Charlie and Ella

It has been some time since I have written anything for you.  We have been very busy.

Just over a week after I got back from my trip to the UK, Charlie and his girlfriend Ella arrived as our first visitors in China.  Here they are in China in Chef’s whites  – a story for later – enough said at the moment that they met 18 months ago whilst they were both working as Chalet Hosts in Tignes, a job that involves looking after a chalet-full of guests – cleaning and cooking for them whilst the guests enjoy their skiing holiday.  Ella is now at university in Falmouth studying Interior Architecture and doing exceedingly well at it.  Charlie has now finished his double gap year leaving behind him a wake of entertained people in restaurants and in their kitchens, where he has worked both front and back of house, as well as in a couple of shops in Canterbury, the skiers and the folk on the production line in a salad factory in Kent.

When I got back to China the temperature had reached the mid-30s and just as Charlie and Ella arrived it reached 39°C.  I had turned on the air-conditioning unit in the guest room a couple of times before they arrived – and the day before their plane landed it packed up.  Their room was sweltering and with its triple aspect windows it unfortunately catches direct sunlight most of the day.

It is Richard’s work who deal with all the management aspects of our apartment and they arranged for someone to come and look at the unit.  Normally if there is a problem in the flat, someone from the telephone company, say, arrives within hours, often even within the hour….. (Eat your heart out BT!), but this time it was different.  Because of the excessive heat, air conditioning units were breaking down all over China and the companies just couldn’t keep up with the demand – so they were sorry but they couldn’t deal with it straight away.

The type of fan they removed

They tried to come and sort it out the following day when I was meeting the couple at the airport, asking what time would I be back – perhaps they could come afterwards.

A later call said that they just couldn’t fit us in, but would come the following day when we were going to be out visiting a couple of galleries, so it was decided that Richard would come back from work and work from home for part of the day so he could let in the man who was going to look at the system. They removed the old system then and there  – the inside condenser and the outside fan – and from Richard’s description of what went on, I was somewhat wary of what would happen next.

The brackets on which the fan rested

The next day we had to stay in for a man who according to Richard was “going to give me a piece of paper”, but it turned out that the piece of paper had already been given to Richard and I had to give it to the delivery men who arrived with the new air conditioning system.  Messages are often like that here in China.  Often we haven’t got a clue what is going on and the description often gets lost in translation, so we just go with the flow and rely on hand gestures, body language and smiles quite a lot.  Smiles get you a long, long way here in Shanghai. The delivery men took away the old unit and the piece of paper. (Only yesterday in Carrefour I managed to pass a cloth to another customer who wanted it to wipe the conveyor belt dry, without understanding any of the verbal exchange between the check-out girl and the customer.  Richard remarked that my Chinese was coming on really well, at which the customer behind me smiled “It looks as if her English is better than your Chinese” he remarked.)

One of the workmen in front of the open bedroom window

The following day we stayed in until the men had fitted the new air-conditioning unit.  They had a couple of bags of tools and a long length of red webbing.  This photo was taken from our enclosed balcony.  I didn’t take any more photographs of them at work.  I explained to Richard later that evening that I was petrified of distracting them – especially the man that climbed out of the window and down to stand on the fan unit of the flat below. The length of red webbing, you see, was his harness which used 4 clips to make a square pattern of webbing about the size of A4 across his chest and no doubt there was the same configuration on his back , which was connected to the front over his shoulders and under his armpits.  There was nothing around his legs.  What they attached him to I can’t be sure.  There was nothing in the room that was going to hold a falling man – perhaps the other man had the same

The new fan in situ

The New Condenser in Situ

configuration around his chest.  I was genuinely too scared to find out.  Not because I didn’t want to see, but because I didn’t want to be responsible for one or both of them falling to their deaths.

The view down 17 floors from the Bedroom Window

Just to remind you we live on the 17th Floor.  We now have a new fan outside and a new condenser inside the bedroom.  How about that for service?  Service with a smile – although most of the smiles this time were of relief on my part as no-one had died.