Glad about Gladiolus

Got up rather late, only half an hour before A Wu called me at 11.30 to eat lunch. Fair enough, I went round to the place near my tea table place to find him sitting alone with a large bowl of soup and about two dozen empty plates, smaller than tea saucers. He barked at the server to bring mine and I got the same large soup bowl with water-looking soup, and loads of tiny plates with bits of meat, veg, leaves, and one with four raw eggs about the size of quail eggs. He helped me put everything in, plus a bowl of noodles. The noodles were unnecessary as the rest was more than enough. I wondered why they didn't just serve the soup with all the stuff already in, but didn't ask as I found it more fun doing it myself, having some sort of control.

My soup with all its additions

Of course we didn't have any beer with the meal but I did remember to pick up a six pack when I got near home. I was really disappointed when the woman charged me 30 kuai as I know they're normally 18-21 kuai, and being ripped off just doesn't happen here. Maybe she wasn't from Pingguo, but she's lost a customer. Of course I didn't question the price.

After some work I needed a break so took the therapeutic option of going to a piano place to practise. I went to the one I hadn't been to before as the normal one was closed. The door was slightly ajar but it didn't look open either. Then I noticed it was to re-open at 3pm and it was just 2.45pm, so I caught the woman's eye and asked if I could have a tinkle. Of course I could, so I plonked myself down and had a really good hour of proper practice despite a couple of stuck keys and the fact that more people came to play after 3pm. Unfortunately the fan kept blowing the music off its holder so I couldn't learn the last part of Gladiolus Rag, but that was probably a blessing in disguise as I can't really play any of it properly so it made me focus on the bits I could at least remember the music for.

Apparently my idea to take the train to Nanning to fly to London was not ok by Tan or anyone else I'd spoken to. It seemed great to me; I'd arrive in time for lunch and I'd call Vincent, who was keen to meet me in Nanning and we'd go for a bite and a beer before I set off to the airport. But oh no, Tan rang A Heng to take me in a car, as he wanted to go to Nanning too. Or was it they wanted to know where I was at every minute, because that's what it often feels like here? That was the main reason us lads went to Beihai last year, just to avoid being under the microscope of people who knew us. It's hard to explain to people as it sounds rude, but I did explain to A Wu a few years ago and I think he understood.

Before tea Tan asked me to get a portion of chilli snails as she was not going to eat because she wanted to be hungry before going out with her mates to eat at the big company. 6 kuai seemed very reasonable and they were blooming hot in both senses that don't mean good looking.

After tea we decided to go to a professional photo place to ask how much it would be to get some done as a sort of 10 year anniversary thing. After baulking at the options of 3498 and 2988 kuai, we settled on a more reasonable 988 kuai that would give us four framed photos, one of which would be too big for any non-business class suitcase. As luck would have it they had a session available tomorrow at 10.30am. So, a 200 kuai deposit later and we were booked in. I cast a few glances at the various wearing options they had on offer and asked the woman helpfully if it would be a good idea for me to bring my own suit. She looked me up and down a bit and smiled and said that would be a good idea.

As I hadn't spent that much of the day at work I did so until 10.30, at which time I succumbed to a call from A Wu and A Ni to go and have a bite to eat opposite Waipo's house, before picking up the kids and bringing them home about midnight. Tan was asking why the kids were up so late. I think they're up at this time most nights. Anyway I'm working till quite late most nights so I think it's ok to be with them later if they're not tired. Unfortunately I wasn't that tired either and didn't get to sleep till well after 2am.

What came first, the egg, the caterpillar, or the...cocoon? What about the butterfly?

Up at a reasonable 10am despite only five hours sleep. I worked, slept a little, then went to Waipo's for tea and saw Tan for the first time all day. After tea Xixi was talking about butterflies, caterpillars, and cocoons, and where they came from. She asked me what came first, the egg or the butterfly. I was stumped. If she'd asked me from a chicken perspective I would have had the answer. But when there is an intermediary, like a cocoon or caterpillar, does that still apply? Did the egg come first in every case? I said probably the egg, but we'd better check.

As it was likely I'd not see the kids later tonight I decided to find them at around 10pm. Of course they were with Chuan Chuan and her friends, but this time at a slightly different place. As usual they were the centre of attention among friends in their early 20s. I stayed for only 10 minutes and had only a couple of gan bei's, before sadly going home to finish work.

