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We went to dinner at the hotel yesterday evening and both stuffed ourselves silly.

I was a little spoilt when we stayed at the beautiful hotel in Suzhou, as they had beetroot in their salad buffet. Now the beetrootless salad at our hotel is just not quite as satisfying as it was once before.

Ahhh, beetroot, I miss such a pretty coloured addition to my meals.

The sashimi was so good I wished I hadn’t eaten anything before hand and they had all my favourites for dessert, so I quickly forgot about my initial disappointment.

The best part of all, was that after dinner I got to choose another treat from the bakery, so today has been Rye Bread Day.   Poached eggs on rye for breakfast, salad on rye for lunch and a peanut butter on rye sandwich while contemplating what to cook for dinner.

That seriously is very, very exciting.

I found these Kam Kam mobile phone holders online today, and although my phone never rings, I still want one.

I think Chandler might like them too.

We met Chandler’s best friend in the park again today, the biscuit-bringing grandpa.

He was rather unimpressed that I haven’t been spending enough time walking Chandler in the early afternoons, as he has been bringing biscuits and waiting in the park every day but hasn’t run into us recently.

We spent a nice few hours today sitting in the sun by the lake and chatting to the small crowd that gathers whenever we come to a stop anywhere, and Chandler got his fill of biscuits and ear scratches for the week.

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.