June 16th We still have no messages from Window Man, Huan is giving him until the 19th before she starts pestering him again. This morning we both felt a little worn out after yesterday’s work in the house but we needed to get out of the house. We went across the dam.
Within minutes Huan did her usual trick, a difficult subject, again rotated for your perusal.
This was my attempt, nature trying to take over. I love it when it does that.
Our route today was to be part of
Sometimes I wonder if my heart still has problems but since I have had so many tests recently I guess I must be wrong. It is just old age. Walking on the level is still easy but hills, even ones that aren’t so steep are not so easy anymore. At least there are nice views on the way.
The second view is where we turned round to go back down, just at the bottom of the first set of steps. Huan decided that she would spoil the view by putting me in it.
Soon it was my turn to include Huan in a view. This is her at the end of another bridge. We can access this one but we can’t actually get off at the other end, there’s a drop and a chain.
And here we are, both together. I do like this one.
On our way back down we stopped to check out a tricycle. Here I am explaining to the owner that the back seat is a little small. One his friends said that I should not be in the back seat, I should be pedalling. I told them that sitting in the back enjoying the scenery while having the odd drink or two would suit me much better!
As for the trike, well here it is. It does have battery assist for those pesky hills. Mind you, it is a little bit on the expensive side, between £2.000.00 and £3,000.00.
The owner had bought the tricycle because his leg muscles had been
wasting away, he didn’t say why. He is only a year younger than me and looks as
fit as a fiddle now. He and his wife stay in
Still on our way down Huan found another lizard. Some days she grumbles because she doesn’t find any, other days she excels at her task and exudes happiness.
Here’s another creature with some fearsome claws!
We bought some lunch to take home with us, chopped up flatbread. Our piece is visible on the scales; the weapon of destruction is in the trader’s right hand in the first photo. Huan also bought two boiled eggs to go with the bread.
Dafu was lazy today, too lazy to even stand up. She did wag her tail though.
Big game hunters, or photographers, spend hours staking out waterholes in order to succeed in their endeavours. I just happened to walk by.
We started today’s photos with a bird; let’s finish with a bird too.
Back home Huan had lunch, I didn’t. All I needed was water and sleep. Normally you would have dinner photos while our kitchen is still out of action, today we stayed in. The rain came down so Huan had sticky rice dumplings that Yú had brought round for her with tomato and cucumber and a little spring onion. I had the flatbread that I didn’t have at lunch time along with egg mayonnaise with the same extras as Huan. It was a nice change to stay in.
June 17th No walks today, instead I spent all day trying to work out how to
renew my passport. Something that should be easy becomes difficult because the
whole process of passport renewals has been subcontracted to a global visa
company. To be fair, my main problem comes down to actually paying for the
renewal. You don’t actually pay the local company in
We did go out of course, cheapo dinner at the buffet restaurant.
June 18th No headaches today, we took the #2 bus for a bus ‘n’ walk instead. We were too late for a longer route. No sooner had we got off the bus than the first lizard was spotted.
Then I decided some flora was needed as well, plus a long distance little bird.
Our route took us past the family activity centre under the road again where I thought I would have a play on the xylophone. This little guy came to ‘follow my lead’.
Heading upriver towards where we would cross a dragonfly became the next subject.
This was our crossing point. In our younger days we would have gaily skipped from one stepping stone to the next. Nowadays we have to be much more careful!
This was also the spot where we turned back for town.
Before Huan headed up the stairs she found a dragonfly for me to snap. I’m not sure how happy it was about being caught though.
While Huan was up on the walkway I was down on the track where I almost got close to a bird. At the same time Huan almost got close to a lizard.
Soon enough I joined Huan on the walkway where she promptly went into high gear and spotted little leaping lizards all over the place.
Yet another one almost let me touch it then disappeared but came back up say hello!
Back towards town we stopped to chat to a little cat who didn’t want touching at all. All it wanted was to smell my hands! While we were doing that we heard howling from a little further on. Douding had seen us and was jealous, Douhua just joined in for fun. When we reached the pooches I sat with Douhua for a while, Douding was sulking and wouldn’t come near either of us. He was definitely feeling green today!
More flora photos for you before we stopped for lunch.
Lunch was piggy insides with rice and vegetables for Huan and fried egg sandwiches for me. They were not English style though, what you see is 斑斓饼, Bānlán bǐng - Pandan Pancake. For more info on Pandan go here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandanus_amaryllifolius The pancake was already cut into triangles making it easy for me to make egg sarnies.
On the final straight Huan found two more little insects for me.
Long walks these days equal long naps. In the evening, after said naps and coffees, we headed out for dinner again. Boy I will be glad when we get our house back!
June 19th First, a very good morning from Wuzhishan’s very own presidential lookalike!
Having been very lazy at updating the Blog file for the last couple of days we stayed in this morning and I did what was required of me. Old age must be creeping up on us, or galloping like the four horses of the apocalypse. Whatever, staying at home sometimes feels good! Of course we are still going out for dinner nearly every night. You would think that Huan found enough lizards yesterday, she hadn’t, and so she had to find another one today.
