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.

Here comes the rain again

Somehow I got up at 9.30 - probably something to do with Xixi coming in and jumping on me. But today I didn't go out for breakfast, opting instead for a couple of cereal bars. Later, Tan went out and got some medicine for my la du, and ordered some lunch to be delivered.

Tan then went out and I let the kids play at home while I tried a siesta but didn't manage one till 3-5pm, but it did the trick. Haiwei called to see if I wanted to eat, so I said yep and went downstairs to get the bike. Tan hadn't wanted the kids to go out earlier in the day due to the extreme heat, but during my sleep the clouds had gathered and washed away much of it. Downstairs we saw that the rain that had fallen was starting to dry, and it was much much cooler. So we were a bit surprised as as soon as we were out of the gate it bloody deluged on us. Even turning back wouldn't have helped so we sped along down the road until we turned left and were able to start beating the cloud. It was quite fun until we had to turn right again and got our second deluging. After dropping off the kids, I got a third deluging during the one minute ride to Haiwei's office. It didn't help that I couldn't get the bike up the curb as it was so slippy. Any last dry bits of me became soaked as I struggled to eventually mount the curb and find too-late shelter under a tree. I did dry off the seat and cover it with its elasticated plastic bag that I had put on my head for the journey from Waipo's. I must have looked like a right plonker.

Going for a meal with Haiwei means meeting up for tea first and conversations with other bosses, and phone calls to see who else is coming. This time after the tea we went to pick up a couple of his clients from the north of China. I'd expected them to be in one of the better hotels but they were in rather a cheap one, the sort that also offers rooms by the hour, and there are many "massage" establishments in the same area too.

Anyway, they seemed nice enough and we drove to the new beef place I went to last week with Uncle Yellow. They both had a small bottle of "medicine alcohol" while I was given the choice between Blue Ribbon and Snowflake beer. I chose the latter due to 2.5% and better taste. They weren't that talkative at first but the "medicine" eventually had its effect and they were all quite jovial by the end.

We dropped them off and then went back to the office for more tea with another boss before Haiwei suggested going for bbq. I first called Jiuma, who was out with the kids, and she said not to pick them up as they were having fun in the guang chang, but she'd call me later. So, with this "permission", Haiwei got on the back of my dian dong che and we drove to the usual bbq place by the guang chang. I could barely eat or drink, and called Jiuma to find out where the kids were. She said not to worry again, so I didn't and forced down a beer and some nice pork.

Finally Jiuma called and I picked up the kids from the traffic lights. They'd had fun and she'd had fun taking them out and assuming some responsibility. Both of them managed to eat some bbq and we stayed another half an hour till well gone 11pm. I called Tan to see if she wanted me to bring some back but she was out already at the place I'd watched football yesterday. So the kids and I rode there for some snails and fried sweet corn with Huang Xiaoyuan, A Ni, and A Xia. It was good to see Tan back on speaking terms with A Ni, and not as the result of me inviting her. Showered, the kids fell asleep quickly at midnight, when Tan got back moaning about a tummy ache and blaming the snails.

Tucking in after a hard evening's bouncy castling

La du and the World Cup final

Up at 9am. Nice. I left the kids sleeping and went to the piano place for a tinkle. I heard the sound of the singing of scales to accompany the piano coming from inside and thought better of going in and interrupting. But I wondered if it did irrecoverable damage to your singing skills if you learnt to a very out-of-tune piano. I can live without knowing that.

I moved on to another place I hadn't been to before, that didn't have air conditioning, but each of its 10 cubicles were in use and I was told to give them a ring later. So I went down the place I'd been on our first full day, and found it mostly empty. The people there were happy to let me have a practice, so I did for around half an hour until some bloke popped in and started talking to me as if the piano didn't exist. After 10 minutes of conversation I was no longer in the mood so I found the teacher and gave her 10 kuai which she immediately refused and said some places may charge to let you practise we not here. That was nice - not the 10 kuai but the attitude. I'll be back.