The kids having fun with their older friends

Back to work and mangosteens

Back to work. Got up but slept in as I knew I'd be up late. I was quite good and had no breakfast and only fruit for lunch. The fruit was something I'd picked up from Ling Ming's clothes shop earlier in the week that I think his mum had sent up from the Vietnamese border. I'd never before seen such a fruit - a dark purple hardish outer shell that you pierce with your nail and score around so you can pull it apart to reveal fleshy white pips inside that are really sweet. The name is Shan Zhu, which translates to "mountain bamboo", but boringly someone has decided to call them mangosteen. Well they were deliciousteen.

Apparently they're called "mangosteens" - very nice though

After Waipo's for tea I worked till 11pm, but didn't really need to work much later as had no meetings and I'd started well before Europe anyway. I rang Lu Hai at 10pm to ask if he was about to go for a little bbq, which he was, and called Li Kun for good measure. Haiwei's phone was off, which normally means he is asleep.

As soon as I got to the bbq place some drunk bloke started talking to me. Apparently I knew him and had cai ma'd with him before with Haiwei. He sat at my table and then Lu Hai and Li Kun and his wife and daughter turned up. I don't know if these people knew each other before, but they certainly talked like they did. Lu Hai gave me a present of 12 little bottles of what looked like medicine alcohol, but I was actually quite relieved to find they were apple vinegar. Here it is a kind of health drink.

Kids and Eva enjoying a bit of bbq late at night

Haiwei then called and popped round and we ended performing the usual ritual of cai ma and gan beis, which was quite therapeutic after a day's working.

Last night without work

Up at an indecent 10.30 as kids slept at Waipo's. It was my last day before work so I thought I had better make the most of it but somehow I felt rough and just read some news until Tan went out. She said she was going with A Hua as her friend had a birthday so they were going to the aluminium company place. She gave A Ni a call but A Ni didn't answer. According to Tan this was because they had fallen out. But when Tan was in the shower A Ni called back, and I said Tan was in the shower, which was the same reason A Ni hadn't answered a few minutes' before.

I went out to get myself a portion of dumplings before midday and had half of them, preferring the large cup of watermelon juice I'd also bought. So when A Wu called me to eat I thought "why not?" and drove down to the place I'd been to see him with Xixi before, except now I knew where it was. I found that Tan and A Ni were also there. I ventured to ask what happened to going to eat with A Hua but was met with a dismissive "it's not happening" sort of gesture and I knew better than to ask more. The chicken soup did seem to sort me out though, as it had A Wu, who had just got up before the meal.

When I got home I found last night's clothes hanging over a chair by the dining table. They were very wet and I realised I must have walked home in the pouring rain last night. Ho hum. I tried to sleep in the afternoon but to no avail. While trying, the Wenzhou bloke with whom I've eaten a couple of times with Uncle Yellow IM'd me on WeChat to say we were going to eat beef at 5.30pm. As I had nothing else on I acquiesced and soon after 5pm I had a call from Uncle Yellow who was downstairs waiting to pick me up. I insisted on stopping at Waipo's first in order to give 800 kuai to Chuan Chuan, who has been looking after the kids so much and spending money on them. Then I had to once again apologise to Waipo for not staying to eat, then once again on Tan's behalf as she was out with friends too.

There was a new bloke at the private table at the beef place; apparently he had come to Pingguo to "know work". I really wanted to know what that meant, but being English I had already nodded to show I understood what that meant, so spent the rest of the night guessing. I don't think it meant looking for work, but rather checking over how his work was progressing. I'll have to find out.

Well the new bloke opened up after a few beers and I challenged him to cai ma and he won by a whisker. But that opened the floodgates to more challenges. I did make more excuses than were necessary to go to the loo, and come back 10 minutes later after having checked the Test Match and German GP updates. England were trying but not really doing too much, but Lewis Hamilton was doing rather well after starting 20th.

Uncle Yellow in the foreground - I was sitting next to some bloke I beat too much at cai ma

By 8.30pm I used the kids excuse to leave, and very sober too. Uncle Yellow brought me back home. I rang Chuan Chuan and picked up the kids and got them to bed myself. Tan was out so I wasn't even tempted to go out to do bbq - my body probably needed the rest.

