was about to get in the passenger's seat when I noticed it was taken. I got in the back and the woman in the passenger seat turned around and it took me a second to realise it was Tan with her new hairdo from Lao Ma. It actually looks ok.

We were on our way to the restaurant when A Ni changed her mind and decided to go to buy some fruit. A couple of minutes later we were at the market trying long yan and grapes. One of the market stall ladies reminded me that some time ago I'd promised to print out a picture from 2003 with her in it. Er, well I showed it to her on my phone and she pointed herself out and I bought myself some time by saying that she hadn't changed a bit. But I will need to make a few prints in the coming days.

We went to the sumptuous meal where there were a couple of other people too that we didn't know. But that soon changed as we tucked in. Xixi was at Waipo's house and at 8pm Tan got a call saying she was missing baba and wanted me to take her home. I was happy to do this and made a last gan bei to all in the room, but just as I was about to leave Tan got another phone call saying Xixi had fallen asleep. So I stayed a little longer, but then took Leilei home for a shower and bedtime. It seems that "shi cha" (jetlag) has been almost a non-factor here so far, however Leilei didn't sleep till gone 11pm, at which time Tan finally came back from having a massage or similar with A Ni. Then she did some sort of honey facemask and I helped hold her ipad up while she watched Korean films as it dried. But it was worth it.

Back to China for the 10th time

It wasn't that much of a problem getting to Gatwick, even if I did have to pick up my undelivered package of a bluetooth headset from Eltham Post Office on the way there. We lost half an hour to traffic jams we should have known about but arrived at 11.15 for our 13.15 flight. Unlike last year at Heathrow there was no queue for check-in. The bloke just said they were quicker than the rest. I didn't quite believe that and secretly hoped for a half-empty flight.

The lounge made a big difference. The kids had some fizzy drinks and stuck around me as I caught up on an hour's work with maybe a swift G&T, looking nonchalantly at the chavs around the table close to me filled with beer bottles. The riffraff they allow in these days....

Tan had spent all this time shopping and as she got to the lounge for a bite to eat I left to get some duty free myself. But it was already time to go to the gate so I very quickly grabbed four bottles of whatever and 400 Marlboro for £141 and paid and caught up with the others.

The flight was gratefully uneventful if lacking in sleep, including the kids. And the film selection was atrocious; I couldn't get through the latest Die Hard film and ended up watching an American documentary on the building of St. Paul's. It was quite interesting but I couldn't help wondering how much was made up. I would like to visit more now though.

Once on the ground at Beijing the ladies went to the toilet. This was annoying as it meant we joined the immigration queue at the end. In fact it was so long that we joined at one end of a horseshoe shape. There was a sudden panic and a rush towards us and I realised quickly that one more immigration desk had opened. Aware that I was in China I went with the flow and we found ourselves not far back in the queue for the second desk. Although this queue-disrespecting was something I considered typically Chinese I had to remember we were in the foreigners' queue, so they must have been mostly French. Then another desk opened and I did a French-style nip to this queue and we were out 15 minutes later.

Aahh...how nice it was to grab a shower in the lounge at the airport. As it was before 8am I was in no mood for a beer but I did notice cans of tonic water in the fridge. Over the course of the next three hours or so I made a few trips to this fridge and ended up with five cans in my hand luggage!

The first ever tonic export to Pingguo

I found out to my dismay that my phone number for the last two years wasn't working, so I called Ling Ming via Skype and asked him to top me up. Half an hour later I got a call back from him on my phone so was relieved that it was just a question of putting in some cash. On the other hand, Tan's number, for a reason I don't yet understand, has well and truly gone and she'll need to get a new one in Pingguo.

I still hadn't got any sleep and was really feeling weird. In the toilet I got headspins and could hardly stand up straight. I think it was to do with the background noise, which sounded rather like being in an aeroplane. As much as I wanted to sleep I had to finish off a couple of things for work and then it was time to go to our gate to board.

