Stock feedingAn old man sitting on his little stool on the footpath in the main street of Dunhuang, with his three goats tethered to a street tree and munching on the weeds growing round its base.Locking upStaff at the Dunhuang railway station were busy preparing the train for the return journey. Passengers in the waiting room were watching the scurrying about on the platform through big plate glass doors. A disabled passenger was ushered through to board the tra...

Winter hadn't quite been shaken off when we left Lanzhou to go on our holiday with the family, but when we returned it was definitely gone. We’re back to our daily routine and it’s hard to remember how cold it was. The weather now is hot, dry and dusty. Actually its not that hot compared to home (30-34 degrees isn’t really a heatwave for us), but given we get about on foot a lot it feels hot. The roadworks below us generate a lot of dust too...

The much anticipated family visit has come and gone. It seemed like ages since we'd seen them and I couldn’t believe they were really coming. I wondered how much the grandchildren would have changed. They’d grown a bit, but after a momentary reticence they all seemed pretty much the same.Itinerary planning involved trying to find a tricky mix of things to interest the children while still letting the adults have a good time. I would have liked to...

The central heating has been off for a couple of weeks now, so I think we can say spring is officially here. It strikes me as a bit of a misnomer to call the Chinese New Year festivities "Spring Festival" when there's still rather a lot of winter weather to come. Anyway, the heating is off now and we’re coping fine. I had been dreading it happening, a bit afraid that the apartment would be cold, it would be hard to get up in the mornings, etc., but it&...

A bit late for those at home, but we're still between new years here where New Year/Spring Festival preparations are well under way. In fact on Boxing Day, the Christmas decorations began coming down around town (much to the dismay of the Russian teacher who celebrates Christmas on Jan 7th) to be replaced by lanterns, banners and other decorations for the upcoming year of the dragon. In the few weeks immediately before Christmas, many shops, restaurants and b...