We have had many different guests come to our Airbnb, but every so often one or two will stand out. A doctor arrived last night; mind you I wouldn’t feel very comfortable if he was treating me for any affliction. He was as you would say “a little bit creepy” He had come from Nantong, a city about 90 mins away from Suzhou. He was 36 years old and he told me that he had recently found a girlfriend but he wasn’t really sure if it was the right thing to do. I asked him why he thought that and he told me that is was an expensive exercise which I can totally understand. I mean it can get very expensive when you get into a relationship and of course it depends on who you get to join you in this venture. In China of course there are certain expectations shall we say. The guy must have his own house and if possible a car also. Two very expensive purchases in anyone’s language, but in China they are extremely expensive. Compared to the UK a car will cost you at least twice as much. A two bedroom flat in Suzhou around 100 m2 will cost about £775,000 and so it ain’t cheap. I mean that is a lot of dumplings.

He asked me many questions and I tried to answer the best I could without being totally biased which can be very difficult if the subject matter is America. I’m sure by now you will have realised I don’t have a lot of time for this part of the world. Although I still do like some of their old cars, they were rather flamboyant and so was our doctor it must be said.

So why are you coming to Suzhou and only staying for one night? Why did you arrive so late and what are your plans?

I’m coming to Suzhou to meet one of my former students and we will go for some beer and dinner and then he will come back here and stay the night. Well that does sound nice…………..

I have just started to form a new opinion about our doctor friend. I change the subject but it’s not long before we are back on the subject of tonight’s adventures. We have another guest here with her two young daughters and so I said to him that when you come back this evening we would appreciate it if you could be quiet as you are intending to go out on the randan as one would say with your young student friend. He replies that he doesn’t think that is very good to have two guys in the room when there is a young family here also. I couldn’t agree more.

Anyway before you know it he is off to meet his beau………

Shortly afterwards I go to bed and tune into the trusty BBC Radio 4, it always sends me to sleep and I have also managed to become extremely hateful of the Archers theme song. But I couldn’t believe it, I was no sooner in me bed and heading off to the land of nod that I hear the front door being opened and our lovers have returned.

In the morning I’m having a cuppa and the doctor appears in the kitchen and asks if we have any milk and I get him some from the fridge. He fills two small bowls and as he is doing this I ask him what his plans are for today. Well we will go shopping to “Guanqianjie” the main shopping street in Suzhou and then go to the best fish restaurant. Now this sounds more like a dirty weekend more and more.

Eventually the young boy shows his face and comes to drink one of the bowls of milk. He looks very young indeed, maybe 20 if he is a day. The doctor turns to me and says “see, he is just a very young boy” Again he had this very creepy looking look on his face. Now I know that this might not be what I’m beginning to think it is but it’s kinda hard not to. The young boy does not make any eye contact; he just drinks his milk and then buries his head in his phone. A few minutes later they both head for the front door and they are away and I’m very glad about that.

I went and checked the room and everything seems ok, only one towel was used and the room was left tidy. The key was on the table and all looks ok. Maybe this is just looking at life through the jaded and cynical eyes of an old guy that’s seen many things in his time and knows what a dirty old man looks like and I don’t mean when I look in the mirror. Maybe it’s also that things get lost in translation. Chinese is a very direct language and when someone uses English and it’s not the best then some things come out a bit misconstrued and maybe that’s all this was and I hope that’s all it was. I also have to remember that many Chinese, like our Doctor friend, are really very naive and not very worldy and maybe it would never cross his mind to go down the path of my thinking. Maybe it was just two friends catching up for a night and then going shopping and having lunch. If of course it was two girls there would be nothing strange about it at all, but when it comes to two guys doing this there still seems to be an air of suspicion.

15 years ago I was living on the Gold Coast in Australia. A year before that, I had bought a house near Movieworld, this was my first house and I was very lucky to have been able to buy it. I should have bought a house in Sydney years before when I had the opportunity, but love and generally being stupid at the time made me make some wrong decisions, but shit happens. And so it was 2003 before I got my first house and even then it was a series of events that led to that purchase.