We took the bike to Waipo's and had a simple lunch there. Pretty light as is the way in this weather. It's not rained for over a week and every day just seems hotter and hotter so being outside is a temporary option while going somewhere to eat normally. I took the kids to the supermarket and used my other Nectar card I'd left here as I'd forgotten my other one in London.

Nasty iphone cover that Xixi found and I got rid of

Back home I managed to squeeze out a siesta with the help of a G&T thanks to the local supermarket continuing to sell Gordon's export. I needed this as I'd promised to watch the World Cup final with Luwen later (at 3am). I let Tan go out and looked after the kids at home. Tan had banned them from going out tonight as they had been fighting, but it ended up being more of a punishment for us. But in fact the main reason I didn't mind being cooped up was that I'd finally been hit with my first case of la du and couldn't be more than a few yards away from a sit-down toilet. The 70 minute siesta represented the longest I'd been away from the toilet all afternoon.

By 11.30 I had Haiwei and Luwen calling me. I said I'd be some time as was sorting stuff out and ended up trying to get myself in the mood at gone midnight by having a sneaky can of Li Quan. But I knew I was tired and it would be a bit of a mission. I left and got to Luwen's office at 1am. There was another bloke and a couple of girls there, obviously having been there for some time. There were squeals of delight from the girls and they jumped to do selfies with me, doubtless to be distributed on their WeChat networks and probably at some stage for Tan to see. I did my best to look like a captured ally soldier in those videos where they have to say that they are being treated nicely.

There was plenty of beer and bbq on the table, and I was wondering how best to pace myself for the next 1h45 mins until the match started, when another girl arrived. After her selfie with me the three of them descended into a cat-fight of animalistic proportions. Bangxunese does seem to be a language very well attributed for arguing, but this had been taken to another level. Luwen was mostly smiling, and occasionally added a couple of calm words, but mostly let them get on with it. For me it was like watching caged animals without a cage. It culminated in one of the girls smashing her Samsung Note 1 or 2 on the floor, but there was no apparent threat of physical violence between any of them. I suppose they ran out of energy, though not beer, and it eventually fizzled away. Apparently they are all "friends" of A Heng and it was something to do with that night he caught a knife in his arm. They seemed quite friendly after that and lit up fags.

I hope their barks are worse than their bites (I couldn't risk being caught actually filming or I might have found out)

Although there was already a fair amount of bbq on the table, a delivery of several plates of oysters came a moment later. Luckily they weren't raw, but cooked with a bit of chilli. They were rather fat and succulent looking too. I reasoned that if the worst came to the worst I was only five minutes from a proper toilet and it would be a good excuse for going back. So I accepted one, then another, until after four I was actually full. There was still over an hour to go, so as more people turned up, we started playing cai ma but luckily my stomach didn't complain.

The oysters were less scary that the women

Eventually 3am rolled around. By this time I had been watching the pre-game show for half an hour as I literally couldn't stomach anything else. The girls were asked who I wanted to win. I didn't care too much but said Argentina. Wrong answer. Apparently one of them had put 2000 kuai on Germany (and showed me a text message as if to prove it), and the other 10000. Silly. So I said ok then I would support Germany, which seemed to make them happy and high five me. With so much staked on the game I thought they would be riveted to the tv but they continued to chat and the girl with the smashed phone smashed it to the floor a few more times for good measure. Then, five minutes into the game, they left together just like that.

At least that meant we could watch the game in peace. It was an ok half but I was flagging. I made my excuses at half time and they didn't make too much of an effort to make me stay - I guess they'd had the more useful part of my company when we were being interactive before the match. On the ride back I did a little tour and found, not to my surprise, that there were still a few street places open with people watching the footy. I decided to make one last effort and parked near Waipo's house and introduced myself to a group of blokes who bade me sit down and have a couple of beers. Luckily, it was only a couple or three, and it was quite enjoyable bantering a bit with those who supported Man Utd. Unfortunately neither team could scratch up a goal in the second half either and I couldn't scratch up another 30 minutes of awakeness so I left them and got home at 5am. Thoughtfully, I went to the vacated Xixi's room and put on the laptop there. I got quite a good stream of the first period of extra time, but that's all I remember as I fell asleep well before it finished.

