Blog

Plane and simple

26/12/2022

JD and I received three Lego model presents between us this Christmas. The "787 Dreamliner" pictured here is a big model but wasn't too difficult to put together.

However, JD is now tackling a Lego typewriter with 30 moving parts, while I've started a huge 4200 piece Star Wars Death Star!

....we may have bitten off more than we can chew!

Cracker!

25/12/2022

We had a great Christmas Day. JD opened his stocking presents in bed in the morning. Then, we opened our main presents after lunch. JD was delighted to get everything he had hoped for - Lego, drone, earphones, tent, cooking tools, Frazzles etc. We even had a surprise Christmas Spelling Test, where JD won cash prizes for every English spelling he got right! I got a Lego Death Star with 4200 pieces!

Then Jiajia pulled out all the stops with a traditional Christmas dinner - roast chicken with all the trimmings, plus crackers and mince pies!

Christmas Party

24/12/2022

These have gone up all over town (translated here) reminding everyone how lucky they are to have such a kind and caring Communist Party leadership (who don't think twice about paying a ton of public money to advertise how fantastic they are!). Sad, really!

Nice niche

22/12/2022

"The niche design does not bump into the shirt...!??"

Countdown to Christmas

20/12/2022

JD is keeping track of the number of days to Christmas with a self-made Post-it Advent Calendar! It has no chocolates or nativity pictures, but at least he gets to rip something off each morning and savour the countdown! He has already opened one present, actually, since we are all in quarantine with COVID - using his spare time throughout each day to construct a huge Lego aircraft!

Christmaths

18/12/2022

With JD's Primary School having been closed for a month now, his schoolwork is all assigned, handed-in and marked online. Up until last week, he has done this though the day at "Cleaner School" - his after-school club attended by 5-10 students, usually just to do homework but now doing classwork through the day too.

But with COVID ripping through the population now, since the removal of pandemic restrictions, "Cleaner School" has closed down too. JD has had COVID this last week but is now back to 90% health and so the schoolwork continues. Jiajia has to do the Chinese and Maths with him (90% of the total) while I pitch in with English and "generally keeping everyone less stressed"!! The holidays can't come quickly enough!

COVID - ain't over it

16/12/2022

Nearly three years after China first "introduced" COVID-19 to the world, the Government here finally removed most pandemic restrictions last week. Not because the battle was won, mind, but because of the nose-diving economy and protests around the country from weary citizens fed up with daily queues for tests and the threat of being dragged off to a quarantine facility if they dared test positive.

But with the poor take-up of less effective Chinese vaccines, the overnight removal of restrictions was bound to lead to a huge wave of infections and inevitably a lot of deaths, even with the current milder strains.

And so, along with dozens of our Kunming friends, we all caught COVID this week. I started it early, and Jiajia/JD went down with it a few days later. Not nice, but bearable, and we are all coming out the other side now - just in time for Christmas! However, with predictions of over a million deaths to come in China, we've been lucky, I guess. Let's hope it the beginning of the end of this thing at last.

I flgured as much!

14/12/2022

Eagle and tiger

12/12/2022

Another fun day yesterday spent at the Yunnan Minorities Village. Despite fewer COVID restrictions recently, the huge park was still largely deserted and we had a great time biking from village to village and meeting the folk from all the different minorities.

In-tech-national

10/12/2022

Modern technology seems to get more and more unbelievable, year after year, month after month. If you had told me 5 years ago ago that I - sitting in South West China - would be able to have a video chat with my brother while he walks his dog in the British countryside, listening to me on speakers built into his hat, I would have said you'd been watching too much science-fiction!

And then tonight, I shall be watching England play football in Qatar on Chinese TV, streamed to my laptop, while simultaneously listening to BBC commentary on my phone (using a Virtual Private Network to get round China blocking the BBC) - and all LIVE!

And my university lessons are all online too! Crazy!

One to tree for ...Christmas!

