Winter is here...

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.....we are coming to you from a very different Shanghai this week as winter has finally hit us. We went to school Monday morning in an autumnal state, but walked home as freezing wrecks! Our school does not believe in closing windows and doors, so us poor Western teachers shelter in our classrooms for warmth, dashing down the 71 steps to grab a cup of tea at break time and use the printer. School is a manic place as usual and we have had more ups and downs this week. Luckily, the hours we spent last weekend helping Sophie to adjust to the different ways of working in Grade 2 to Grade 1 have helped greatly. Although Monday brought a whole bottle of water spilt over her (brand new) Maths books, she has improved greatly. Ian and I had a meeting with her teachers, Ms Chu and Ms Wendy, who agreed that she has improved and is not the only one who forgets to bring her homework home! Sophie even told me about her friend who was off sick because "he had worms in his cubby"!! (shelf where they put their books in) Apparently, he put his hand in to get his pencil case and came out with a couple of yummy squirmy worms. As you can imagine, the children squealed a touch and the ayi was called to deal with it with much puzzlement, Unfortunately the boy in question promptly popped his fingers in his mouth and was not seen for a couple of days!!!

We have been out the last 2 saturday evenings which has been lovely and somewhat of a novelty. Our ayi is quite happy to do extra hours at the weekend, even though, this weekend, she moved house during the day and came to ours at 6.30pm! Last weekend we went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant called Maya with our friends Suzanne and Mark, and Ray who is Mark's High School friend but has been living here for the past 15 years...who says the world is a big place? We had a total giggle, helped along by pitchers of sangria and margaritas, and the food was delicious. The best has to have been the chocolate chilli cake...wow, amazing! We then ventured onto a rather swanky bar called Glamour. This was on the Bund and had a brilliant view of the Pearl Tower and surrounding area, all lit up. Amusingly, the boys had drinks called 'James Bond' and we had some other yummy cocktails. We were also joined by our friend Amanda for a couple before us "oldies" headed home to turn into pumpkins and Amandad went to boogie the night away!

Last Sunday we went to William's friend, Tiernan's, birthday party at his apartment further out in Hongqiao. We were up on the 28th floor and had a barbecue outside (shows how rapidly the temperature changed this week!) and cake inside! It was great for the kids from Kindergarten to get together and us adults were able to chat with G&T's. The biggest benefit of not being able to drive has to be the fact that you can have a drink or two, wherever you go, without having to debate whose turn it is to drive home!

On Wednesday, Sophie went on another school trip, this time to the Pearl Tower and the History Museum underneath it in the Grade 2 quest of looking at public places. Sophie came back full of tales up the tower and no fear this time....it appears mummy had imparted too much fear last time!

Ian went to cookery course again on Monday, with the boys, and they made Lemon chicken and Peking Pork as the duck wasn't available! It was yummy nevertheless and the children and I went over to join Victoria for pizza and chips, then we dunked Sophie and William into the bath for a while while we supped G&Ts to drown the sorrows of Monday.....a pattern seems to be emerging here!

On Wednesday, Ian decided he wanted to drag me along to a Kung Fu lesson! Yes, this was a very amusing sight indeed, as we joined about 7 other Westerners in a kind of dance studio to pretend to imitate some kind of Jackie Chan cum Charlie's Angels characters. The warm up was pretty normal, then we progressed onto harder stuff where we had to do fight type moves...culminating in a run up with a forward roll while picking up a sword and jabbing it at the mirror. Oh, you may laugh (yes I can practically hear you, Kerry!) but it was a welcome respite in the midst of all this madness. It's not really my cup of tea but we got chatting with the other members during our break and it was nice to do something totally different and sociable. Needless to say I think we are off back for some further torture this week!

And onto another kind of torture....I venture to the hairdressers again this week, but this time in need of highlights. Picture the scene, I had 2 men and 2 women staff over me for about 15mins trying to decide on the colours I was to have before the adventure began. I was more than a little nervous, it has to be said, but my friend Nazli tried to reassure me, before she abandoned me in favour of a dinner date! Luckily I re-emerged a few hours later with quite acceptable hair. It wasn't the best hair style I have ever had, but my grey hairs have been camouflaged a bit better for a few more weeks!

This weekend has been non-stop as usual, but throughly enjoyable. We meet my friend Karen from school (who has also now turned into Sophie's Math teacher) for breakfast at our favourite, the Blue Frog, as she had a Japanese friend to stay for a few days with her 18month old daughter,Michan. Sophie was in her element and managed to make Michan giggle and keep her amused for long enough for her mum to eat breakfast! We then headed over to Zhongshan Park where we met Suzanne, Emily and Nathan in 'FunDazzle'. Oh yes, how better to spend a Saturday morning than in a kids indoor play area?! Well, the best bit is always the fact that the kids run off and have a great time while the adults get to gossip! Sophie and I then headed off to meet Ms Victoria, who had been given a large amount of RMB in vouchers for a designer Chinese clothing brand. After much searching we found a department store with the clothing line and were overwhelmed by the amount of people, mainly due to the sales which began last week! In the concession, we presented the vouchers to be met with "English teachers?!!" which was wonderful as we knew we were at least in the right place. This lady promptly attended to our every request as we tried to find something half wearable! Victoria made me be the model until she eventually liked a few items and, clearly, chose the cheapest one to purchase. For my troubles, she kindly gave me the other as you couldn't use both at once and I was able to get a funky long blue jumper dress...Chinese fashionistas eat your heart out!

Last night we met up with Victoria and Kevin in a funny bar called German Corner, just around the corner (ha ha!) from school. It was a very rainy evening and it was fun to chill while drinking, and we were joined by Amanda before she, once again, left us oldies to head home while she went off dancin! We had a thoroughly enjoyable evening, however, with tales of silly jokes and children and school teachers! Which leads me on to a couple of amusing incidents this week....Sophie is studying homophones at school and had to make a mobile with a word on each side of a card. She thought of the words and decided on 'bare' and 'bear'. She then promptly decorated them with a picture of a bear and a picture of Daddy....need I say more?! except, of course, that Ms Chu has gladly hung it from the classroom!!!! The other thing was when Sophie and I came out of the compound on our way to school to see a man drop the suitcase he was carrying. I almost felt sorry for him, until we spied that it was full of crabs....well it was until he dropped it.....a very amusing start to our day to see these crabs running off into the line of traffic and this man chasing after them!!!

Phew, well today has seen us catching up on a bit of shopping as we found the market for children's items only and purchased a few key winter essentials for the kids and then went to collect my Armani copy (oh yeah baby!) black cashmere coat with red satin lining! I will freeze no more! We decided to stay home this afternoon as the rain had hit again, but we were then hit by yet another power cut. We have been having these on a daily basis and it is no fun at all. It appears that we are using too much electricity and when this happens, it blows the fuses outside our apartment. We (I mean Ian, the Chinese speaker) then have to call the Management Office who promptly come and fix it for us. It is all very confusing but our landlady has been trying to explain to us that in Shanghai you pay for a limit to your electricity usage and we are obviously going above it now. This seems to be because we are having the airconditioners on to warm the place. It seems the Chinese have no idea about Global Warming and I have been trying to educate her in draught excluders and putting curtains up in front of doors. We have made a little progress, but not much, we live in hope and 3 quilts....as was her suggestion to keep warm. It appears we ain't seen nothin' yet....Jan and Feb get proper cold. Yikes, I really need some blood to move around in my body please!!!

Well, I must sign off now, I am being observed this week and Ian is frantically Chinese learning...his skills have well and truly been put to the test with talk of electricity and power cuts!

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