I could not get a deposit together to buy a place. Property was quite cheap on the coast at this time, although most of the houses were just thrown into existence with no care and attention and would have a possible lifespan of only a few years. Most of the houses on the Gold Coast are project homes and have been built as cheaply as possible. They may have looked shiny and new, but the build quality is shit. Even so this was still enough to start to push the prices up on the coast and so by the time I had a deposit, even these houses were out of my price range and so I had to settle for a unit in a complex with strata titles, which is something I just didn’t want.

Every day I would check the real estate adverts for a potential property that I could buy, but more often than not it had already been sold by the time I enquired about it. Prices were rising by about $5000 a week. It was moving at an alarming rate. A few months before, I could have bought a two bedroom unit for about $60,000 and then before you know it the asking price was $100,000. The house that I bought on the coast was in this small complex and it was the last house or villa as they called it, in a line of four. It was neat and tidy and had a bit of a garden, but I did not want to buy it because of the body corporate fees that you had to pay each month, which in many of the Gold Coast housing complexes are just a way of printing money. But I really had no choice; if I missed this opportunity then I would be cast adrift forever, well so it seemed and so I made an offer and bought my first home.

It never really felt like a home to me, it was just a stepping stone to the next place. But not all was bad, this is where I met Ivor and Shirley and they became very good friends. Ivor has since left us but I managed to catch up with Shirley this year when I went back to Australia for a quick trip and she has aged on the outside like most of us do, but inside she still has a young vibrant spirit. More of us need to follow her example and not get bogged down with this age thing; I mean stop acting your age and just live life.

I worked at Austar in Robina as an Internet Guru on the help desk. This was by far the worst job I have done in my life. In a call centre you are tied to a phone, tied to a desk and every moment of your day is monitored and if you happen to take a bit too long to do anything then they come and ask you twenty questions why. I hated this job, I loathed this job and I loathed many of the people that worked there. In my “TEAM” I met James and Remy. I still keep in touch with them today, and thankfully we all managed to escape the confines of that hellish place. One thing about this call centre, and I’m sure it’s the same the world over, is the role of the team leader. They are there to look after their team and enforce the management rules, check the stats and make sure you are not spending too much time having idle chit chat with customers, I mean god forbid that you actually help them, and they are also hypocritical and gutless, well the ones in Austar were. On a technical helpdesk the fix is not straight forward and so sometimes you might be stuck on a call for 10 mins or more and when you eventually hang-up from that customer you are not even allowed to catch your breath before you have to deal with the next problem. If you take a breather the “Team Leader” will ask you why? even although they know the answer , but they have to do this for the benefit of the management to justify their positions in the company, which for the most part is just a waste of resources.

One of the rules that they gave us was that we could not have a mobile phone with us, and of course I ignored this. These people did not have my respect and so I was going to do what I wanted. I got pulled up one day for taking a call on my mobile. I got quizzed and lectured and was told that if I have my phone at my desk again then I would be getting a written warning. I told them to do what they wanted because I didn’t care. I then told them that I keep my phone switched on because I might get a call relating to my Mother and that I need to be able to be contacted and so they could basically fuck off and do what they wanted. Mum was in Australia for a time because she had taken a stroke. She was wheelchair bound most of the time, but she could walk a little and had fallen once or twice and so if she was unable to contact my sisters then I was the next point of contact. I then got shouted at for not telling them this piece of information, none of their fuckin’ business as far as I was concerned, I hated that place.

I got a phone call just after my 6am shift started and I can’t even tell you at this stage who called me, I can’t remember. All I remember is that Mum has had a stroke and is in hospital. I left my desk and went to the canteen and just stood there staring out of the window.

Before I knew it I was on a plane to the UK, to Heathrow. I flew from Brisbane and Catherine flew from Sydney and we met in Singapore and carried onto London together. We flew Qantas, I don’t like Qantas.

We hired a car in London and I can remember getting into this Blue Nissan Micra which had keyless entry and being unable to start the car. I had to go back inside and ask them how to start it.I’m sure they must have thought, “What a dickhead” I think I had to depress the clutch before it would start or something like that.