8/12/2022

Once my birthday is done and dusted, the pressure is on (from JD) to put up our Christmas decorations. This year he was keen to pitch in with his own ides of what to put where, and how to decorate the "showing its age" tree! We'll gradually add presents underneath it, over the next fortnight, to build up the excitement. Jiajia is already scoring the internet for cheap and cheerful stocking fillers, Christmas crackers, sweets, mince pies and presents!

Throwing the tower in

6/12/2022

The huge water tower that dominates the view from the back of our house is slowly being dismantled. Goodbye tower - we'll miss you!

O camel ye faithful...

4/12/2022

We spent a fun day out in the countryside today with one of JD's friends, Johnny, and his family. Seven of us squeezed into their SUV for a 45 minute drive to a famous vegetable market (closed because of COVID) and on to a farm/play area. The kids had great fun fishing for tiddlers, trying a shooting range, feeding a couple of camels(!) and digging up carrots. It was a hot and breezy day, despite being Winter, and we returned home with sunburn and fresh vegetables!

Camouflage

2/12/2022

It's no good trying to hide it - I can still see your e-bike!

Given half a year

30/11/2022

The Internet tells me that Chinese dwarf hamsters can live "up to 2 years" and that a 1½ year old is considered "elderly". So, as "Bitey" turns 2½ this month, with no obvious lack of energy and looking as healthy as ever, we wonder just how long this chap can keep going? JD had long since lost interest, so it falls to me to feed Bitey, clean his cage and give him the occasional outing. And yet he still has a nip at me, given half a chance!

Qridder?

28/11/2022

Odd name for a shampoo...!?

Yawn in the USA

26/11/2022

I woke JD up at 3am this morning to watch the World Cup footie with me. After England's 6 v 2 heroics over Iran last week, I was sure this match would be a great introduction to the thrill of international football for JD. Sadly it was a dull affair and we trudged back to bed as soon as the final whistle sounded.

Line and cheating

24/11/2022

I woke yesterday to text messages informing us that all Primary and Secondary schools are closing again, for at least three days. Yes, COVID is still perceived as a major threat to life in China and, with 100 positive cases in Kunming (pop: 7m) and three deaths in Beijing (4 hours flight away) life here grinds to a halt, once again! Today my University went into lockdown. We will probably have to teach online again next week. Groan!

Meanwhile, we all have to queue for 30-45 minutes every day or two to be tested, and guards check everyone's phone health codes at work, on buses, in parks and shops etc. After three years of this it really has gone beyond tiresome, especially when the rest of the world (using vaccines that actually work!) seems to have moved on.

P.S. As I suspected, all teaching is online again until further notice...

Yes, ban it all...!!

22/11/2022

Ten quid for two squid

20/11/2022

Despite us all having coughs and colds, we travelled to Green Lake today to have a lunch, celebrating my Birthday in a pretty (if pricey) restaurant there. Ma joined us, despite "being on her death bed" all last week (she said). Jiajia ordered a wide variety of meat and veg. JD especially loved the squid. We'd brought along a birthday cake too but, by dessert time, were all too full to eat it. So we'll tuck into that this evening.

Happy Bothd-eye

18/11/2022

My birthday present from Jiajia this year (as last year) is to pay for my upcoming cataract eye operation. Hence the cheeky card....

Successful...?

16/11/2022

Passeuger Transport!

Lost

14/11/2022

We took JD to his "girlfiend's" 10th Birthday Party yesterday. Unfortunately, the English on their signage let them down and I spent the first 20 minutes looking for a lost girl!!

Sign of the times?

12/11/2022

Strange sign spotted the other day. Not English, not
Chinese, but it seems to be saying something....

Testing one's patients

10/11/2022

One of the blocks in our neighbourhood went into lockdown earlier this week. Apparently one of the residents had had contact with someone who had had contact with someone else who had tested positive for COVID!! That's how paranoid things are here these days. So the COVID response team stopped anyone leaving the building until everyone could show three days of negative Nucleic Acid tests.

Our Province has 47 million people and there are currently 44 cases of COVID. Yet we are still required to have tests every two days and people are genuinely nervous.