Watching the second half from the safety of the outside

Grape picking and pig eating

Happy Birthday mum!

I used the solitude of the relatively early morning to catch up on some work-related stuff. While I was doing my expenses at 9am Haiwei called and asked if I could come with him to pick grapes. As I had nothing else planned I said I'd call him back after checking with the kids. Leilei had no interest but Xixi stirred from her slumbers and said she wanted to go. I'd been told we'd be back by 2pm so I could still catch up on sleep.

So I rang him back and said we'd have a quick bite to eat and go, and he said they needed to eat breakfast first too so would be round in 20 minutes. I got the phone call back soon after and had to hurry Xixi up washing and brushing and doing her hair as she is becoming a right proper little woman. Haiwei was waiting for us in his 4x4 downstairs and we got in the back and said hello to him and his wife. About 10 minutes into the journey we stopped. Apparently they hadn't actually had breakfast. In a way this was good as I realised that the female passenger was not his wife but a different woman, but I wasn't sure of the appropriateness of this relationship.

They finished their breakfast of noodles outside while Xixi and I sat in the air-conditioned car playing I-spy. It's a bit more fun here as there are many things you wouldn't normally see in London. Like cows on the road. We thought we'd be on our way when they'd finished eating but then another car turned up which was apparently part of our entourage. So food was ordered again. I took this opportunity to talk a bit to the woman in the front and found she was a bank partner from Baise. Apparently she was in the pub last night and I had gan bei'd with her. Slightly embarrassing, but it was dark, and now she was wearing large sunglasses and a large sun hat. At least I can't remember Haiwei's wife's name so I hadn't called her by that.

Finally, around 11am, we arrived at the vineyard. There were six other people from the other car, including two more women from the pub last night, their two sons, and 2-1 who was driving. We grabbed a couple of baskets and pairs of scissors and spent the next half an hour filling up. Xixi really took a shine to this and enjoyed the whole experience of checking the grapes first for ripeness (they were all bagged on the vine) before cutting, and she did all of our basket. We then went up to the woman by the side of the road and boxed and paid for them, before hearing that we were now going to pick "ti zi". I wasn't sure what "ti zi" were, but they were explained to me as like grapes but you could eat the skin. I fell back to translating on the phone and the definition was a less-than-helpful "grape/raisin".

An expert eye is required for checking the ripeness first...

...then unwrap and go for the jugular

Xixi, me and Haiwei with some of the harvest

Five minutes later at the ti zi place we found that there were already a great many already picked, much to Xixi's chagrin, and she deemed the place a waste of time as she didn't get to do any more picking. The ti zi were nice, though, more of a hard texture than the fleshy pu tao that you peel the skin off.

A bootful of grapes and ti zi

Then we were on the way to the He Hua lotus flower place we went to a couple of times last year. The young lady in the front, Xiao Mo as I had now learnt, was less shy now and oohing and ahing at the beautiful pink lotus flowers, whereas I was a bit more mindful of the time, and rather keen to eat. We finally got to the eating place at 1pm after deciding it was too hot to go for a wander in the flowers (good decision, like last year). Luckily, Haiwei knew the boss (I wonder if there are any he doesn't) and although it was busy we got a table pretty quickly. I gave Xiao Mo the bottle of sun tan lotion factor 50 that I'd brought and she appreciatively put it on, as did Xixi.

The meal at He Hua - Xixi had finished and wasn't in the mood for conversation

Then it suddenly turned from scorchio to rather "liang", which is a useful word for "cool", but in the sense of relative to what has just been, rather than a specific temperature I think. The clouds had come over the mountain for a welcome few moments of shade before being hastily burned away again by the angry sun. The food was more than plentiful for us, but as with so many meals here, people just appear from nowhere to sit down and consume. Haiwei's wife turned up, then Boss Liang to help out with proceedings. A few beers were consumed but nothing excessive, and I made sure Xixi was watered after she had eaten well. Then I got a phone call from Tan half an hour away in town to tell me to put sun tan lotion on Xixi and give her water as it was very hot as if 1) I wasn't aware of heat and how to look after kids and 2) the climate here was sure to be 100% the same as in the centre of town. I responded by sending a pic of Xixi with the requisite materials.

