Fog, Brunch and Cow Femurs

Now, doesn't that already sound like a much more interesting week than last week!  This week has been a hundred times better - I think that last week was probably the hardest one we have had since moving abroad 3 and a half years ago.  I guess you have to experience the lows of living abroad to get the most out of the highs.  This week has had several highs, despite the weather being absolutely foul.  The pollution has been awful.  The above photo is actually fog though, not pollution.  This is our complex, on our way into school on Tuesday.  It was a really dry fog - so bizarre. It was so interesting that I scrapped my morning year 4 grammar lesson in favor of getting the kids to write about the fog - turns out that they are pretty rubbish at spontaneous writing, so that was good to know!

On Wednesday, I led the Year 4 provocation for this terms topic 'ancient civilizations'.  The plan was to run 3 sessions of about 15 minutes each (2 classes at a time), who would come out to my 'dig site', have a look at the artefacts I had found, and I would discover this wonderfully smelly cow femur while they were watching me dig.  It was so much fun!  This job really is great sometimes.  The kids (and teachers) absolutely loved it. Well, most of them.  One child asked why we keep lying to them! Haha!  He was not impressed.  They all had some wild theories about unicorn bones and dinosaur bones.  I ended up scrapping my class directly after this session because all the kids wanted to do was ask me questions about archaeology.  That was fine.  I just went with it - they are a transitional class, so as long as they are using English it is helping them improve their language. Sometimes, they don't even realise it is a planned lesson!  Our lesson went from discussing the dig, to talking about shipwreck archaeology, to how many people die each year of shark attacks.  I really love my job sometimes.

On Saturday, Matt and I went out for brunch to a place called the Bull and Claw, which we have been to before - they do an excellent bubble&squeak.  Delicious.  I am giving myself 2 cheat days from my not-drinking schedule between new year's day and the day we go to Sri Lanka.  Saturday was one of those days, and we have another brunch in 2 weeks.  You can't really do brunch without doing the free-flow prosecco. It's just part of the Shanghai brunch culture!

The pictures have come out in a funny order... so back to Thursday.  My office had organised a night at a furniture warehouse.  They put these nights on a couple of times a year - there is wine, snacks, gift bags, and 2 hours of shopping for fabulous Chinese-style furniture.  In the end I settled on a duck-egg blue ceramic stool decorated with flowers.  It's beautiful.  It's not been delivered yet - hopefully Monday or Tuesday.  We will definitely have to make use of our shipping allowance when we leave.

Today has been an enjoyable cat-cuddle day.  Here are a few photos of our gorgeous fluff-balls...