As soon as we were above the clouds we got the typical turbulence that seems to accompany most internal Chinese flights. Although I seemed to be the only foreigner on the flight the announcements were all duplicated in English. The woman's voice said "We are experiencing turbulence in this ascent. Seatbelts...". I was ok with this as it seemed that it was normal while we were gaining altitude. This notice came again and again, but I was so tired I barely had the effort to be afraid. Looking around, all but one person were asleep even though it was only just gone midday. I just relaxed my body as much as I could and went with the bumps. I remembered my trick of last year and closed my eyes and counted each breath in German. I got up to 60, and then got stuck in a rut not managing to reach 70, and then forgetting where I was and starting back at 60 again.

Then came the voice again telling us that we were experiencing turbulence during the ascent, and as I knew we must be well into the flight I worked out that we could not be still ascending and it dawned on me she was saying "We are experiencing turbulence, please fasten seat belts". In fact we were by now 40 minutes away from Nanning on this 3h20m flight, so my sojourn from 60 to 70 in German must have taken me to the land of nod for an hour or so. Unfortunately the rest of the trip to 100 did not bring further shuteye, though Leilei slept the whole journey. It's nice touching down at Nanning as it has a longer-than-average runway, and you know you're on a Chinese domestic flight when your hear the seat belt buckles being undone before the front wheels are down and the chimes of booting up phones seconds later.

Lin Hong was waiting for us at the airport and I bade Tan and the weary kids go to them while I waited for the luggage. A Wu, A Ni, and A Da arrived 15 minutes later and we greeted them with big hugs. A Wu now has a grand BMW X6, which looks like a sports car stretched on the y axis, though it was able to fit two of our suitcases, the rest going in Lin Hong's black Honda. A Wu has a new driver this year (he still doesn't have a licence) who is also known as Tan.

All aboard A Wu's new X6

The drive back was pretty comfortable, though with a bit less of the sound of the grooves of the road emanating within the cabin in a melodic fashion as is normally the case. Normally we'd have gone straight home for a shower before eating but this time we ordered some food on the phone and at 5pm we arrived at Li Jia He Xian for a feast, including my favourite black boiled eggs and roast goose. Tan's new SIM card arrived during the meal but it was rather useless as someone had forgotten to mention she needed a micro-SIM.

After the meal we went home for the first time in over 10 months to find it pretty clean as Ling Ming had sorted things before he left (this year he won't be sharing the place with us and will move back when we're gone until his house is finished). After dumping the luggage we went to A Wu's new office, now situated opposite the guangchang and under a minute's walk from our place.

Leilei went to play with A Da (I was afraid A Da wouldn't be interested as he's now broken his voice, but the two still seem good mates) and Tan went with her mates. A Wu had already unwrapped all the booze and fags and assumed it upon one of his shelves. In my rush at the airport I picked up a litre of Bombay Sapphire, not remembering that I had bought him one in the recent years, so now he has two. But I had to take 200 Marlboro back as Tan needed them as a present and he didn't seem to mind.

Xixi and I went back to the house and sorted out most of the luggage that wasn't mine and I grabbed a shower and change of clothes before we popped out to see if we could cut Tan's SIM. The official China Telecom shop couldn't do it for us but a few yards further we popped in to their rivals China Unicom (not the People's Telecom of China) and I recognised the bloke from last year. I explained it was a bit rude to ask him to cut a SIM from another provider but he was totally fine about it as he was an ex-colleague of Tan's.

Then as we were on our way to A Xia's shop to drop off Tan's phone with her new number working I realised I was no longer holding the fags and neither was Xixi. They weren't in the China Unicom shop but as soon as we walked back into the China Telecom shop the young lady reached under her desk in expectation of our reappearance and produced the pack. I thanked her very much but was not in the least surprised as that sort of honesty seems the total norm here.

Five minutes later Xixi and I went to the jewellery shop and I got the neckband thing for my jade pig changed as I do on an annual basis here. 5 kuai this year, 1 kuai cheaper than last, though probably the only thing that will be.

I'd had forty winks on the car journey from Nanning but was getting really shattered now. I told myself I would stay up and have a normal bedtime, so rang Yang Haiwei, my friend and table tennis partner of the last few years, and agreed to meet him for a little barbeque around 10pm. Xixi and I took a san lun che to the guangchang (now 4 kuai - one more than before) and had a nice walk and fed the carp before heading to the bbq where I met Haiwei's tall wife and son with a hug and the inevitable comment on how big he was (the son). A sweaty Leilei joined us from A Wu's office, and Haiwei eventually came too. I was nearly dropping off so kept it to just a couple of beers and duck tongues and lamb before leaving at 11.30 to shower the kids.