The drive north took about 6 hours or more and as we drove north the temperature outside was dropping. I had travelled wearing shorts and so I remember that we pulled into a service halt for breakfast and then I had to change into some warmer clothes whilst standing at the back of the car.

We got to the RAH hospital where Mum was, and we recognised some of the staff from out previous visits. We were shown into Mum’s room, but nothing can prepare you for a time like this. This stroke had been very bad and had left Mum pretty well incapacitated. I have never felt so sad in all my life. I had dreaded this day and I had always wondered how I would feel but nothing can really prepare you. Catherine and I spoke to Mum and for the most part there was no response, but then we got a hint of a smile and then we both knew that Mum knew that we were there, and she could finally go and rest. She couldn’t speak but that smile spoke to me more than any amount of words could. Mum had managed to hang on for us, to say good bye to us, to allow us to say good bye to her. This memory is as vivid today as it was 15 years ago. Catherine and I spent time alone with Mum and we shared our own thoughts with her and told her stories. One of the last things I said to Mum was this, I said “go and find Candy”, our first dog that had died a few years earlier, “and find her and take her for a walk. It’s time to move on to the next world and leave this one behind”

We left the hospital that night feeling calm and in a way happy, relieved that we had been able to see Mum and also to know that she knew we had come to see her, but at the same time knowing that her life was coming to an end. We spoke to the nurses before we left and told them that Mum would not want to stay here in this condition and if they could help her to move on, then Mum would be happy and so would we.

Mum passed away in the early hours of the next morning……………….

The last time I had been home I had wanted to kill my father because he treated my Mother like shit and so I always carried a level of hatred for him and would have happily stuck a knife in his heart, if I could have found it, to free my Mother. But my Mother did not want this of course, instead she suffered in silence in the same way that many people do in the world. My Mother was gone, but the good news was that I did not have to deal with him anymore. He could no longer hurt my Mother and so I could forget about him once and for all. I never spoke to him again after this trip to the UK.

The day of the funeral arrived and I had managed to download “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. Mum had always wanted this to be played at her funeral and when it was playing I had a smirk on me face. It took me back to the time we were driving around Manly and Wynnum near Brisbane. It came on the radio and we were talking about it. We had fish and chips before heading home. Of course I never thought that the day would come around so quick for us to actually play it.

She was to be cremated and as we arrived at the crematorium I noticed a British Gas van sitting there and thought, “it will just be like the thing that they have run oot of gas” I’m sure Mum could see the funny side of it even if no one else did. She always said that she would go to hell for what she had said and that she had drunk so much Martini over the years that she would go up in a blue light anyway.

A few weeks before, I had put my house on the market. A year had passed and the prices on the coast had nearly doubled and so I took the opportunity to sell up and move out to Ipswich to buy a house. I was still working at Austar and so this was also part of the plan to make it more difficult for myself and to force myself to find a new job. I was moving another 70km away from my work and so now I had to travel 200 km each day. A bit fucking stupid you may say, but for me I needed to change my situation and I needed a change of scenery, I needed an incentive to make me look for a new job and I hated the coast and still do.

After Frank had finished singing and the service came to an end, we moved outside the small chapel. My phone rang and my girlfriend Linda told me that I had just received an offer for the house; did I want to take it? The price was a few thousand less than I had asked for, but enough and so I said yes. I believe to this day that my Mother played a part in this deal. I am not a religious person but I believe there are things in life that we just can’t explain.

I also remember sitting in a cafe near the square in Johnstone after consuming copious amounts of whisky and my sister Margaret didn’t agree with one of my comments about the old man and the next thing you know it was world three, I lost the plot and got very vocal. Catherine had to intervene. Margaret thought that I will go to hell and I will eat myself up because I hated the old man. I often told her that you can’t choose your family and if he had been some old bugger that I stumbled upon in life I would have dismissed him in a heartbeat. But she would never believe me when I said this, mind you she doesn’t believe much of anything I say.

