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The weather has been perfect this week, sunny blue skies and cool.

It has meant I have got a lot of cleaning done, as it it much more fun to clean when it is sunny, and I have spent lots of time sitting on the grass by the lake with Chandler, but… that’s about the extent of what I have been doing.

I’m getting bored.

I have lots of things to do, but just don’t feel like doing any of them. Instead of doing my Save the Children work or my interior design assignments, I am sitting on the net looking up other possible pass times.

Very bad.

Patrick works far too much, so now I miss having him around all the time.

One very good turn of events this week though, Patrick made an important discovery.

We can buy bread from the hotel!  Yay!! They have rye and walnut bread, croissants and all sorts of other tasty things.  I bought myself a loaf of banana bread this week and it was my best purchase in years.  Well, close to it.

At least on the food front, things are getting better and better.

It is getting quite cold in Hefei now, I had looked forward to winter for ages, but am now finding myself missing the warm days we have been having recently.  Very unusual for me.

Yesterday was only 11 degrees or so, so clever Patrick thought up some good cold day activities to keep me from getting grumpy.

We went to Yum Cha for brunch, in a lovely old 1920s tea house hidden between the trees on the lake.  Patrick had already had breakfast, so we didn’t get to order much, but the few dumplings we had inspired us to go back hungry next time.

After our tea, Patrick took me for a facial and massage, where Patrick snored away happily for 90 minutes as I tried not to fall asleep and miss the pampering.

I’m hoping to convince him that Korean BBQ is a good way to enjoy the cold this evening.

I have finally got around to uploading some of the photos from the wedding, all taken by the photographer, so no credit to me if they are pretty.

I should write a little more about what happened not that I have watched the video and can still remember some of it.

As I think I mentioned earlier, part of the tradition is for the husband to come and collect his new wife from her family home and take her back to the new house.

As Melbourne is a little far, the hotel served in it’s place.

Patrick appeared at the hotel in the early afternoon followed by his fleet of wedding cars, all decked out with pink flowers, ribbons and balloons. We were aware that he was going to push red envelopes on money under the door until my family decided that my value had been met, but weren’t quite sure how much we were supposed to accept.

Finally, after Patrick had exhausted his own pockets, and those of everyone in his party, possibly even a passing security guard, he was allowed into the room. All were very impressed with my uncle and my father for their strict negotiations, I think Patrick had expected to get away cheaply. Ha!

Patrick then had to find my shoes and put them on for me, something he found a little difficult.

I suppose I should actually be very glad he doesn’t know how to put on a pair of stilettos.

We all hopped into the flowery cars for the trip back to our new house, with photographers and video-cameramen hanging out the windows all the way - very paparazzi-like.

Our cars were met at our home by piles of firecrackers in the drive and lines of uncles armed with the Chinese version of those little party poppers that spit out a bunch of streamers when their cord is pulled. The Chinese version is, of course, much larger and packed with a far more generous amount of explosives, so while being rather more scary, they are very impressive.

Once I had been convinced it was safe to get out of the car, we headed upstairs, where I gave Patrick’s parents each a cup of tea, they presented me with more red envelopes and Patrick and I fed each other a little sweet red bean dessert.

A little rest and some photos later, we all piled once again into our cars to be taken to the restaurant.

A blur of photos with 600 guests, more pyrotechnics, a toast with each of the 60 tables, Chinese vows I agreed to without being sure what they meant followed, and suddenly everyone had gone home.

Actually, in true Chinese tradition, really suddenly everyone had gone home.

I have never worked out how everyone knows a dinner has ended, but there is no hanging about for coffee and a chat after any Chinese meal. One minute you’re enjoying your tortoise soup (Granny!!) and the next everyone is half way out the door.

If ever you attend a Chinese dinner, please make sure if you go to the bathroom that everyone will still be there when you return. An acquaintance learned that rule the hard way.

We went to a different Carrefour supermarket that turned out to be far better than our usual one.  It had a whole four shelves of foreign foods, including Japanese and Korean goods. Yay!

They even had the French mustard and all the Masterfoods herbs I like, so no more need to travel to Shanghai to stock up.

Ahh, happiness…I think I have also finally worked out how to use my convection microwave oven, so as soon as I find somewhere that stocks oven proof dishes, I’ll be able to use it.

Things are looking up.

Oh, AND I found a real ironing board, one that isn’t so small and ridiculous that people want to take photos of it.

Chandler keeps making more and more friends in the park.

We ran into a grandpa in the park today that rides around on a very impressive motorised scooter-chair-tricycle type contraption.

We have seen him once before when he stopped me to tell me off for not wearing a coat on a cold morning. Today he beeped at us happily and stopped to pat Chandler’s ears.

He then produced a bag of biscuits from somewhere within his vehicle and instantly became Chandler’s new best friend. We chatted a while even though I found his grandpa-style mumbling a little difficult to understand. He is one of the good communicators who repeats things a few times in different ways rather than the general method of yelling them at me louder and louder until giving up.

We managed to discuss a few things; the fact that he is from Shanghai and thinks it is a much better place to live than Hefei (a spooky coincidence… we have just this week been thinking about moving there), the fact that I have too many freckles and it is very strange, and children.

Our new friend was horrified to hear that Patrick and I have been married four years but are yet to have any children, and promptly announced the fact to everyone passing by.

I think I will start giving our big-Chinese-wedding date when people ask how long we have been married, rather than the real date, then I should have at least another year to go before people start fussing about our being child-less.

Walks in the Park with Chandler are never dull.