The winter seems to be dragging on and I’m getting fed up with the cold weather. The houses are so cold here in China and it’s only in the north of the country that the houses have central heating which is subsidised by the government. I think it’s around £150 to heat a 50 m2 flat from November to the start of April, which is quite cheap. The temperature is kept around 20C and so it is always warm in the home. I also think that many of the houses have double glazing which of course makes it better. My flat is only about 15 years old and there is no double glazing, but we do have air conditioning units but they are expensive to run all the time and so we end up putting on another layer of clothing to keep warm. Plus the fact I do not like to sit in the air conditioning for too long. The windows are so big and so I usually close the curtains to try to keep the heat in, but then you feel cut off from the outside world and so I usually put the heating on at night but rarely during the day.

Outside the window there is this tree which lost its leaves many months ago and it has these very large buds which have been dormant all this time, but this morning I noticed that there seems to be new life and they are beginning to grow which is a welcome sign indeed. This of course means that the temperature is rising and spring should not be too far away………….well this is what I am hoping for. When I arrived here last March it was still pretty cold. This year, according to a few locals, has been very wet and so it always feels a lot colder than it actually is. I think this tree will look very spectacular when it’s in full bloom.

Throughout Suzhou the plum blossom is also making its presence felt and it comes in different colours and is also a sign of the warmth and new life that is returning to Suzhou and it is very pretty to boot. For many years I have not had a winter at all. Living in Australia near Brisbane the winter, if you can really call it that, only lasts for about a month and usually the temperature still reaches 22C during the day and so it’s not really cold. It’s very green, but you don’t get those wonderful autumnal colours………..