June 9th Rain stopped play until the evening so I spent most of the day trying to log into a government affiliated VFS website ready for my passport renewal, Oh how nice it would be to have a consulate in this international duty free island of ours! I failed!
We still had enough makings for sandwiches so that was our lunch. Dinner needed to be a bit special so we went to Eighteen Bowls. Wouldn’t you know it, Huan found a lizard on the way so that is our thumbnail for this week.
And here is our dinner, Huan had her much missed fish, a little spicy for me, I had belly pork and we shared the cabbage. It wasn’t at all bad; nothing was left for a doggy bag.
And that was it for our first day of a new week, pretty boring really…
June 10th The forecast showed that the bad weather would come later so we set off out this morning. That was after I had done some Taobao business though. Last night I had been chatting with one of my younger brothers who reminded me of the ‘thumb oxygen monitor’. After my woozy spell the other morning I decided to go through the whole rigmarole, blood pressure, blood sugar, blood oxygen and body temperature. We have all the necessary test stuff, we bought it during Covid. However, we last used it a long time ago so normal batteries had become corroded, rechargeable batteries had completely died. Both the BP tester and the thermometer were no longer usable. It was easier to order new ones than to repair the old ones.
By the time we got out a planned bus ride was off the cards so it was just a town and river walk. Eagle eyes spotted this tiny damsel fly, how does she do it I wonder.
She followed that up with yet another lizard.
This week, from 7th to 10th, is a big one for
high school students, it is高考 time. Gāokǎo is the National College Entrance
examination and it is the most important test a student will ever take. This
year 12.9 million students will take the exam. For the rest of us there are
some minor changes over these days, less bus services, some roads out of bounds
etc.
Say hello to Milk, another new friend. I guess we would call him Milky. For a five month old puppy he was extremely well behaved.
The last one before lunch is Huan watching our lunch being prepared, another Jiānbing, this time Huan remembered to ask for some bacon inside. Much tastier!
Surrounded by black clouds we did manage to get out and back before the rains came. Today it was just noodles and I managed to keep my shirt clean!
June 11th This morning no walks were planned, instead work was planned, for me anyway. The PC had said rain today so I decided that I would take the opportunity to replace all those ‘cheap’ electrical sockets and switches that I had previously bought. That’s what you get when you buy only considering cost instead of thinking about value for money.
Anyway, after doing my daily Chinese lessons, failing at Wordle and browsing my new FB page, (courtesy of one of my younger brothers) I got down to it. First was Huan’s bedside area.
Next up were the sockets behind the wardrobes, well, they will be behind the wardrobes when we eventually get everything finished and back its rightful places.
Lucky me was then seen going up in the world, to do the A/C socket.
The bedroom was finished off by doing my bedside area, although I still want the downstairs electrician to replace the triple switch with double throw switches. He knows the wires!
Finally, for today anyway, the office light switches were replaced.
There are still more switches and sockets to be replaced but until we can move furniture around again I am a little bit stuck!
Dinner was another local one today.
Huan fancied a photo of the evening scenery on the way home. The rain almost came but seemed to run away at the last minute.
Back home, it felt good to have a relaxing evening after doing a spot of work today. Retirement could be so much better with just some odd jobs now and then. Unfortunately for me, my visa precludes me from any type of gainful employment at all.
June 12th The electrician had been expected at eleven, our doorbell rang before eight necessitating some rapid dressing on or part. Here he is doing his bit.
Huan had woken up this morning with bloodshot and puffed up eyes as well as a headache so we took her off to the local area hospital before doing anything else. While we there it was my turn to do my bit by trying to rescue a rather threadbare butterfly.
Once Huan had finished, a piece of paper in her hand to buy the medicine which the clinic had run out of, we set off along the road to somewhere and Luobote village. First we found birds,
and then Huan found an apprentice farmer learning the ropes of irrigation canal food from his father. There are crabs, snails and even fish in that there bucket.
We were taking the quick way through the village so that we could buy Huan’s medicine and also get something for lunch on the way home. The view was good.
More birds were next.
For some reason Huan wanted a photo of the banana trees, who am I to disagree. I was going to write the word ‘argue’ there but a song popped into my head. Can you guess which one?
Shortly after that we had road works and a narrow diversion for us and various two wheeled vehicles. I had to put my lens cover on and hide the camera.
Now we have some red insects for you and some questions. In the first photo is the one on the left a different insect or is it going through some kind of metamorphosis? In the second photo, do these red insects eat ants?
This is the insect that Huan always calls my friend, a mantis, and of course she took far too many photos as usual. I mostly failed with mine I’m afraid.
