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I’m going back to Melbourne this week.

I’m so looking forward to leading a bit of a normal life for a while and working out what it is I want to do.

Daily life in Hefei is just too bizarre, not at all possible to make rational decisions while here I have decided.

Yesterday the intercom rang and I ignored it, as I usually do if I don’t recognise the person.  Just a few minutes later my visitor was back with a guard, ringing again.  I like and trust our lovely guards so answered just in case he had something important to tell me.  The conversation went something along the lines of:

Hello?

Is anybody home?

Umm… no, there’s nobody home.

Ok (hangs up).

I’ve no idea who it was or why he enlisted the guard for help.

Not long after that, a girl from the washing machine company called and fired off a very rapid bunch of questions I didn’t understand a word of. Our washing machine has been “fixed” a number of times recently and each time I have got what I assume is a follow up call from the company to check all is well.

Generally once the caller realises I am clearly not fluent in Chinese, they ask a few simple questions, I give a few simple answers and I am left feeling quite impressed with my ability to hold a phone conversation in Chinese.

After a few attempts at answering”Washing machine, good” to each of yesterday’s long incomprehensible questions and not succeeding in making my caller go away, I decided instead to reply to each question with long English phrases.  Strangely enough, she wasn’t put off and we had quite a long conversation about who-knows-what.

Bit empty in here this week…

I’ve been avoiding anything that looks even a little like responsibility this past fortnight or so, and because I feel like I should keep my blog updated regularly, have avoided that too.

We had a friend come to stay last week, which was a blast, and due to the amount of alcohol consumed during the week, was a huge boost to my spoken Chinese as well.

This week has been cold. Really cold.

If I had bothered to blog this week, it would have looked something along the lines of:

December 3rd, 2007

Hid in the bedroom with the heater on, ate some cereal, played sudoku, listened to 774, watched Prison Break.

December 4th, 2007

Played some sudoku while listening to 774 and watched Prison Break while hiding in the bedroom with the heater on and eating cereal.

December 5th, 2007

Watched a bit more Prison Break then listened to 774 as I enjoyed my cereal and hid in the bedroom all day with the heater on .

Oh, and played sudoku.

So… you’re glad I didn’t update now, aren’t you.

It’s very much autumn now.

Sunny afternoons and clear skies have made for perfect sitting-by-the-lake weather, and the park keepers have been kept very busy sweeping all the falling leaves.

Lucky Chandler is away, as the sight of a broom made of twigs is just too tempting, and he tends to pee on the sweeper’s brooms if they ever dare to stop for a rest.

Today as we lay in the sun, the sound of someone playing an erhu came floating across from the island. I begged for Patrick to take me over to see, but he said it was “just a normal thing”, so weird for me to want to go and stare.

By the time I had convinced him that it was ok for me to stare as I am a foreigner, and we do strange things, our erhu uncle had moved on to playing Chinese chess instead.

I think I’ll just have hurry over and stare by myself next time.

I’m back in Hefei now after an absolutely fantastic weekend in Hong Kong.

I should have written while I was there, as now I have a complete overload of bloggable material and don’t know what to write.

After I came up with the clever little idea of flying down to Hong Kong for the weekend, I managed to rope another three friends into the trip, which in addition to the lovely Wincy already being there from Melbourne, made it the perfect weekend.

When I was still in Tokyo, Michael and I spent far too much money we didn’t have on coffee and cake on the weekends, and made it quite the tradition. The opportunity to spend far too much money on cake and coffee in Hong Kong for the weekend was just too good an opportunity for Michael to pass up, and his ticket was booked.

I would have expected Jana to prove a little more difficult to convince, being that she is in London and all,… but a 12 hour flight each way is no obstacle for Jana when there is some Hong Kong food and shopping to be had and the opportunity to surprise Wincy off her chair. I think it took her about 30 minutes to have convinced yet another friend into the trip and booked their tickets. Jana and Filomena absolutely filled their weekend with shopping, eating, and drinking, then left on Sunday night to go straight back to work Monday morning.

I am impressed.

The look on Wincy’s face when they walked into the restaurant on Friday made it all worthwhile I suspect.

We ate well all weekend, we shopped well all weekend, and even fitted in some decent sightseeing. All went so smoothly I fear I have developed a taste for flitting of to another country for a weekend… I might well need to get a job soon.

Patrick has decided to send Chandler off on a dog-show tour of China this month. He has some handlers here are the moment prettying Chandler up ready for a show tomorrow.

Apparently I am not the best of influences, and show dogs aren’t supposed to stand up on their hind legs to give hugs or to chew on people’s ears.

Between shows, Chandler is going to stay at a doggy retreat in Beijing, where he is going to meet some girl Chandlers and relearn how show dogs are supposed to behave.

What am I going to do without Chandler for a whole month?? NOOoooo….

I was devastated to find they had trimmed Chandler’s lovely socks today. He has the hairiest feet, and when he runs, the hair flaps about in front of his feet as if he is wearing socks that are starting to fall off just a little. Makes me laugh every time.

I managed to rush in with a camera and take a pre and post trim picture…. socks or no socks… what do you think?

The handler just thinks I am odd.