Massage, Internet, and Beer

Got up at a reasonably late 10.30 and was moping around until A Wu called at 11.30 to remind me we were going to see A Da at his army camp this morning. I suddenly remembered and told him to wait 10 mins so I could get a shower. There was no rush, despite the "kuai dian"s; when I got outside our block he was waiting in his car and A Ni in hers - there were two more people who turned up five minutes later.

It was pouring with rain and continued till we got to the place at the foot of Horse Head mountain. The security guard let us in without any security check other than A Wu saying he was going to see his son. Once in the compound A Wu and I swapped places for some reason and I parked the car in a basketball court. We got out and saw a litter of puppies and one or two mother dogs, as if that was the most normal thing in the world to have in a military camp. Some bloke in a uniform came running to us with an umbrella, and A Wu told me not to take photos as it was a military place. Then A Da appeared in his military garb too, and A Wu proceeded to take photos of him and me and A Ni etc. We donated a present of 12 boxes of grapes, then had a few hugs with A Da, then drove off to have lunch of lamb on the bone.

Some dogs and a running soldier with an umbrella

Me, A Da, and A Wu

After lunch A Wu took me to a new massage place he'd been talking about, in an area of town that was barely developed this time last year. It was nice. A lady escorted me from the car with an umbrella as it was still raining stair rods and we went to the second floor. Except A Wu took an exception to the exceptionally clean room and we ended up going to the third floor instead. We changed into massage pyjamas and were told to lay down by the slightly burly ladies who would look after us.

In my massage threads pretending to be the same height as A Wu

I explained to mine about my back problem and she seemed to understand well. What ensued were some of the most painful moments I remember and some of the most comfortable. She pulled down my pyjama trousers so far that half my crack was showing, and I was glad I'd showered just a couple of hours previously. She used various oils that I don't know too much about except that they felt good when she wasn't applying too much pressure. She said I had "little stones" in my shoulders, and it was probably due to driving or using the computer too much, and she said she was kneading them out. I don't know why, they didn't seem to be doing me any harm.

When I turned over she then gave me a stomach massage. The other week the "doctor" had pushed my stomach a bit as part of his treatment and told me I had a healthy stomach. I was quite happy to hear that until he said it was because it was soft. I said it would be better to be firm but he disagreed. Oh well. Well this woman was not so much pushing as properly massaging, and getting rather close down below, and it felt quite nice. So it was quite a relief to open my eyes and quell any stirrings that might have been forthcoming had she been more becoming.

After the hour was up A Wu had stirred from his slumbers and wanted another half an hour. I was in no mood to protest so got a head, arm and leg massage for this bonus time. It's things like this I must take more advantage of while here.

Chuan Chuan then called to let me know the internet had been turned on at Waipo's house, so I said I'd go and get a wifi router and sort them out. I'd been looking at using an old Netgear router as such a device, and plugging it in to a basic modem, but after faffing about for more time that was worth it I decided I'd just pay whatever it took for a modern one that would just work. A Wu took me to Ma Laoban's place, and although he was away on business I found the router I wanted, and asked how much, expecting it to be 450 kuai but the woman said 120. Then A Wu came to the counter and told her he bought the same model recently for 80 kuai. I didn't bother trying to quibble - it's a decent bit of kit and gets through four thick walls in our flat with ease, something that wouldn't work in the UK.

A Wu dropped me off at Waipo's and I installed the router with surprisingly little fuss, plus cleaned up A Heng's laptop that was running like a dog. And that was it, everyone was back online again with the same SSID as for the last couple of years "meiguihua". My phone even remembered it and got back online. It felt like quite a relief. I felt a bit sad telling Waipo I couldn't stay for tea as I had to meet up with A Wu. By default we eat here at teatime but the majority of the time we're elsewhere.

A Wu had said he'd be drinking tea just outside Waipo's but when I rang him he told me to take a san lun che to the People's Hospital. Fair enough. I got there a few minutes later and called him and found out he was a couple of hundred yards away buying grapes. We were to go to a boss's house for a meal of course. It was only just gone 5pm so they had just started preparing the food. The owner of the house brought in a big fish hanging from a red cord, and held it down in the sink while about to bash it on the head with the blunt end of a cleaver. But his wife intervened, as he didn't look like he knew what he was doing too well. I wished she hadn't when I saw her use her hands to yank apart the gills and pull out some red stuff from within the fish, and then leave it there leaping in the sink. A quick bang to the head would have been cleaner wouldn't it?