A few days later we headed to Campbeltown, a small fishing village on the west coast of Scotland. We have family there and it was also where we used to go to as kids. We had many great holidays in Campbeltown. The extended family used to go there at the Glasgow Fair fortnight which is the 2^nd fortnight in July. It’s about 4 hours drive from Glasgow at the end of one of the prettiest roads in Scotland. It’s only about 140 miles from Glasgow but it will take you around 4 hours to get there. I went last year when I was home to say hello to Mum. Mind you I couldn’t actually get to where we let her fly into the ether all those years ago. We scattered her ashes on Davaar Island which sits in the middle of Campbeltown Loch. At low tide you are able to walk out to the island on the Dorland, a sand bar that becomes visible at low tide. I had gone there in 2016 and crossed over to the very spot where we had last seen me Mum.

Last year it was absolutely bitter and the wind would have carried you across the Atlantic to America if you weren’t careful, however on the day we went there with Mum’s ashes the loch was like a mill pond and there was not a breath of wind. The sky was blue and it was a perfect winter’s day. Instead of walking across to the island we hired a boat. The four of us headed out and crossed the treacle like waters of the loch and slowly made our way across to the island. Mum was looking resplendent in her Chivas regal lookalike bag that contained her ashes. Very apt I thought.

We disembarked safely from our wee boat and made our way up towards the lighthouse and looked for a spot and a good view for Mother to enjoy. The time came for her ashes to be set free and we waited till the wind was blowing the right way, but when she was finally released into the ether the wind about faced and she gave us all a hug before she left us all standing there laughing. It was a very cathartic moment standing there with my thoughts, as is now as I write this. I had always worried about my Mum when she was back in Scotland; she always put on a brave face and would never give me any cause for concern, although I’m sure there is a lot she just would not tell me. I worried about her all the time and also felt very guilty because I thought I should be doing more for her but I didn’t know what I could do. Now she was free, she could go where she wanted and if you believe in some sort of afterlife, then you could meet up with family and old friends and go and walk the dog, this is what was going through my mind at least. To me she had been set free from this trapped life that she had endured for many years, where she had to listen to some old prick telling her that she was stupid and who made her feel useless at times, when in fact the useless one was the old bastard that was giving her a hard time, and now he could not do it anymore and that made me feel good too. She had finally left him, but sadly she had left us as well.

I’m still in the market for a new hot water system and I can’t quite decide which is the best option based on the cost of replacement. It’s such an expensive piece of kit that I don’t want to make the wrong decision. Yesterday I sent off several emails and have had a few responses which have been helpful. I decided to give Origin Energy another email because they are my electricity supplier and they do offer a payment plan and I thought well this might be a good option for the wallet. Now I did contact them before and got nowhere but I went to a different area which is for home products. They offer a replacement service on hot water systems and so I thought I’ll send them an email.

Once again I have wasted my time. I happened to enquire about a heat pump and the email came back saying we don’t do heat pumps, well that’s fair enough, but they did not elaborate on what they could offer. And so I asked do you do Solar units? The email got returned in a heartbeat saying that they do not do solar and that I would need to call them to enquire about their products. What fucking products!!

What is the point of having an enquiry email contact when you get told to call them anyway. I explained to them that I was overseas and that I cannot call the 1300 number from outside Australia which I need to use to get to talk to someone. You must give them your details to organise a quote…………I gave them my account number but that does not seem to be sufficient. Over the years I have worked in a retail capacity and you know, if I did not have exactly what the customer was looking for then I would supply them with an option, you know try to solve the problem from a different angle. At the end of the day give them some information. Today no one seems to give a rats arse. Answer the question as quick as possible and then my KPI’s will look marvelous. Don’t give a fuck about offering anything remotely resembling customer service. It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone. No one seems to think for themselves anymore, the capacity for ones own thought seems to have been a thing of the past.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, Trumps in power and will no doubt start world war 3, or Global warming will kill us all or maybe a deadly plague will come along. Or maybe the rot has well and truly set in with the levels of common sense dropping to an all time low. Of course this is what we get for not living by the laws of the jungle. By now most would have died out or would be well on their way to extinction and the world would be a better place for it. For years we have lowered the bar if someone can’t understand, we make things easier and easier and so pure thought is no longer necessary. Society has tried to raise the bar and allow the less fortunate to take an easier path, but instead society has been dragged down, back towards the swamp where we all first emerged from. The balance is shifting and the inept in society are starting to shift the balance and I’m not sure how long we will be able to hang on to ward off these crazy stupid bastards.