Xixi with the required materials

Luckily there was no walking in the flowers afterwards, so finally we left to go back. The roads were mostly good but occasionally atrocious. I find it hard to fathom how they can build roads that just suddenly turn into potholed tracks you have to negotiate at literally walking pace. I guess it has something to do with jurisdiction but still.... They are selling the He Hua place as a tourist destination, and even have English on many of the signs, but if getting there entails the discomfort of such roads it sends out a strange message.

We got home at 3.30 and Haiwei gave us a box of the grapes as a little present. Xixi was very proud and went to wash them as I went to have a little sleep. It was very little, about 15 minutes but it had the effect of a power nap. I noticed a missed call from Uncle Yellow, so called him up and he asked me to come to a mate's house to eat pig. Why not? I dropped off Xixi with Waipo, knowing she'd be whisked away by Tian Tian pretty soon, and Leilei was already with Nong Kaicheng, and drove to the centre of town where I found the flat of the bloke who used to be the cook at the Cool Cave, but now apparently cooks elsewhere for more money.

He'd bought a whole young pig and invited his mates around to his house to share it. All us blokes sat around the main table but the elders and youngers were also part of the meal and sat around the coffee table, slightly distanced from the smoke that was kept in our half thanks to the air conditioning unit and a fan to keep us cool. It was a great, friendly meal, and the bloke's parents were very welcoming too. His mum was 74, apparently just greying, and as spritely as en elf as she hopped up from the sofa to help us take a group photo.

Cheers!

An army fag with a couple of lines denoting something about the tobacco but I didn't quite understand what

We drank Snowflake beer. The brand, not as in made from. It was 2.5% which made for less dangerous cai ma but it didn't half fill me up. A couple of blokes came a bit later and we made space for them to my right. I recognised one from somewhere and he reminded me he came from Wenzhou, near Shanghai. The problem with this was that he couldn't cai ma in Cantonese and I'm not so hot in Mandarin so we did it in both which was confusing for me and my excuse for mainly losing. When he got his pair of disposable chopsticks he announced that they were broken as they wouldn't split apart. Someone else tried and agreed, then I motioned to hand them over to me. I pretended not to put in too much effort but it took a bit of the beer strength to prise them apart and I proudly showed them separated and handed them back, declaring that they were English chopsticks. I think the beer made them laugh more heartily than the joke merited. Then I noted that they were left-handed chopsticks and they nearly pissed themselves.

I was full of food and fizz and felt I could no longer carry on as I was shattered too so I made my kid excuses and I wasn't made to stay any longer than a few goodbye gan bei's at 8pm. But actually I was free for a little bit, so I did what any sane English man in possession of a dian dong che and 30 kuai would do and rode to the local head wash place for my first "head"onistic experience this year. I recognised the boss and some of the girls straight away, and somehow they recognised me too. Oh I could have drifted off had the air conditioning not been quite so close and had Tian Tian not called me to say Xixi was getting a bit tired half way through. I said Xixi would have to wait 20 minutes and when I'd paid up and picked her up half an hour later she seemed absolutely fine.

I also got a call from A Wu to meet him for a bite to eat, but Xixi came first. I did need to pick up Leilei from Nong Kaicheng's but he was having a shower there first so Xixi and I had a few minutes to kill. We managed to find out where A Wu was by a sort of hot and cold game of turning up where we thought we had to be, describing what we saw, then getting closer, describing what we saw again until he could see us out of the window of the restaurant. We did only stay 20 minutes, enough for a few gan bei's and words of consolation to another bloke whose wife is from Bangxu. Bangxu women are painted as something pretty vicious here, but in a jokey manner, and the phrase that everyone understands and laughs at when I say it is "I fear nothing in the sky, nothing on the ground, only when my wife speaks Bangxunese!". It rhymes and sounds funnier in Chinese.

