Although I had left hospital and returned to my apartment I still had a few days when I needed to visit as an outpatient, have the plaster checked and spend another hour receiving medicine from a drip that could be administered in five seconds by injection.
No matter. It's an hour sitting on a bed reading.
So while that was going on my administrator - who I am becoming increasingly less impressed with - called and said a car would come for me. To take me home, I thought.
It turned out that I was wrong. She had decided to send someone who had fractured his kneecap three days earlier to do an (unpaid) days work in a primary school where the kids were having a Christmas party. It involved walking and standing and entertaining five-to-nine-year-olds for about five hours. The only respite was a sit down lunch which, though rather nice, was up several flights of stairs including some ice-covered exterior ones.
When it became clear that I couldn't do any more they took me home and on the way asked what time I could come next day.
I was quite firm in my statement that I couldn't.
L later discovered that she had asked one of the teachers who said she couldn't do it because she had flu, asked another who couldn't do it because she was out of the city, asked another who couldn't do it because she didn't feel well and then , as a last resort come to me but in my case she didn't even ask. She just arranged it and sent me to struggle through.
The Chinese, or some of them anyway, have odd notions about sympathy and convalescence.
It should also be noted that I was talking last night to the teachers from my school. It seems that what started out as a polite "when will he be able to return to work" inquiry by the school was filtered through her brain to arrive at me as "you must return to school on Friday" - less than two full days after the accident.
In the past she's been pretty good but this year things are far less rosy.
