We’ve had a busy couple of days. Cameron is back in Blighty so I’ve been chief parent. Wednesday was formal uniform (for Remembrance Day) – might not sound busy but involve the sourcing and naming of blazers and new skirts. And Jenny lost a tooth. And I went out for a lovely lunch (that is octopus tapas in the picture. I still haven’t got my photo-editing software.)
Thursday, a day off school for the girls. Not for me as I had (junior) teacher consultations first thing. Once I got home, though, we were Off! To the fabric market first, as I am having a dress made for a ball in a couple of weeks. Except it wasn’t ready (gah) so instead the girls made me buy them ponchos. Then we popped to the Jing’an sculpture park. Jenny freaked out a bit because it was stuffed full of (very well fed, very sleek) stray cats. Might have overdone the ‘strays will give you rabies’ warnings.
From there to a shopping plaza near home. A lovely lunch, some more street sculpture, a spot of shopping. Then home to flop on the sofa, exhausted (me), or to go to football and fencing training (M and T). Not entirely sure what J did.
This morning, we left home at 930 to go to a trampoline park with most of the rest of the school. And almost nobody else, which was lovely. I didn’t jump. When we got home, apart from nipping up the road to get a special cake for a certain young lady, the afternoon was filled with people from the air and water purification company. Millions of them. For hours. Some ‘installing’ air purifiers (plugging them in); some installing water things (more technical). One in a fancy coat seemed to have just come along in order to make me feel guilty about having a lot of space. Although at least he, unlike the salesman who came last week, didn’t tell me I needed help to keep the house tidy! Cheeky monkey.
So we have ticked off ‘don’t breathe the air’ – although we’ve had a few bad days recently so still intend to go and get masks, we should now have clean air in the hours – and ‘don’t drink the water’, although there was some confusion when they asked if I had a spare socket. (Obviously not. With hindsight I think they were asking if I had a multiway adaptor thingummy.) So now they have disconnected the waste disposal and if I want to use it I have to put a plug into a really iffy looking extension cable under the sink. I made them ring the compound management company to ask them to come and fit another proper socket but of course did not understand a word. For all I know they might have been saying ‘just go along with it, we will tell her it is not possible’, but they did send out the maintenance man. Who took the rotator arm out of the dishwasher and bashed it loudly on the side of the sink for a good 10 minutes – the girls huffed and turned up the TV* – before showing me it was blocked, and leaving. I have very little idea what was going on.
*On the bright side, we now have a working telly, on which M has been making me watch Stranger Things. And mostly OKish internet!