Then we went to pick up Leilei from Nong Kaicheng's. Apparently they were waiting for us but there was no sign of them, even after phone calls, until his mum A Hua called back to confirm we were waiting at the wrong place. Whoops. I forgot they now live in the place we lived in for three months in 2008, just down the road from where we were. It was now gone 10pm so shower for Xixi then straight to bed for them and me, though for some reason couldn't sleep till 1am.

More massage pain but first sumptuous meal of the year

I suppose I had had more than five hours' sleep by 6am so wasn't too disappointed to wake up then. I probably would have got back to sleep normally but I was a little bit excited about taking out the dian dong che and taking advantage of the fact that it had a longer range than the one we'd used in previous years. By 7am it was already pretty hot outside but as I moved to third gear I was (apparently) going at nearly 53kph, about 10kph more than I'd done in the previous one. If my back had allowed it I would have bent forward to reduced the drag and get an extra kph or two but I was enjoying the wind in my face and the relative lack of traffic.

I took a road north of Pingguo for a couple of km but it was very industrial and not very inspiring, so I doubled back and went down to the river, reaching 56kph downhill at one stage. At the river I mounted a path to drive along the bank and came across some stone stairs that I nearly drove down by mistake, and narrowly avoided taking the the grass to the left hand side down the slope instead. I found myself in a park that was very clearly for bipeds and not mopeds. I drove past various people out for early morning exercise, embarrassingly looking for an exit I could make on two wheels. No-one actually complained, but I stuck out like a sore thumb and ended up having to drive the whole length of the park until I found somewhere I could roll out of.

I was at the bridge I'd taken Xixi to a few years ago. By now it was complete, except the road on the south side hadn't even been started. It made we wonder how the planning works around here. I mean what's the point of building a bridge at great expense if there is no road on the other side. The only people taking advantage were some old folk planting or picking vegetables on the arable other side, and some people using the bridge as a good vantage point for taking photos with the mountains as a backdrop.

The end of the bridge and the end of the road

I picked up breakfast and went home, then took Xixi to piano practice, leaving Tan doing her pilates and Leilei geeking on the iped. I tried to teach her the left hand of Les Cloches, and she got as far as playing with me, but wasn't too interested unfortunately, and wasn't into having a lesson (which I wasn't going to force upon her). So I had a practice and must have put off some of the kids in the other cubicles as someone came to close our door properly. A bit frustrated with Xixi, we left early to go to the acu-doctor for my follow-up session. But Xixi wasn't up for staying around so I dumped her off before coming back. A Xia was there having lunch with him. I think some of these women see more of this "doctor" than their husbands, or at least he touches them more than their husbands do.

The girls doing their morning exercises

Well he touched me painful. He focused on the parts of the nerve that were particularly bad and made them worse. I actually cried out in pain at some points, even though there was no-one other than him to hear, thus semi-proving a point about trees making a sound when they fall in a forest. He seemed intent on pressurising some point just below the back of my right knee ("acupuncture point" he needlessly explained in English). And the more I winced the more pressure he applied thus making it a self-fulfilling prophecy that he was kneading it because it was painful. In the end I just tried to bite the pillow in order not to make any further noise just to let him know it was "working". Again, there was no noticeable difference but the women seem to swear by him.

We'd not had a proper sumptuous friend meal yet, so rather than wait to be invited I made a few phone calls to see if anyone was available tonight for one. Everyone was. It seems few people make plans more than a few hours in advance here. I called Tan to let her know of my intent and to ask her to ask the friends I didn't already have in my phone. She was at A Xia's place with many of them and all could make it, even Chen Mei who'd come over from Nanning. I drove over there after lunch with the kids at Waipo's (yeah partly to show off the new set of wheels) and met up with the ladies. By a long stretch I wasn't the only one who had a new phone number this year, and A Hua helped me not only update my phone book, but fix the way I had written some names. Embarrassingly, her husband (A Dong) and A Xia's husband (another A Dong) I'd both written incorrectly. Thankfully she helped me write their names in full so at least I'll know which one I'm calling in the future.