I’ve been reading the Hitch HIkers Guide to the Galaxy and you know it seems to make a lot more sense to me than reality itself or is it a glimpse of the future? We all know the answer is 42 but what was the question. The question of course is “What is 6 times 9?” We have so many people in our world just like the Golgafrinchans that were sent off in the B ark to save them from the great disaster about to befall their planet. They also crash landed on the earth just at the beginning of time and contaminated the earth for ever, planting the seeds of stupidity for generations to come. And for some reason the Golgafrinchans seem to be able to breed quicker, I wonder why? And they still do to this day. This allows them to populate more and more of the planet and so we all have a finite time before the shit really hits the fan.

But after talking to Origin Energy I feel that this defining moment in time is a lot closer than I had ever imagined and I can only hope that the Great Green Arkleseizure will take pity on us and at least make it quick.

I returned to Australia to have a mole checked by my skin doctor and to my relief everything was ok with it and so as one of my Chinese friends remarked. ”what a waste of money then” Well yes and no I guess. I was able to get checked by my GP and have my blood checked and his advice was to “stay in China” because it seems to agree with me.  I was able to catch up with family and friends and I got to drive a car for two weeks, which to be honest was the best thing. To have the freedom of movement once more to go where I want when I want is something I have been able to since I was 17.

My first car was a Red Mark III Cortina, 1300cc with cross ply’s on it and so it screamed at you when you went round every corner and to be honest they were lethal. As soon as I could I changed to radials which felt a whole lot safer. The next thing I did was to add fur to the interior of the old Ford. Dashboard and door trims were covered in fake fur. I remember trying to buy glue, which I was going to use to fix it to the door trims, but I had to get a note from my mum to say we were not going to sniff it. At that time glue sniffing was rife and so if a young chap like me wanted to buy glue I got the third degree. I thought that the fur enhanced the old Ford and it made it a lot warmer in the winter and the ladies seemed to like it……………

On the 8^th January I celebrated 41 years of driving and so I was fair chuffed to be able to hire a car to get reacquainted with the driving experience, because I haven’t driven a car for about 12 months. The small Hyundai I30 had a 6 speed triptronic gearbox which was very responsive and so you could have quite a bit of fun with it when driving on the twisty roads. It has two pedals and I have two feet and so it was perfect. I always left foot brake when I drive an auto and I find it far more effective and practical to drive this way, although I get told that it’s illegal to drive using two feet but I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to catch you doing it. The only complaint about the car is that it is front wheel drive which really detracts from a good all round driving experience.

Next:

Australia is becoming really fat, and the amount of exposed flesh that you see in summer time is really alarming. To add to this already frightening experience is the dreaded tattoo. So many people seem compelled to cover their bodies is a mass of tattoos randomly placed. They all seem to go to the same tattoo artist because they all look similar. I only saw a few original looking pieces of art that seemed interesting and unique. I saw a few on the shoulders of women of what looked like a dead child. RIP….. stencilled onto their back for the world to see. I know someone that got this done many years ago when her son got killed and I can kind of understand that she wants her son to be with her every where she goes, but I think that this type of tattoo is hideous. As time goes on and the body gets fatter and older that once perfect tattoo comes to look like a melted Salvador Dali sketch in the dreadful standard cheap blue ink colour that seems to get used for the majority of designs. I wonder what compels folk to get tattoos, it’s like losing your virginity I guess……….you don’t really care who it is but you know you have to do it so that you can truthfully say………..’Yes I am not a virgin”

In my local shopping centre the fat folk are everywhere and not just a wee bit overweight but absolutely huge. They waddle about the place looking for ways to feed their already bulging bodies. The huge queue at the donut shop, the unhealthy looking fast food outlets selling a heart attack in a plastic tub. The only healthy looking option is the sushi bar and there is no one there. When you look into the shopping trolleys you descend into a world that I am not familiar with. Large bottles of soft drink, processed foods, chocolate, crisps, biscuits and sometimes you will see a lonely vegetable or piece of fruit struggling to be on its own. The American culture is spreading across the world slowly killing its inhabitants in a very cruel way. They upsize you and give you more value for money by giving you more fat in a cup, more fat on a plate, more sugar to feed your already bulging thighs and if there is just enough left they will throw in diabetes for free. That should be the new slogan…….Get your free diabetes here.

