Bulgaria with Noodles

Just before breakfast, we received this WeChat message from Julia, who has now safely returned to Shenzhen from the USA. This morning, when I took Diudiu for a walk, she insisted to go to the direction of your apartment in SZ. I let her keep walking until the exit of metro station, but she still wanted to go downstairs and keep walking to your place. Then I told her Uncle Simon and Auntie Irena weren’t there because they went back to Bulgaria. She seemed like understood what I’m talking about and she looked very upset. I think she must miss you guys so much. We miss you too, Diudiu! And in case you were wondering what has been happening in Downton Abbey , it's all over between Lady Mary and Lord Gillingham, Carson has proposed, Robert has guessed that Marigold is Edith's daughter and Anna has been released from prison.

I have been counting down the days (Irena said it was a waste of red and black ink) and now it has finally arrived. Yes, I am now retired and I am at last on my way to becoming senile, geriatric and an OAP. (My Alzheimer’s means that I cannot remember where I left my Zimmer frame.) Actually, one of my reasons for retiring early is my health. I want to have less stress, more exercise and be able to get a decent night’s sleep. This should mean that, for the first few years at least, my retirement should mean that I have a lot more energy and feel much better. On Thursday, the students had a sort of picnic or potluck lunch out in the corridor. The usual healthy and nutritious food!  I shall miss working with the lovely Miss Yanee, my excellent (and amazingly patient) Teaching Partner. The children love her because she really cares about them. Sometimes the boys in the class have been a bit rude to her and that has made me very angry. When the students are upset or worr...

"The Leaving of Liverpool"   is an old song (and a sad song) by The Dubliners and it has the lines: It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me But my darling when I think of thee. For the last twenty years, I have been leaving different places: the UK, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Romania, the UAE, Qatar and now China. Sometime leaving is easy because we never put down any roots and we did not like the place that much anyway! When we left Qatar, it was that much harder because we were there for five years and we really got to know people in our church, Doha Fellowship. Lunch at the cheapie noodlie place  China, however, is a bit different because we have enjoyed it so much more than Qatar. Green Oasis has probably been the best international school I have worked at and for the last two years I have been one of the elders of Shenzhen International Fellowship, so we have been very much involved in the life of the church, in lots of dif...

The Redang Island Café in Shenzhen is not really a café. It’s a Malaysian Restaurant in Fumin, close to the Futian Border Checkpoint. Lots of teachers from Green Oasis seem to live in Fumin.  Maybe that it is because rents are a bit cheaper than Futian or perhaps because it is closer to Hong Kong. On the other hand, it might be because there are so many good (and reasonably-priced) restaurants in this district of Shenzhen. Even though we have been going there for nearly five years, Irena and I nearly always have the same main dish: the mango fish. It’s a wonderful spin on the traditional British fish and chips (or chish and fips, if you like silly jokes). The mango gives the fish a special freshness and the spicy sauce certainly makes a change from the usual vinegar. For good measure, we also added some curried vegetables.  Having introduced us to so many restaurants in SZ, it made a nice change for Irena and I to take our dear Chinese friends Bill and Julia to a r...

 We found a parking place! Yesterday we were at Da Peng fortress (well, really it is a sort of fortified town, so I suppose that it is the Chinese equivalent of Veliko Tarnovo). Bill and Julia very kindly took us there in their car. Normally it takes about an hour to drive there, but yesterday was a Chinese Public Holiday, so it took us three hours to get there. Finally finding a place to park was a cause for celebration. Then it was another four hours to get back to Shenzhen. Cockles and mussels alive alive-o! Unlike the ultramodern SZ, the historic Da Peng fortress is hundreds (if not thousands) of years old, with some impressive ancient fortified gateways and crenelated old walls. It is a massive tourist trap, with every conceivable piece of tat for sale to the endless throngs that fill up the narrow streets. There are innumerable restaurants, cafes, bars and street food sellers. As Da Peng is a seaside town, Molly Malone would have been impressed with the bucket...

Last week I had two days off, as I was really very ill. On Monday I was away with a cold, runny nose and a very sore throat. I managed to drag myself into school for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but then on Thursday night I had an awful stomach ache and was vomiting at around midnight. It was pretty nasty and then there were also some problems at the “other end” too. Not surprisingly, I was off school on the Friday as well. The last time I had a day off was in December of 2016, so really I have an excellent record for not taking days off. This Wednesday was my last-ever parents’ day. At Green Oasis, a “parents’ day” consists of lots of 15-minute sessions with all of the parents of the students in my class, 5G. It went okay and in fact Miss Yanee did nearly all of the talking. Normally I prepare a very detailed page of information for each student, but this time I could not be bothered and it did not seem to make much difference. Most of the parents of my students in Class...

The box has arrived! Irena's Korg keyboard It’s arrived. The big black box, the one with the metal bits along the edges and at the corners. The one for my dear Irisha’s electronic keyboard. Maybe we will line it with a bit more foam rubber. We bought her Korg keyboard when we were in Romania and it is rather a nice one, so it came with us to Qatar and now it is here in China. Irena rather likes it and so this means that she does not to leave it behind when we leave in the middle of June. That is just over two months from now until 18th June. It is all a bit scary. This black box is a sign of the end, a bit like a coffin for our time in China. What will we be saying our goodbyes to? Well, one thing that we will be very glad to say farewells to is the awful aperture, the horrible hole, the Black Hole of Shenzhen. It is next to the washing machine and from out of this opening come forth the most dreadful smells, whiffs, pongs and stenches. The very smelly hole besid...

We washed the chopsticks too. Firstly, I was delighted to see that two of my favourite blogs, Peter and Minty's www.movetobulgaria.blogspot.com, and Claire's www.auntiebulgaria.blogspot.com, have new posts. Minty had not posted anything for ages, so we were wondering what had happened. Secondly, my own blog has now had more than 6,000 "hits". That is pretty good for a blog that has only been going for two months. Bill and Julia are our dear friends. It would be difficult to imagine our years in China without them. Even though Bill and Julia are younger than us, Irena and I always enjoy their company. We are always laughing when we are together.  Of course, this is China and so one of the most important things the four of us do is – yes, you guessed it – eating! Bill and Julia love Irena’s cooking, so they often come to our apartment for a meal. We often go out to a restaurant together and so that means leaving the ordering to Julia! On Sunday, after c...

Cycling through the Yangshuo countryside There isn’t one. Well, what I mean is that there is no Christmas holiday for most people in China.  Tomorrow is Christmas Day, 25 th December, but for just about everyone it will be just an ordinary working day here in the Middle Kingdom. I am a foreign teacher at Green Oasis School and so I am getting a two-week holiday, whereas teachers at ordinary Chinese schools get no holiday and neither do their students. Today is Christmas Eve, 24 th December, and it is a Sunday, so my church, Shenzhen International Fellowship, had a Christmas service this morning. Afterwards we invited our dear Chinese friends, Bill and Julia, to have lunch with us at our apartment. It was nothing too fancy, as Irena had been on the worship team and so she wanted something quick and easy: jaozi (dumplings) and salad, with Julia’s excellent apple pie for dessert. (As readers of my blog will already know, the best thing to d...