After receiving such a lovely Christmas present of her presence, I decided that I wanted to change hotel. This one wasn't very nice. I had paid 400 yuan for the room. Checking out, my lady got me a 220 yuan refund. She seems to be really good at negotiating cheap rooms. We went back to the hotel we went to in October, the aptly-named Yippee hotel! It was a beautiful sunny day, she mentioned all the things we could go out and do, and so we spent the whole day in the room with the curtains closed, coming up once for air to have dinner. Yes, Willy, you're so right. I also shared the presents I had brought for her and her two children. It was an unconventional Christmas, but lovely nonetheless.
The next day, we went to the marriage office to see about registering. It was closed for a couple of days, so we had a lovely day at Martyr park, taking a boat ride, eating sunflower seeds and walking hand in hand, arm in arm. Sometimes the simplest of do-nothing days are the best. At one point we went into a kind of house of horrors near the fairground. It was the crappiest, shoddiest kind of animatronic show, creaky creatures coming towards you slightly as you passed them. It was truly bad. The bulb in one of the dragon's eyes wasn't working. For some reason, I was incredibly moved when she screamed at every silly moment. She grabbed my arm tightly - it was so sweet. I'll certainly hold back on showed her any of the Alien quadrilogy!
Back at the hotel, we had the promised money talk. It came naturally out of our conversation. She has this thing, which I explain as the worry monster. This is something that crops up now and again. Something she worries about and gives her sleepless nights. Until we thrash it out, she can't enjoy anything. A few months ago, it was "Can you accept another man's children?". I convinced her that it was not a problem for me. Then it was, "Will your family accept me and my children?" Took me longer, but I convinced her of that. Her current worry monster is, "Will I end up penniless and alone in England?" It may sound illogical to equate the 200000 comment with being penniless, but she just wanted some idea of how much the total cost was for me to visit China, for us to get married and to bring her and her children over. I made it clear that I had done the math (or maths), which meant that I had worked out how I could afford everything, but that I could not and would not get myself into debt by paying for expensive weddings. Our marriage is more important than the wedding. She totally understood and was in agreement with my reasoning. This particularly worry monster is not yet tamed, but we made some good first steps.
Next day was another sweetly uneventful day. We walked along the river and ate some lovely stinky tofu from a street seller, not much else. I do like the sex very much - we seem to have the same drives at the same time and we are learning about each other, but there is something wonderful about a gentle stroll, arm in arm, hand in hand. Am I getting old, or am I getting young?
More details soon