I sat with a couple of the blokes drinking some red tea and engaging in difficult conversation when A Wu said he was going for "poo poo". An hour later we were getting ready to eat and he still wasn't around. I discovered that my phone had run out of money when I tried to call him. It was nearly 7pm by the time we started eating and we didn't wait for A Wu. He turned up about 20 minutes later though, at about the time the beer did - two crates of cold, and one of room temperature. I prefer cold but others prefer room, or a mix of both as they can drink it faster.

We had quite an interesting conversation about how some words were different here down south, like we say "fan qie" for tomato but up north it's "xi hong si", and more importantly we say "dong" when meaning cold, as in "cold beer", but up north it's the more normal "bing". The strange one, but most useful, was that here we frequently say "bu dong" to mean "don't know", whereas elsewhere "bu dong" means "don't understand" - this is quite a different meaning and I'm glad I know about it now to avoid looking foolish in the future (although there are plenty of other ways to look foolish).

We were served a pack of six cans of beer each, and told they were ours to finish, before we could even start cai ma. There were times when someone would try to pour some of their can into mine, but I quickly cottoned on, and tried the same trick to others. It was a game in itself and kept you looking at your glass. Unfortunately the glasses were huge by local standards - a full half a can filled one up - so I was starting to feel the 3.1% effect but also so was my bladder so I got up to excuse myself.

After the wee I didn't fancy sitting down to more beer just yet, so I went downstairs and popped my head out of the front door to see if there were any shops nearby to charge up my phone's account. It was as if I'd done it on purpose, but the door blew shut behind me and I was locked out in the street with no means of electronic communication.

I could easily have rung the doorbell but thought I'd explore just a few minutes to find a China Mobile place. It took over 10 minutes in the end but I found one and stuck in 100 kuai. It had been a nice, peaceful 10 minutes not being called by A Wu or Tan or anyone else, and perhaps because they'd tried, and found my phone was off the network they hadn't continued trying as my walk back was just as peaceful. I noticed that it had stopped raining for the first time today too. My too-brief sojourn over, I called A Wu from the front door and he came down to open it, and when I got back to the table all the blokes feigned indignation over my disappearance, so I jokingly said A Wu took 90 minutes to do a poo, and they all, including A Wu, saw the funny side and we gan bei'd yet again.

A Ni arrived to find some drunken men with big glasses

A Ni and a friend or two turned up but by that time we'd gone passed the six cans and were on to cai ma. Eventually the meal ended and I went with A Wu to "sing song". I don't know quite how but somehow we ended up at a crossroads where a minor accident had occurred and both cars were still sitting there in the middle. It seemed as though we knew one of the owners of the cars and we stood at the side under the shelter of a shop (for it had started raining again) and just talked. I got a bit bored so wandered off no more than 20' before being invited into another shop where some young blokes were eating and drinking beer, with a solitary lady at the table. So of course I sat down with them and did a couple of gan bei's and cai ma and had a laugh for five minutes until A Wu came to say we were off.

The policeman took about 50 pictures from all angles but at least he had an umbrella

I made some new friends while waiting for A Wu

We went to the new KTV by the new cinema near A Xia's shop. I didn't know many of the people there so had to do a few more gan bei's and had more than enough Dutch courage to sing the usual three songs I do, at less than on-key. I realised that staying in the room would mean more drinking so I used my toilet excuse and left for a wander. I wandered up and down and somehow into another room where there were a couple of blokes and women and it wasn't quite as smoky as the others. More gan bei's ensued and I felt I was out of the frying pan, but into a slightly smaller frying pan that had more oil in it. I managed to leave and find my original room with A Wu and they greeted me like a long lost friend which meant more gan bei's so my plan sort of backfired.

Lord knows what time we left but we found ourselves in some covered eatery later with some other blokes, ordering cooked, chilli oysters, as I'd had at Luwen's place for the World Cup final. Tan says I shouldn't eat seafood and drink beer as it gives you la du but she wasn't there and I had some. Somehow I had the self-awareness to make my excuses and leave the table and walk home and A Wu didn't even try to drag me back to drive me as I was quite insistent I was tired. Xixi's bed awaited me again.

Tian Yang Po bbq x2

For some reason I was up at a rather late 10.30. I offered to get Tan breakfast but she said she was goint to do pilates and fast for three days on nothing more than fruit. Fair enough, I'm not going to argue.

I went to see the kids at Waipo's place but then needed to go to the market to get three cucumbers, some buffalo tomatoes, and grapes, as that was what Tan would be eating from now on.

