mid-year report

Since January I have been to China twice. The second visit I married in Harbin , North east China cose to the Russian border. The weather was exceptional at 32c with skies and sunny days. I also took the opportunity to look at business and the retail experience. The city has evolved from a trading post with Russia to an exciting City with modern facilities. The weather is full of highs and lows with mid summer at 35c and mid winter at - 30c. The World famous Ice Show and festestival in Mid Winter is something I shall look forward to with excitement.

As to the wedding , China has two parts.First the Official Documents signed at The Marriage Bureau and then a few days later the Wedding Party. The latter was more stressful for me but the outcome was very enjoyable.

A few days later my wife Cuixia and I travelled 5 hours by plane back to Guangzhou and made an Applicationfor a settlement visa for my wife to stay in UK. It is a slow process and hopefully should be completed soon.

We used the time in Guangzhou to visit my wife's business interests.SHe has buy to let apartments ,aninterest in an art export business. While in Guangzhou a city with approx 14million people we visited the shopping centre and I visited a number of friends homes. In all they all seem to be very friendly and have a reasonable quality of life, You do notice how hard working the people are and how well mannered they all are in the shops. What a retail experience as also the prices are so cheap compared with the UK. My trip up the great Pearl River was also a great opportuniuty to see all the riverside property and business's.

Back in Uk by the end of June , the economic situation had not changed. In fact every day the news was worse in the papers. My own two favourite shops John Lewis and M & S are doing badly in the market. Life is getting worse. It will take at least a year for the situation to improve. All those expressions' cut your cloth' and ' get stuck in ' and 'when the going gets tough the tough get going' are used every day. We are all tightening our belts and and watching the pennies !!!!! So we just have to except that this is as good as it gets today and enjoy the journey.

Time moves on quickly and we all stay positive then good times will be just around the corner.