As the meal was to be at 6pm, I knew as the inviter I had to be there at 5.30, meaning I needed to get some sleep now, so took the kids back and let them play Roblox while I caught some zzzs for an hour or so. At 5pm I showered and shaved, put on long trousers and socks, and took the dian dong che to "Bei Bu Wan", the seafood restaurant Chen Mei had ordered (that A Wu had said was too expensive).

The private room had two tables, obviously soon to be segregated into sexes. One by one everyone turned up until we needed to import more chairs to accommodate all plus the kids. Only one or two of the husbands didn't turn up. For the first time A Ni was there in the same room as Tan as they haven't been getting along recently, but all was fine. I ordered some stuff and let Lin Hong order the rest. To my slight surprise the manhandling doctor also turned up. He had a son but didn't appear to have a female companion and I was concerned that he would see me drink beer as I'd been almost off it for two days on his "advice". But he joined in with some gan bei's. I found out later that the women had all chosen to invite him (they obviously didn't ask me). I thought doctors should be considered better if their patients had fewer visits than more (I actually thought that was a Chinese proverb), but I didn't bring up that topic of conversation.

Nice un-posed pic from the ladies' table

It was basically like many of the other meals with the kids finishing first and watching tv, the women chatting and the men cai ma'ing. I gan bei'd most of the blokes, and then one by one each of the women, just to get it over with, which actually made me feel a little tiddly. Lin Hong took Leilei and Xixi out a bit later and the meal didn't end till 9pm by which time there was still quite a lot left over that was hastily doggy-bagged away lest it be wasted.

Post-meal with the ladies and a couple of kids

When walking out of the room I luckily remembered that it was me who would be paying and feared the worst, but it came to 1760 kuai. I jokingly asked for a discount and they said that without a "fa piao" it would be 1620. I guessed this meant without a proper receipt, a bit like paying cash in hand, which it totally was. Well I wasn't going to complain at 153 quid for a sumptuous meal that fed at least 25 people for three hours including drinks!

While the kids were out playing I went to A Wu's office for a bit and was chatting to the ladies from A Ni's work. They mostly have Samsung Note 3s and were scrolling through photos in portrait mode. I asked, in total innocence, why they didn't use landscape when looking at photos, and they looked at me in a bemused manner. So I took the phone from one of them, turned on auto-landscape and gave the phone back in that mode. Her eyes lit up and immediately another asked me to do the same for her. I must have been like some geek from heaven to them.

Then Haiwei gave me a call and I said I may not be able to meet him as A Wu said we were going to a new pub, but no matter - he was going there too. As apparently was Uncle Yellow, who also called me to ask my whereabouts. So when I got to the first floor of what used to be a coffee shop, and walked through the modern bar, it was almost like being at my local. It was a bit of a relief that a few gan bei's later Tian Tian called me to say the kids were tired. They are always a good excuse for leaving before having too many beers, so I said my goodbyes and went to the ripped Japanese flag cafe where the sweaty twosome were sipping some sweet tea pudding with Tian Tian and her parents. I said thanks to them and got the kids showered and in bed by midnight. I didn't even bother asking where Tan was but she got back at 1 after a night out with friends singing at a new KTV joint. Apparently only 200 kuai for two hours. Nice.

The crickets were playing at the pub

San lun che to dian dong che

Although up early enough to be playing table tennis, my back was still pretty awful, so I stuffed down three sugar-filled cereal bars to accompany the medicine. With Tan and the kids all asleep, a bit later I went down to the piano place to have a little practice. I noticed two bin bags outside one of our neighbour's doors and picked them up to take down with me and our rubbish too. I then realised how unlikely such an event would be and they might be concerned about foul play or something. Even worse, maybe it wasn't rubbish, but a quick check of the empty beer cans and throwaway food confirmed it was, and I was in no mood to go back up the 14 floors to re-deliver it. I think I'll continue doing this as and when I see neighbour's rubbish, and see if it's ever reciprocated.

