Maintenance...

There were a number of small maintenance jobs to be done after we'd moved into our apartment, and we expected them to be done in the first week.  Some of them were.  Others, inexplicably, took much longer.  In particular sealing up a gap between some tiles in the kitchen where ants were coming through.  This sounds like an easy job; certainly at home we'd have done it ourselves in 5 minutes.  Here things are much more complicated.  It took 5, yes FIVE, separate visits from maintenance to get this simple job done.  The first three people just came to look at the problem.  Then a man came who had the tools for the job but was told he wasn't allowed to do the work until the landlord had agreed the quote so he went away again with both of us disappointed. Lastly, 2 men turned up together to do the work.  We have no idea why it was so complicated, or indeed, why it took 4 weeks to arrange...

On a brighter note, Baby Alex is 3 weeks old today.  He's becoming quite a chubby boy and seems content most of the time...

New arrival and heating

As some of you have commented our frequency of posting has dropped dramatically of late. Or to read it another way just plain stopped! We have not left Beijing for home but have in fact just had our first child, Baby Alexander Ying Bolton. This good news obviously comes with the cost of being very busy learning to be parents so be patient, we will keep posting eventually!

One topic which we are getting used to here is the heating. Basically it is centrally controlled so we have no say in when it kicks in, or indeed to turn it off if there is a warm day. Right now it is pretty cold but since it has been decided that warmth will only arrive in two days time we are snuggling up at night when it is a bit nippy. We tried explaining to a local the concept of piping gas to a house and then generating the heat there as and when the tenants needed it but this was literally a foreign concept. Much confusion arose with basically the question of why? dominating the proceedings.