I had talked about sorting out Waipo's house with the internet so Chuan Chuan and everyone else except Waipo could use it. I arranged with Chuan Chuan to go to the bottom of our block to arrange this but it needed someone with a China Mobile phone, and hers was China Unicom as that has fast internet (China Mobile choosing to implement the protocol incorrectly, apparently). As mine wouldn't do because my number wasn't "named", A Heng had to come along. Apparently they would take the monthly charge from his credit, but I had to pay some stuff in advance. I finally found out why my number didn't work; apparently they had changed the rules this year and if you don't have a named card, and you don't make a call within three months, your number is lost. I did ask to "name" my card but was given looks of nonplussed-ness and I thought it better than to argue at this time. In any case, although the wiring was already there, and they had had internet within the year, they said it would not be before Monday that they would get a connection.

Back home after a bite to eat at Waipo's, Tan declared she was hungry and wanted five portions of duck tongues, five of duck intestines, and two chicken claws from Tian Yang Po's bbq place. So at 9pm I took the kids to get it. So much for fasting. It took over half an hour to get it ready so we went for a ride and found some women playing volleyball. It looked so inviting and had my back been better I'd have tried to join in. As it was we had to be content with the stretching exercises by the side. We finally got the bbq to mama at 10pm after having a bit ourselves.

Good for stretching the back

I then took the kids to the guang chang as I'd promised them. It was well gone 10pm but they enjoyed a stint on the bumper cars and then some painting that you then bake to make it hard. But it was well gone 10.30 by the time they'd finished, despite my attempts to help.

Bumping at the guang chang

A Wu called for me to go to bbq with him so I met him at his office then dropped the kids off at Waipo's with Chuan Chuan, and went to Tian Yang Po's bbq for the second time that night. Haiwei called, and we bade him come down, and we all had a nice night with some of A Ni's colleagues, not drinking too much. Until that was, Tan called me at 12.40 to say I'd be sleeping in Xixi's room tonight as she didn't want to be disturbed. Blimey I was just on my way home luv.

So in Xixi's room I tried to book tickets back to the UK. The stupid Skyscanner site I've used before sent me to Ctrip to book the best tickets, but every single ticket on Ctrip was sold out. So why were they available in the first place? I was just to tired to continue so didn't get tickets in the end as it was already 3am.

Two Yellows and bad karaoke

Finally, after nearly two weeks it seems there is becoming a semblance of normality to my sleeping patterns, as I was up around 9am again. So was Xixi - she came into our room thinking it was night time as Leilei had started to use her pillow. Later in the morning we went out to get some lunch for Tan and ask where we might buy goldfish from. As it was raining we went walking with umbrellas so we first came home to drop off lunch then, as it had stopped raining, we went to the place that Leilei had remembered from some time ago as selling fish and indeed he was right.

Xixi decided to help taking in the dry clothes first - nice!

We had to spend a few minutes doing a photo-shoot with the shop keeper and her son plus some other customer and her daughter, but finally got around to choosing a fish each for the kids; Leilei a blue one and Xixi a red one. Apparently they would fight if put together so we got them a small bowl each and bits and bobs to make it look less boring. 35 kuai for the lot seemed pretty good, and as is usual she gave us various discounts, none of which we asked for.

A photoshoot - a rather common occurrence here

On the way back we had our lunch in the bao zi place before filling up the bowls and freeing up the fish from their prison-like bags. They didn't seem that impressed with their new-found freedom but did seem interested in each other when we put the bowls together.

Red and Blue - no official names yet

I took the kids to stay at Waipo's for a bit with their fish, then went home when A Dong came around fix the electricity. It was only a change of three fuses and I was more interested in the root cause that caused them to blow in the first place but didn't want to sound ungrateful as now everything was working.

So Tan and I had a relaxing afternoon just chilling out for once, before going to Waipo's for tea later, after which Chuan Chuan took them swimming. I came back home as I needed to sort out tickets but stopped off on the way to have a cup of tea at our local tea shop, as I'd promised a couple of weeks ago I would when I had time. I didn't feel I ought to, but I did buy a thing for boiling tea in and it was only 35 kuai - I'd better not break it this time. The bloke then stuffed as many sachets of different teas as he could into the bag for good measure.