I would have gone straight to bed myself but needed to take out some of my clothes. Damn, Tan was right, I had brought far too many, but worse than that, something had leaked from my bag of toiletries and had left sticky purple stains all over the bottom of my new light grey suit. I rinsed what I could from the suit and hung it up to dry while I cleaned the rest of the toiletries until I found the culprit: a bottle of "Excite" Lynx shower gel I wish I'd never packed, not least because we normally have plenty of that stuff anyway.

At least I thought we did. When I showered the kids all I found in the bathroom was a bottle of orangy clear liquid. Still, as Andge says, "it's all soap", so I used it to wash their hair and bodies but it didn't make much of a lather.

Of course once in bed I found it difficult to sleep but not something my first ever gin and tonic in Pingguo could not cure, together with ein, swei, drei....

...until Leilei walked in to our room at 1.30 and I took him back to his room and fell asleep with him till 4.30. I worried I might not get back to sleep as I got back into our bed but I needn't have and woke up again at 8am.

Dream on hold for a while

But all was prepared; we got the bus to the airport, no delays, got on, made last minute phone calls to loved ones, then had one of the nicest flights back ever. The taxi experience from Heathrow was shit, despite ordering in advance - late and not answering phone calls. But we were home with sleepy kids by 7pm, and thankfully they were ok at getting to bed again after a bite to eat. I had a first G&T for two months and got my sleep at 10pm. The dream was over, for another year. Well, not over, just on hold.

But I know now it is a real dream...it has all the hallmarks of a good, and sometimes, bad dream. The knowledge that it is real and has real repercussions is nice though, because I know how easy it could be for us to have this as our "waking" state, and for London to be our dream. What is impossible to make ok is that wherever we are, at least one of us will be away from home. I feel I deal with it better than Tan, but I'd like to think the kids would do too. Time may tell....

Leaving Pingguo 2012

It was as inevitable as the 8th of February. Or the 10th of December. It was as an insignificant date as could be imagined unless this date was to be your departure from Pingguo.

But this time I wasn’t really sad. Here is no longer just a holiday. It is now just a home from home. When I get back it will seem like a recurring dream with substance. It won’t happen to be a long term reality in the short-term future. That American family had a good go but decided their kids needed a more international education, and I agree with them on that, even if I probably wouldn’t agree with them on most other things.

Because we have come back so regularly it has become easier to say goodbye. But I don’t know if I’ll be afforded the flexibility I’ve had for the last few years. If not I will have to consider where the future lies. It’s not really fair to force Tan to be in the UK; we moved there because I had a job there, but it’s her family’s loss, and her mum’s sadness at missing out on Leilei and Xixi’s growing up. If she lived in a big city it would be easier but as it is we couldn’t live in Pingguo at the moment. But if I were in a position to get a decent job in a bigger city maybe she would want to live with us....

For our last day in Pingguo we had lunch at Waipo's at 11am as it was still gui jie. Lunch was nice, if rather early and subdued; the kids wouldn't eat much, but I couldn't blame them so early. Then I drove around as I had a couple of last minute tasks to do. I succeeded in buying some ping pong balls, though that shouldn't be hard in China. However, I failed in finding a shop to emboss my Chinese name on some of my footy tops due to most places being closed. I really wish I’d sorted that out earlier on as it would be a pretty unique thing to have.

Then I got the annual call from Tan to say that everything was wrong. In this case it was simply the fact that I’d moved around some of what she had packed in order to get the tea table in but it might as well have been me losing her toiletries for all the fuss. Well I stood my ground and explained why things were moved - it’s not as though we’re going to worry about them once they’re checked in.

After sadly soaking in my last rays of Pingguo sunshine I parked the bike and went back to our flat. I had promised to sort out our neighbour with wireless Internet but there wasn’t much time and I had to tell her I’d try to do it via the phone from the UK. Something that is a bit unlikely. Then that was it and we brought the suitcases down the lift (which thankfully was working this year).