Our venue of choice this evening
was KMC, with a view of the street and a view of
My plan had been to give Her Ladyship a change, she chose a whole chicken!
We had the obligatory ice cream afterwards, some kind of chocolate chip and nut cone for me and a green bean lolly for Huan. Yes they have those and red bean too should you prefer.
June 20th Market day comes but once a week and even though we never really need anything these days we do still like to go. Today started with birds on the riverside.
This was followed by a bird in the market who really didn’t want to get close to me.
From the market we also bring you a fruit that we have not tasted. Instead we have a reel for you to watch. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sd0NwfTaFDQ. Although not obvious from the video it appears that to eat it you are better off cooking it.
Here I am chatting to a guy with perfect English who is telling me the nationality of his dogs, his German Scottie and his Chinese whatever it is. I did comment on them being the same colour.
For a change we did buy something, bananas. Can you guess what for? It was my idea; we were going to have banana sandwiches for lunch, not with sugar I hasten to add. My bread was slathered with butter and Huan had some seeds on hers. It made a nice change.
On the way home I added some more flora for you.
Some of you may remember a recent post where we visited a ‘new’ BBQ restaurant which we both thoroughly enjoyed and said that we would definitely return. Previously it had been a fish restaurant enjoyed by ourselves and my son and his wife. Well, we won’t be returning anytime soon, the place is now being drastically remodelled!
That was it for the market, after our usual naps we did go out for dinner again. Noodle soup was our choice this evening and we chose a place we had never been to before. My choice was sold out so we both had the same; I added a poached egg in my soup. When the bill came I kept asking if they had forgotten something, it was only ¥20.00 for both of us!
Huan found one last photo for me when we returned home, a grasshopper that had lost its hop. It had definitely lost a leg and was really struggling, not much we could do to help unfortunately. If we carried it outside it would be eaten by the first predator that saw it.
June 21st Not having done the complete Feicui Park walk since last August we decided to give it a go today although we did cheat and take a bus to the start. Far too many photos were taken, by me this time. These next few collages could be called “Going up in the world.
Before too long we were at the top, as we call it. There is a bit more height to go but this is the place where we turn around to go back down with views upwards and downwards.
Having gone up, we then of course, had to go down.
The bottom part of the walk was soon upon us.
I found our second lizard of the day. Huan had found one earlier but I didn’t get a decent photograph of it. The colour of this one amazed me.
This is the last stretch towards the main road along with a public information sign. If you want to know more about that sign I have cropped it into smaller pieces and used WeChat to translate it which I can of course share with you.
You may have noticed, if you were the observant sort, that there were not many people in any of the photos above. It is Sunday so there were a handful of, probably locals. Snowbirds have just about all disappeared now but even we were surprised how few people there were today. We were also surprised that we didn’t feel too worn out when we eventually reached the lower levels. It was time then to stop for lunch, Huan was hungry, for some reason I wasn’t.
After that walk our naps came easily! Later on #1 son called me, a call that I really enjoyed. Part way through the call WhatsApp failed again and I had to scan a QR code on my phone. I think this is the third time it has done this to, and I have no idea why. Anyway, we ended up going out a bit late for dinner, not that I minded. I could happily have stayed on the call for much longer and had a marmalade sandwich before bedtime! Being late we stuck to the local ‘choose food’ place, I’m sure you now whose is whose.
June 22nd This morning we had two plans, the first was to do our routine health checks with our new BP Monitor, our new thermometer and our existing blood oxygen monitor and blood sugar tester that now have new batteries in them. Once that was done and Huan had finished breakfast and I had drunk my coffee it was on to plan two. That was to go around the house making a snag list ready for when Window Man eventually returns. Huan did call him and he said that everything would be here within four or five days. That probably means next week!
With all that done we were still early enough for a town and river walk. Huan found two butterflies and I found a lizard. None of them were cooperating with the photographer though.
The naughty boy walked on the grass again today to get some flora photos.
Huan then found a lizard for me; it was going round and round and up a tree trying its best to escape the big pointy lens. I persevered and managed to catch it. As usual I have rotated it for those of you with big monitors. I don’t keep photos on my phone.
In
When we were nearing home and Huan found the next subject, I was laden down with bottles of soft drinks so by the time I got the camera into position I was too late. However, Her Majesty had already taken a shot or two with her phone.
In the evening, for our last dinner of the week, we had a spicy one again. Well, you know us by now, we both asked for “just a little spicy please’. You might notice that neither of us have soup and neither of us have a dish with fire under it. This dish you make your own sauce, they did provide a bag of spicy mix but we skipped that. My bowl is the top one with my sauce on the side and Huan’s is the bottom one with her sauce on the side. We learned that we will probably make our individual sauces different next time.
So, another week has gone. Why does it feel like I only posted last week’s post yesterday? Sometimes I find myself checking days and dates much more than I used to. Remember those long, lazy, hazy crazy days of summer? As you age so they shrink! Join us again next week to see if we have any progress with our new doors etc. In the meantime, stay cool!