While we drank tea, his wife bagged it

I spent about an hour by myself at home, which was nice, but I thought I should be taking more advantage of my penultimate day of holiday. I realised I hadn't seen the Beihai seafood boss yet, so got on the dian dong che and drove down to see if he was around. Before I even managed to get off the bike he was shouting at me and looking very excited. By the number of beer bottles I could see that his party was somewhat the worse for wear, and very happy.

We shook hands heartily, and then he remembered his horrible trick of bending his middle finger so it stuck into your palm while shaking you. The food on the table was nearly finished but he insisted on ordering three new dishes. Around the table were a bloke and his wife, some other bloke, and a bloke from Guangzhou who apparently knew Tan, and was a friend of her friend Huang Chun. Well actually we had a really good time catching up. His hatred of the Japanese was as strong as ever, and I did yet again suggest that it was some time ago now, and other countries had patched up differences. It's something about booze that brings out this deep-rooted hatred of other races. It's basically the truth about how they feel and I know I won't change it. But his daughter probably won't feel the same, and I think it's a sort of acceptable reduction of racism by attrition. It's not like he's going to be doing anything other than spouting vitriol about the Japanese, as if any will hear him.

Beihai seafood boss's daughter and wife, surrounded by drunk bloke on right and understanding wife on left (wish she understood how to drive)

Uncle Yellow called me at about 10.30 to ask me to join him in the pub "where we watched the football". I thought this might be a good excuse. Huang Chun's friend was two gan bei's short of a pancake and the other bloke who was with his wife couldn't cai ma for toffee. His wife looked not at all unimpressed with him, in a way Tan could never do. They decided it was time to leave and walked over to their car and I was almost not surprised to see him, rather than her, get into the driver's seat.

So after another couple of gan bei's and various painful hand shakes with middle finger knuckles, I finally made my way at about 11 sir. I drove down to Jiang Bing Lu, and found the pub where we'd watched Germany - France until the satellite went down the other week, but Uncle Yellow was nowhere to be seen. I called him again so see where he was. As is customary when he answered I called him a disgusting pervert. Unfortunately I had called the Beihai seafood boss by mistake, as his surname is also Huang (Yellow). I had a slightly embarrassing time explaining why I called him a disgusting pervert and why I wasn't home in bed as I said I was going to do. Luckily he sounded so pissed and tired I don't think he computed what I said. I then called the proper Uncle Yellow and he said he was at the pub by the guang chang that he had been to in the past to watch football, not that I had gone to. As if I would have known that.

So five minutes later I got there and as soon as I walked in he and his mates saw me and accosted me and gan bei'd me. Luckily it was too loud to cai ma, but Uncle Yellow insisted on me singing a song - from the way he tried to sing it I guessed it was "No Matter What", by Boyzone. I don't mind it in a private room but this was a pub with a good 50 people in it, most of whom I guessed I'd never seen before. I didn't want to let him down, so said I'd need a couple more gan bei's, and he said no problem, I would sing it from our table, NOT from the dance floor.

And of course what happens? A minute later the music to "Scarborough Fair" starts, the microphone is thrust into my hands, and I am pushered onto the middle of the dance floor. What's worse is that the monitor is only showing the words in Chinese, and although I can read some of them it's clearly not what should be sung, so I have to remember the verses. I did what I could. "Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley Sage Rosemary and flipping Thyme". It's not exactly a pub song, but at least I got a fair few whoops from the ladies.

About the only amusing thing in the pub tonight

Back at the table Uncle Yellow was genuinely apologetic, for the wrong song and the fact I'd been put on stage. He thought he'd put this right by getting me to write "No Matter What" on his phone, and then going to the manager to rectify things. Ok so they found the bloody song, but at least this time although the words were still in characters and I couldn't remember beyond the second verse, I was allowed to stay at our table. And of course Tan called me half way through. As people were listening I cancelled the call but she tried again. I stuffed the mic in Uncle Yellow's hand before the end and went outside to answer lest she suspect I was in a pub. Not that it did much good. I suspect she just wanted to vent her spleen that I was out beyond midnight, and that she did well. I explained that I was (truthfully) going to be back in 10 minutes, and I had no objections from the blokes when I told them.

I still slept in Xixi's room though.