I hadn't realised how un-soundproofed the cubicles would be. I tried to settle down to practise Gladiolus Rag but for the first few minutes it was so hard as the sound of the piano in the next room was louder than mine. I remember reading how Tiger Woods's dad would jump and scream at him while he was practising putting as a child, in an effort to make him oblivious to distractions, so I thought I'd try that tack, but then I thought what sort of person would try to put off someone practising the piano? Anyway it was pretty bad, though better than nothing and worth the 10 kuai for well over an hour. I now know where old pianos go to die.

Awful sounds on an awful piano with awful background sounds - three awfuls do not make a right

I brought back a bite to eat for lunch and then struck on the idea of getting a dian dong che. I'd actually thought about it a couple of days ago when Li Kun mentioned you could get one for a little over 2000 kuai. 2000 kuai was the price of A Ni's back in 2006 so it seemed very, if not too, reasonable. So after lunch I took Leilei and Xixi out on a san lun che to the place where all the dian dong che shops are. Knowing me, I could have dawdled on the decision to make such a purchase for a week or so, thus devaluing it as we'd have less time to use it. I used this potential devaluation as a means to spur me into making sure if we were going to get one it would be today.

Getting Tan's breakfast didn't take long

On the san lun che to the dian dong che place

At the first place we saw a few for between 2600 and 3300 each, and said we'd have a look around. The next place was a bit more pushy, as in they offered us water and tried to speak a little English. Then I realised if I was serious about getting one the only reason I would do it would be if Chuan Chuan could use it while we were away, so I called her and asked her to come to see them too. It was well that I did as she is very slight and many of them would have been too big for her. In the end I decided I'd like one with five batteries rather than four, for the extra 15 or so km it would give to the range, but the place we were looking at didn't have many 5-batteries at a small-enough size.

To the dismay of the shopkeeper we moved next door. The one thing I didn't like about that shopkeeper was that when you asked a price she always told you the "previous" price first, before telling you the actual price. That really put me off. There wasn't much in the next place either until I spotted a couple near the front in the burning sunlight rather than in the shade. There was one style that seemed to tick most of the boxes - small enough for Chuan Chuan, big enough for me and the kids, 5-batteries, plus the bonus of foot rests for the back passenger and a remote-control locking system. Chuan Chuan eventually haggled it down to 3000 kuai and we spent the next 30 minutes waiting for the bloke to fit it with all its accoutrements, including the batteries (worth about a quarter of the complete value). And then we drove away on our new, dark blue "Li Ma" bike, simple as that.

On our maiden voyage!

...before Chuan Chuan took them out to the swimming pool...

I was a bit disappointed at the performance considering it was new, and it was only when we'd reached home that I remembered that what would have been the horn button on the right was actually the gear button - there were apparently three gears on this electric bike. The next time I used it, to take Tan to Waipo's for tea, I moved it into second and it accelerated away very nicely. Phew.

Just as I was finishing tea with the family, I got a call from Haiwei asking to come over and have a bite to eat. I wasn't hungry but as the kids were going out and so was Tan I didn't have too much to do so drove home and got picked up a moment later, to have a second tea at big sister's house, as I had a few days ago.

I got a lift back around 9ish and found the kids a bit later to take back for a little drive, just as an excuse to use the bike. We went down to the place I bought my two tea tables from and met the owner there. He was very excited to see me and gave me a hug and got Leilei to take a couple of pictures of us using his iphone (the owner's). We then sat down and all drank some Pu Er tea, which was very nice. We spent a good 15 minutes there and Leilei was very interested in the various carving of the tables and was asking how long it took to do. He's a bit less shy this year, and Xixi is noticeably more open when talking with adults, which makes it considerably easier.

Leilei modelling his favourite tea table

We then drove to the guang chang for some bbq and Haiwei also came over for a bit too. The kids actually ate more than I expected, and Haiwei and I indulged in some cai ma, which I mostly lost much to Leilei's amusement.

When I got back and had them showered I realised how much the lack of siesta had taken out of me as I dosed off with the kids at midnight only for Tan to fetch me at 1.40 with a not-too-impressed look.