Last family pic of 2012: Leilei, Tan, Xixi, Xiao Nong, Ling Ming, Chuan Chuan, Waipo, Jiuma

Packing the kids away...(no we didn't really)

The drive to Nanning was just like every other for the last nine years, past signs of “Don’t drive tired” and the dulcet tones of the ridges of the road on the tyres that make a tune I will always associate with this either happy or sad journey.

Not quite as many people this year to see us off

Driver and A Wu wanted to come back and say a last goodbye...

Mama and Leilei in the VIP lounge of Nanning airport

The airport goodbyes were the same as those from years gone by, but afterwards for the first time we got to go the VIP lounge thanks to A Wu’s special bank card. It made a nice difference, even though there was no beer, the best bit being that a nice lady came to escort us through a non-queue at security when our plane was ready to board. Thankfully (to whom?) there was not too much turbulation on the flight, and the only annoyance was the half an hour wait, and numerous phone calls to sort out the minibus to the fairly expensive (60 quid) hotel I’d booked in Guangzhou.

Tired and hungry, when we finally got to the China Southern hotel we didn’t need it to take 20 minutes for them to finally find our online booking, but the room was ok and had we had more time I’d have liked to take advantage of the gym/table tennis. But we needed to eat so went for a meal in the hotel restaurant. It was a bit later than most Chinese eat, so wasn’t very full. The kids were a bit annoyingly awake and loud so while we were waiting for the food I invented the “Quiet Game”. It simply consists of a referee and two players. You hold both hands down and when the player on your right makes a noise you raise your right hand in proportion to the volume and length of the noise, with the same for the left. When one of the players causes your hand to full stretch they lose. It worked ok for the first two games (one all) but by the third they realised that it was actually more fun to make noises and see my hand go up and then lose. Well if nothing else it got five minutes of relative quiet out of them.

Playing the "quiet" game in our last night in China this year (Xixi was the "Quiet Master" for this round and I won)

The food was actually good, and I had a nice Qing Dao beer or two with it. Tan went to wash the kids in the room so I went for a quick wander and picked up another couple of cans then came back and sorted out the taxi for the journey back from Heathrow. At about 12.30am I finally managed some sleep till 2am but that was it. Tan also couldn’t sleep so by 6am we were a pair of unhappy monsters, just waiting to have a go at the slightest thing.

Full last full day in Pingguo with last-minute tea-table purchase

The fact that I was up at 6am was not really that surprising to me now. I think it's my unconscious way of wanting to spend as much time as possible sensing my home from home, my family from family. I wish I could tell my unconscious that I'd appreciate it better with eight hours' sleep but I don't think it would understand. As I was up I spent some time packing, which is a sad, but necessary chore. At least it's not that time-consuming as we can leave whatever we like here now as it's our own place - something that makes a world of difference.

As with most years of late the last few days haven't been a furore of getting things done and cramming what we can into the diminishing hours. I didn't even have any plans for lunch so I called Yang Haiwei again and ended up meeting him in his office. I made an effort to note what his company mined again - apparently it is corundum, which is a very hard material, used to sharpen knives and I imagine various other things. We took his car and drove to around looking for a restaurant. This is normally a very easy thing to do but today was the first day of gui jie. Some people translate this is hallowe'en as it loosely means the time of the dead, but in fact it is more genuinely to do with the deceased in your family, and is therefore a family-oriented thing. For this reason most shops and even restaurants were closed, but we managed to find a Szechuan one not too far from the kids' school, and on the way, literally as I was calling him, we passed A Wu in his car so instead of using the phone I called to him to tell him to come and eat with us.

Having a few cuppas with Haiwei and some friends around the outside

Haiwei ordered some food from the moustachio'd boss, who I gathered was probably from Szechuan. When it arrived it was one of the best lunches I have ever had here. The pork and beef dishes were pretty hot, and the meat sliced finely to increase the surface area to volume ratio, the way I like it. Haiwei and I spent another good half an hour discussing business before A Wu arrived. Apparently he has a place in Guangzhuo, and drives there every six weeks or so to meet with business partners. Despite the amount of time he seems to have for playing table tennis and drinking beer, he does take business very seriously. I was enjoying the conversation, and the glimpse it gave me into real Pingguo business, until A Wu came and the conversation switched to business in Pingguonese and I was grasping to get 20% of the meaning. Anyway, I had a bloody good lunch.