Plants

Although I woke up at 4.30am, I was reasonably happy to extrude a small stool of non-liquidity for the first time in a couple of days, then fall back to sleep till around 9am. And the kids were up a tad before then. We breakfasted on the cereal bars, which are just a bit too convenient, and then we did some homework in bed. Xixi was doing maths alone, and Leilei was reading some science and I was testing him. We were revising photosynthesis and other plant life stuff, when it struck me it would be a good idea to get some plants of our own to make the homework more practical. One of the practical tests was to have three similar plants, and not water one, put one in the dark, and leave one in the light with water and observe the results in a few days.

So down we went, onto the dian dong che, and started looking for a garden centre. We could have asked but it's a little more fun to not know where you're going if you're not pushed for time. Slightly annoyingly, we found such a place not two minutes' away from our house. We asked where the small plants were and straight away Leilei found some cacti that he liked and Xixi had her mind set on some other small leafy plant. Well, it wasn't quite the experiment I was hoping for but houses are always the better for a few plants, of which we have none currently.

I then found some cheap-looking nondescript plants that looked suitable for our purposes, and each of us chose a suitable pot. The total for all five plants and pots did come to 90 kuai but all the plants were lovingly repotted, pots cleaned etc. The pots were rather handily attached to their saucer so there was no worry about them falling over when being picked up from beneath too. Back home the kids put their plants in Leilei's room and then decided whose would be what for the experiment. Of course mine is living in the dark in a wardrobe (Leilei's won't be watered). At least I promised we wouldn't let them die.

Leilei's (no water), Xixi's' (no problem), and mine (soon-to-be no light)

Leilei's cacti and Xixi's leaf-thing

We all went out for lunch; Tan with A Xia, I took the kids to Waipo's, and then I went to the supermarket to get some white rice vinegar. Talk about choice - there were literally dozens to choose from, which meant dozens of potential wrong choices. If I'd rung her up to ask it would have been showing some sort of failure. So I grabbed one that definitely had the character for "white" on it (百) and hoped for the best. Such is the plight of man.

This is what she looked like when telling me to get some soap from the Body Shop when back in the UK - you don't want to get her the wrong white rice vinegar!

I was actually hungry so called A Wu. He was in his office so I popped in. Surprisingly simply, they were having home-cooked noodles with a bit of pork. I think it was so simple because it was for the workers too. I joined in and had a little bowl, which made a change to some of the stuff I've been having recently. Then A Wu announced he needed to buy a pair of trousers. That was our cue to get in the BMW X6 and drive a whole minute to where the expensive clothes shops are. After a bit of flirting with the assistants (which I suspect is the main reason for going there) he decided against getting some, and instead would get a pair from Nanning as he was going there now. It may also have had something to do with the fact they were 2000 kuai.

I stayed in during the afternoon as I was expecting A Xia's husband A Dong to come to fix the electrics so we could heat up the water, but he never came as he was busy. I was due to go to Waipo's at 5pm as we'd arranged to go to the meal with the bloke who invited us yesterday - even Waipo was going to go. As I didn't want to be late, but was still working on my time sheet, I called Tan to check what time we had to be there. Everything had changed. Suddenly Tan didn't want to go as we'd have to give an expensive red envelope plus a woman was there that Tan didn't like. Apparently Waipo was ok with this too. I was happy to go but I thought it would be a little awkward just me on my own or with the kids so I acquiesced. Apparently they had given an excuse of going to a wedding meal anyway.

So it was back to the usual tea at Waipo's. I brought over the pack of duty-free Marlboros for A Heng, plus some full strength ibuprofen for A Xia, had our meal, then went straight back to wait for A Dong again. Haiwei called me on the way to ask me to eat at the same place as last time and I explained I might be some time but would come later. Later arrived but A Dong didn't. I tried to call then decided to go out anyway. I composed a text message to this effect but Haiwei called me anyway to come so I joined mostly the same blokes as yesterday help them finish off some squirrel and some dog, washed down with plenty of cai ma losses. For some reason I wasn't on form. Maybe it was the la du, which had come back with a vengeance since giving me a false dawn at dawn earlier today.

I called Chuan Chuan and she brought over the kids and after they had some bbq we said good night to the blokes and went home for a shower and relatively early night. In bed thought, Leilei had received a nice response to his email to his class at home, where they had plenty of questions for him to answer. And of course Xixi wanted to write an email to her class. Once again it wasn't long before midnight before they were asleep.

Pretty "Friends" and meal with neighbours

Up at a decent 8.30am. Tan was still complaining of tummy ache now and mine was still not great. For some reason the kids were both up by 9am so we just had cereal bars from the fridge until I popped out to get Tan some rice noodles.

