Firstly, I apologise for the long blogosphere break; it's been a hectic but very entertaining week.

So, this week; What a week! From death sticks, to an use-for-anything spoon and more Joshua/Napoleon leggyness.

Last weekend Flower's family and friends arrived, so once again I and Joshua were to be hauled off to some unknown restaurant and shown off. Fortunately Flower's daughter (Helen) is so lovely and she speaks English! YAY! The restaurant was… well… I sent some pictures home and mum asked me if I had been arrested. The décor was peculiar, but not as peculiar as the waitress' uniform! Literally an army uniform. But the food was great, and free, so like I would complain!

As if the dinner was enough for one night, when we finally got back home everyone was standing around looking 'very concerned' (giggling and making farting noises through the door) at Keven and Tom, whose door had basically disintegrated. It turned out TamPan had chucked a basketball at the door, and the lock had shattered. Of course Flower was very concerned (sat on the floor wetting herself) so we put Joshua on the job of 'fixing' the lock. 10 minutes and a completely disassembled lock later, we finally gave up and went for ice cream. Being the kind, generous person I am, I threw some lollipops through the boy's back window so they wouldn't starve, and then toddled off to join the others. The general consensus after ice creams was that they boys may be stuck for a long time, and so we shouldn't buy them ice creams because they would melt. We got back to find the boys still stuck and complaining they had finished their lollipops. Another round of 'lob the small missile through the back window' started and I am proud to say the majority got into the room. Unfortunately, through giggling and bad aim we lost 3 down the toilet, 1 down a drain, 1 hit a frog (which made the greatest noise), 1's in the tree, 1 got caught in a bra in the upper window and 4 are now sitting on top of the air-con box on the floor below the boy's. Well, at least we now know where there is food in an emergency.

Eventually our game was broken up by a)finishing of the lollipops and b)a man in a boob tube coming to break open the door. He strolled up, cigarette in mouth and top pulled up under his arms, with a hammer, a chisel and a CD. He looked like some sort of evil chime-making child catcher. J then decided to explain, in length and rather badly (including demonstration that left a hole in our door -_-) what a battering ram was. Flower took an instant liking to this plan and used TamPan's head to make another hole. The builder was not impressed, and after using brute force and ignorance (and a craft bit of CD wedging) he finally completely smashed the handle off and freed the boys. The biggest worry of the night was from the boys, who now claim we own them an ice-cream.

So, next. Bamboo dancing. J has a weird fascination with square dancing (which involves any free space and lots of middle aged women) so when Flower suggested we try Bamboo Dancing, he was in there like a shot. After liberating some long bamboo from a couple of bushes, we gathered all the children and marched down to the main square. I thought that after 3 weeks, people would be used to seeing us doing stupid things in the square, but we still managed to get a crowd of about 100 within a matter of minutes. Little Ema is an absolute ace at Bamboo Dancing, springing around the bamboo with an agility that I thought was impossible at 8.30pm in 34*c. J quickly dropped out (complaining that he 'hurt his ankle'. Wuss) and it was left to sweaty old Mills to hold up the British side. I am once again proud to say that I held up for about an hour before collapsing in a pile and downing 4L of water. The whole night was a lot of fun, but next time I think it would be a good plan to have more than 2 short songs on TamPan's playlist.

So, what's next? Oh yes, the Death Stick.

Well, basically as a joke for both my students and I, I printed off a picture of Kate's face and stuck it on cardboard. After someone found some string, it also created a great 'let's make Millie scream and almost wet herself when she wakes up staring at it' mask. Thanks TP… So, anyway, I ran out of mozzie spray for a little while last week and was eaten alive by all sorts of things both with wings and without. By the second day, I took Kate's recommendation to create an insect deterrent seriously, and of course, her face was the obvious option. Being as big as a fan and now having holes all over it, it was perfect and the only thing to remain was what on earth I could stick it on. A search of the building uncovered an old mop and so Kate's face was not-so-delicately taped permanently to it. Voila; Death Stick. I have since gotten revenge on TamPan for his foul trick with it, and it ends up scaring a different child every night. We're meant to be the 'responsible adults'? Sure, sure…

Next, my multi-use spoon.

So, since being stuck in a cheesecake/spoonless situation last year with Kate, I have always carried around a small metal teaspoon in my bag. For those of you who are obsessive blog readers, it is indeed the awesome watermelon-cutting teaspoon. Since that impressive night, it has been bended and twisted and put through most situations. It's been used to open a door, wedge a door, open a beer, hold the bathroom light bulb up, cut card, tune my ukulele and as a hanger. It is now bent like a cork screw and has a couple of major dents, but it's surviving. My newest discovery has been that my heavenly teaspoon is incredible at reliving the itching from mosquito bites. If I heat it under hot water then press it on my skin, the itching is gone within seconds, YAY.

I'm tempted to frame this spoon when I get home.

On Saturday the camp had an impromptu sports day. I call it 'sports day' due to the fact that's the nearest thing it resembles (sports of a kind plus parents), but whether real 'sports' took place is debatable. Okay, the 3 legged race counts as a sport, but chopstick-pingpong and candle blowing I'm pretty certain do not. But they certainly are spectator sports. I and J decided that Chopstick Ping-Pong was just too easy after half an hour, and so, much to the annoyance of everyone else, we gave the balls a quick dip in the oil pan in the street opposite. The next hour was a lot more entertaining to say the least.

The final activity, as I mentioned before, was Candle Blowing. The most amusing thing about this was that when Flower placed the candles on the desks (which had been sitting in the sun for 2 hours) ready for sticking down, they instantly melted to the desks. Then they just metled all over and ended up folded completely in half after about 5 minutes (see blog posyt picture). Now you have some idea of how hot it really is out here. So anyway, the aim of the game was to be told a word in Chinese, have to translate it to English, and then say it in English with such power it would blow out the candle. The person who could blow out the 10 candles in the shortest time span would win. Most amusing. Words like 'blueberry', 'plop' and 'poker' were the winners for this game, but I highly recommend to anyone who has read this and though 'I want to give this a try' not to stand opposite the person 'speaking'. Spittle rain is an understatement.

And on that day, for the first time since coming to China, I proudly said 'I HAVE A FOOT TAN!' The flip flop lines were faint, but obviously apparent. I was thrilled to say the least. Unfortunately after showering that night, the beautiful tan lines were gone. Yep, China is dirty and smoggy. That is all I have to report. How depressing.

The last thing I have to report is that I am now an absolute queen at creating different projects for the children out of anything to hand. It started with a variety of card birds, then card lanterns, then card baskets and fruit (at which point we ran out of card) and then moved onto a bottle boat, bottle mobiles, string mobiles, weaving, string knots, bottle lid towers, ink art with bottle bottoms and finally ukulele tags. It really is DIY to the max. Latham, you should be proud of me.