There were many “Back to school” sales on because the school holidays were coming to an end. I read in the local paper that many of the school clothes shops were having a lot of special orders because the kids were so fat. Gone are the days of XXL now we are up to 9XL and there were also some stores reporting that they had ordered trousers as big as 59in or 150cm in the waist. I’m only 32cm and so these kids are fuckin’ huge. The fat parents are allowing their kids to follow in their footsteps and so they will get their free diabetes quicker which I guess is a bonus. It seems to me that many western societies seem to following this trend. America is King of course and I really don’t understand why so many follow this ideology. I want quality not quantity, whereas this American fast food epidemic promotes quantity over quality. You don’t have to look far to see this, look at any McDonalds or Starbucks.

I’m not ready to return to Australia and I’m not sure I ever will be. Yes there are many positives of course, the weather, the environment, it’s less crowded and in some ways more ordered than China but at the moment I feel that it is boring and has nothing to offer me. I’ve stepped off the merry go round and I just don’t want to get back on it. Having spent 3 weeks there and watching the news, seeing the politicians argue like 5 year olds, news reports about lost dogs and of course and don’t forget the sport.

I enjoy China for the culture and the challenge of trying to speak the local language. I also like being detached from society just enough that I can enjoy a peaceful life. However money is always an issue and this is what will no doubt make me return to Australia at some point. I have my house there and I need to implement my retirement plan which is to win the lotto because I certainly don’t have enough in superannuation to see me through.

But there is also an air of negativity that I don’t want to be part of. It might sound strange to many folk but to me it seems that there is more positive energy in China and I would rather be in that domain. That’s possibly because I can’t understand the TV and I can’t read the papers and I as I said once before “Ignorance is Bliss at times “I heard many complaints when I was back from all walks of life, some are valid and some are just pathetic. Many don’t know how lucky they have it and they really need to get out more and that includes many of the politicians running the country.

And so I think that I will return to another island first and that was the one I was born on. I will need to return to the UK in February next year to apply for my visa for China if I so wish and at this stage I wish.

I was waiting at Booval train station so that I could go into the airport and pick up the hire car. I was sitting on the bench in the shade and beside me were a young Asian mother with her children and another mother and daughter from local stock. The locals were not rich folk and looked like they were doing it tough. An old guy came onto the platform and headed our way. He was shuffling and looking a little bit disorientated, he was wearing old baggy clothes which were clean but old. He came towards us and headed straight to the locals and asked them for money, he said he needed to make a phone call. They gave him some money and he about turned and shuffled back down the platform.

The train came and I got on, which was a relief because it was beginning to get hot outside and so it was good to be in the air-conditioning. About 20 minutes into the journey the old man came shuffling through the carriage looking for his next mark. He passed me again and headed to another local that seemed to be doing it tough. He never approached; let’s say the more affluent looking in the carriage. He gave him some spiel and then politely produced a few coins and gave them to the old man. The old man thanked him and continued down the carriage until he saw the mother and daughter he had fleeced on the platform and quickly about faced and headed back my way. Oops nearly got caught………..

I got off at Central Station to get my connecting train to the airport. As I was waiting there, guess what here is the old man again on the opposite platform once again looking for his next mark and he homes in on some young girls sitting there. They off course feel sorry for him and give him money. I saw him approach one more middle aged woman before my train came. He sat down beside here and then after about 30 seconds starts his spiel and before you know it she is digging into her purse and giving him the cash. I guess there are many ways to make a quid but this has got to be a pretty low way indeed. This is his job, he prays on the kindness of others and he is very smart at picking his mark. This is a new form of begging which he has mastered very well.