Bumped into an "uncle" neighbour who'd been trying to invite me for dinner for some time. I gave him my phone no. and said I should be able to tonight. He said he'd call by 6pm.

Due to having a reasonable amount of sleep I had no siesta. The kids and I went out for a drive in the midday sun to see what we could see. We did a tour of the guang chang and I somehow managed to spot several young ladies in make up and white dresses so we stopped for a gander. There was a photographer taking pictures of them and I asked a family nearby if it was a wedding. No it wasn't. So was it for an advert then? Again, no. So rather than someone putting me out of my ignorance I asked what this was for then, and the answer was "friends". I didn't ask further, but I did get talking to the other family watching. Apparently they were from Chongqing, and had a home in Pingguo too. And they had a six year old daughter. The wife said we must go to their home town and eat so I said I'd look into it. 22 hours on an overnight train? I'd do it but Tan..?

Friends at the guang chang

We exchanged WeChat IDs and drove off to have soup and egg fried rice at a local place, before going home to do homework with Leilei. I dropped the kids off with Chuan Chuan at Waipo's as she's back from doing exams in Baise, and got home and tidied up a little. It's slightly annoying that any cold drink leaves a puddle on the table due to the difference in heat, but even the supermarket doesn't sell any form of coasters - something I will remember to bring from the UK next time. Outside the supermarket they are fixing the road they made around eight years ago. It's a sign of how cheap labour must be that this is predominantly done by hand still. I wonder if it will last longer this time.

Fixing the road manually

Haiwei called soon after 6 to invite me to eat dog by the guang chang. I explained about the neighbour, and that I'd be there some time later, and he understood in a way that A Wu probably wouldn't have. But I'd received no call from the neighbour so had decided to eat dog when he decided to ring at 6.40 so I ended up going there. It was a nice family meal and I recognised his kids from a few years ago - at least two had kids of their own now. The daughter took a picture of me and then uploaded to WeChat and within minutes had a trail of comments....

Me on WeChat

The dad only had one bottle of beer, which was no problem for me but within a few minutes a box of 12 cold bottles was delivered. He wouldn't have anyone pay for them and leapt over us to ensure no-one did. I think he actually didn't have any cash on him but just told the delivery man not to worry, and judging by the smile on the delivery man he didn't. He got back in his seat and I said I'd take a picture of him and his wife and daughter and straight away he leapt over us again. Then I realised this time he'd gone to put a shirt on.

Uncle, aunt, and daughter

There were some other people at the table too, and it appeared all used to live in the same street as Waipo in Bangxu at some time. They said they were relatives, but I never know if that is the blood type here unless I check with Tan. Then one of the blokes got a pen and paper and wrote a note on it and gave it to me to give to Tan. I held it up and somehow was able to read the first few characters: "Tomorrow afternoon 5.30". From that I guessed it was an invitation. I decided to show off and tell him I didn't need to deliver it by hand - I took a picture of it and sent it by WeChat instead! Cool, I thought, until Tan replied saying she couldn't receive pictures without being in a wifi area and she was out of town with friends. Actually, I think it's only iphones that can't receive such multi-media messages as there is something wrong with the China Mobile 3G implementation at the hardware level and the iphone chips aren't flexible enough to deal with it. It works ok on my old Nokia N8, however long in the tooth it might be.

I made my excuses and left by 8. I guessed Tan wouldn't be interested in this invitation for tomorrow but you never know. I drove down to the guang chang and met up with Haiwei and some more clients. I also saw Huang Laoban and friends at another table. I really didn't want to gan bei too much so kept it to one each before descending into cai ma, which I had a good patch in luckily. But I was fizzed to bursting so I made the kids an excuse and went to find them in the guang chang with Chuan Chuan. They were sweating like pigs and I brought them back to Haiwei to let them have some bbq before taking them home for shower and bed. Then, just as Tan got back and we'd both managed a shower, the router went down with the water heater. This has been quite a common occurence but this time I couldn't force the switch up. I guessed it had burned through or something. So no more hot water until we fix the electrics, but at least I could find somewhere else to plug the router in that was within reach of the ethernet cable. Phew. Asleep soon after one after failing to sort out car insurance for Mat on my car. Swiftcover swiftly said they wouldn't cover him as we was not a UK resident although he's (I think) still British. Nice.