This week started in a very similar fashion to the last, both Cassy and I dragging ourselves home in the fading dusk on a Monday cold and drizzly, hopefully not setting the tone for the week. We were shocked as we came up the stairs to see our neighbour, Theresa, being supported by her partner, Joe, down the stairs. She looked awful, could barely stand and was obviously very ill. She has lived above us for some 2 years now, an Englishwoman working at the European School. We helped her out with all the neighborhood routines ages ago and occasionally stop and have a chat about things when we can. We do, however, very rarely see her. I raced down to Ker Qiang Rd, hailed a cab and directed it back to our building. We were able to maneuver Theresa into the cab and despite further offers to help or go with them which were politely declined we didn’t hear more about this, even though we were quite concerned and mentioned it every day.When I returned from my Chinese lesson on Thursday night, Cass met me with some very bad news. Theresa had died of cancer related illness on Tuesday night and had been cremated on Thursday. Joe invited us up for a small wake that evening, but as her family had only just flown in from England, we didn’t want to intrude. I did, subsequently, catch up with her brother and son-in-law on Friday night after we watched the cricket, which was good, because apart from anything else, I was able to piece together a little of the last few months. We were unaware of her illness as she wanted to keep it private and she was quite well even up to last Friday evening when she had a violin lesson. Suffice to say, it was shocking and upsetting news for us, especially coming at a time when we’ve just farewelled another friend.
Friday was a pre-arranged day round at our place to watch the Twenty/20 game. Lewy and Wal and Naden and Andrew (all Australian teachers at our school) came round to enjoy the game with me and Cass, with Gurecki needing the game explained to him as it unfolded! We had some beers, Lewy ran a “book” and fielded bets on all sorts of different scenarios and even though the game was a bit one sided, we all enjoyed it immensely. The party pies were consumed with great gusto at innings break and by the time the game ended, most of us felt the need to continue on round the corner at the Wo Soo bar for a couple more. We had a great chat about all things related to home to continue the theme of the night until I spent a fair time with Theresa’s relatives when they came in later.
The weekend has been very decadent for me as we watched even more cricket today in the form of the washed out first one dayer between Australia and India, but not so for Cassy! We have this week off for Chinese New Year and, as usual, the temperatures have plummeted and outside activities look decidedly uninviting. Already this weekend, Cass has cooked up a batch of her famous lemon butter (which I’m looking forward to eating on my toast!) and a great pot of minestrone soup for lunches this week. She also cooked a mouthwatering version of chicken chasseur for dinner tonight so I’m feeling extremely spoilt and lazy!
Cassy is going to meet Kristin to go downtown shopping tomorrow and plans to wear her long woolen coat as the weather is indicating near single figure temperatures for tomorrow….almost unheard of here in Taipei. We haven’t any firm plans for the week, but I can tell you one thing for sure: the surf will have to be stellar to tempt me out in this weather!
Photos: Life needs to be reaffirmed for us at the moment: what better than a cute cat and some of my kiddies: they're always cute and full of life!