I wanted to have a siesta but we went back to Haiwei's office for some reviving tea, during the drinking of which I got a call from Tan asking me to bring her some money as she was having her hair done at Lao Ma's. Considering Lao Ma used to be one of her best friends, and at whose house we spent the first nights of our Pingguo life back in 2003, and indeed I proposed to Tan there, I was happy that Tan was spending some time and money at her salon again. So I used the excuse to stop imbibing tea and went to say hello and goodbye to Lao Ma.

Tan had asked me to get a tea table. Amazing, as this was what I wanted too and we hardly ever want the same thing. I went to the place I'd been last night and took a couple of photos of what I wanted to buy and made the decision to show Tan these photos. Oh no of course that wasn't what she wanted! She was after some boring oblong thing made from a mould and I wanted a hand-carved unique piece of beauty. I wasn't in a mind to argue, and as by now we were in A Xia's clothes shop I showed the women what I wanted to buy and they were quite supportive, so much so that Tan begrudgingly relented.

The middle one that looks like an evil bottom-biting seahorse was the one that caught my eye

I went back to the tea table shop, where I'd bought "running dog" three years previously, and took my tape measure. I had to make sure it would fit in my suitcase and it was very, very close. I measured so many angles until I was reasonably sure that the only way to really know was to put the bloody thing in. As I knew the boss doesn't give discounts I said I'd pay the 580 kuai for what I wanted. We immediately sat down to drink tea with one of his colleagues, and I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos. When I actually handed over the money he gave me 30 kuai back and I wondered if he'd have done so if I'd actually asked for a discount. I was really happy with my purchase, and he wrapped it up carefully for me as I explained it would have a long ride to the UK. I was even happier when I got home and put it in the suitcase to find it fitted just about - another inch in either direction and it wouldn't have.

I nabbed and tamed my naughty seahorse

Having a post-purchase cuppa with the tea table boss

But it weighed a fair amount, 8kg according to the boss, but probably 10 in reality. That meant I had to move around some things to the suitcase that Tan had packed (hers we'd bought for £100 quid before we left and she'd only packed 14kg into). Well you need to distribute things darling, so I put a few heavier things into her suitcase and padded some lighter clothes around mine to make it up to 20kg. Although the flight from Guangzhou to London allows 23kg per person the internal flight only allows 20kg. I remember a few years ago we were allowed to bring on a bit more in the internal flight as long as we provided evidence that we were leaving the country with a bigger allowance. Maybe that was rubbish but I bet it would still work now.

While sorting out my tea table top I got a call from A Wu inviting me out to a last karaoke evening. How could I refuse? He picked me up at 10ish and we arrived to find a few people there including a rather worse for wear Yang Haiwei. It wasn't quite such fun as usual, as usually I'm not leaving the next day, but a few beers made it better. I called Tan, more out of respect than thinking she'd actually want to come, but said where we were, and that Haiwei was a rather pissed. So I was surprised when she and A Ni turned up half an hour later. We spent till 1am singing and being silly for probably the last time this year, while the kids had their last night at their maternal grandmother's house.

Get your coat woman, you've pulled! (Must be the nice new hair do)

Tan's best friends at the KTV - will be missed again by us both

When we got home we didn't have much more packing to do, though Tan went into a slight last-day mode. I said I had to get a bite to eat, but used this as an excuse to pay a final visit to Uncle Zhang's place near the guangchang. Although it was getting on for 2am he and his sons were there, and as an added bonus, his wife, who I hadn't seen for a couple of years, was there too. We had an enjoyable time around the table having last beers and cai ma until Tan called me to ask why I was out so long. She wouldn't have understood properly and it wasn't worth arguing, and it was getting on for 3am so I said my goodbyes and went home, thinking I'd done a reasonable job of making the most of this year's last evening in Pingguo. No problems getting to sleep tonight.

Uncle Zhang and his wife, who I've known since I used to get breakfast from them in 2008