Our last outdoor one is a mere caterpillar, one that so far has escaped the beaks of birds!
Huan’s medicine was something to put over her eyes for thirty minutes which she planned to do after we ate our lunch of two baozis each. When it came to nap time I found that Huan had already sneaked off without telling me, she was not feeling too good at all. I gave her a cold towel to cool her down and then left her to sleep. When she woke up she was well enough to have a sandwich, no dining out for us this evening.
June 13th Still no sign of Window Man so we were free once again to go to the market where we would browse and buy nothing because we still can’t use the kitchen. To avoid Huan having to walk into the sun we took the #2 bus to the other end. After vainly searching for a lizard in the bushes I heard a plaintive cry from above.
At the other end of the normal market we spotted somebody seriously looking for something!
Instead of showing you the riverside market entrance as we usually do I thought you might like a couple of river views from the bridge.
From the bridge we saw that the long tourist dragon boat was being manoeuvred back into its tourist position probably getting it ready for the upcoming dragon boat festival next week.
We then took the shady way into the market buying some corn flour sticks on the way.
Not having shown you the usual entrance we have instead two views from the town road bridge, one looking back where we ad walked and one looking at the bit we were going to miss.
Back home early, and after a short rest it was time to eat our bakery lunches. We both had the same, three mini buns each; Huan was going to save one of hers for tomorrow’s breakfast. I was going to be a greedy pig and eat all of mine, it was very easy!
For tonight’s dinner we thought we would visit Lanzhou Beef Noodles again, only this time we would actually have one of their signature dishes.
This is what ours looked like, we skipped the chilli oil, and it was lovely.
June 14th We tried for the #9 bus again today but after waiting too long we ended with a #5. At least that took us to almost the exact same destination. We had lost time by then so we skipped the route through the old army bases and headed back towards the city along the river.
Our walk back was along the #9 route but we never saw a bus at all. However, we did stumble across a very pretty little village, Tunan. It was a tourist spot but no tourist things were going on today. Maybe they only happen in the cooler months when the snowbirds are back.
We did find a lizard showing off for us though.
The village itself is quite beautiful. Huan even found a resident cooking with a very large pot.
After passing one more beautiful Muriel on our way back to the main road I found a patio, just perfect for sitting with a nice cold beer and checking out Pointy Mountain.
On the main road Huan found someone stepping out in style, hopefully avoiding the traffic!
These gold wrapped trees were new since we had last passed this way so we decided to go and have a look, do a little more investigation.
“Whose idea was this?” I was thinking as I climbed the steps. It turned out to be a new residential complex; sales will start next week sometime, probably to coincide with the Dragon Boat Festival. If anyone is interested the prices are ¥11,000.00 per square metre. Interiors are unfinished which is why the prices are quite cheap.
Back on track we took a track at the side of the road.
Soon the track ended so we tried a different one to return to the main road. That was a failure too so some backtracking was required.
Eagle Eyes found us another lizard before crossed back over the river.
Having crossed the river and on our way to the bus stop she went and did it again. I have done the usual and rotated this for your delectation.
Back in town we decided to have a good lunch and stay home with a sandwich this evening. This was Huan’s, a nicely balanced healthy meal.
Mine was not quite so healthy and balanced. I had actually planned on having fried egg and chips, the fried egg from the restaurant and the chips from the burger shop next door. I had to make do with egg and tomato instead. Maybe next time…
Huan was happy today, she managed another find right before we arrived at our door.
Today’s walk was a good one, took it out of us though, we ended up with naps that were much longer than usual. That’s why we have no clocks in the bedroom! Sandwiches were good too; it made quite a nice change to stay in for the evening.
June 15th Today I had a plan, one all of my own, I was to decide exactly how the day would go. My first job was to replace the sockets in the kitchen, behind the fridge location. Huan, as usual, took a lot of photos; here I am doing the top two sockets.
And here I am doing the bottom socket and testing all three.
My next job was to clean all the dust off the fridge and move it back into the kitchen. Huan removed the dust covers and began cleaning too.
Whilst doing her cleaning, the boss, in her infinite wisdom, decided to take the oven door to pieces so that she could clean between the two sheets of glass. Some time ago, I forget when, she had done this before and it was a real nightmare to reassemble everything. Today, the plaintive cry from the kitchen, alerted me to the fact that someone had done something she shouldn’t, again. This time I was having even more trouble and at one stage I lost one of the rubber mounts. You can see that in the first photo. As usual, Google helped in the end and I found a Youtube video with instructions on how to actually remove the whole door. That helped enormously. The missing rubber mount reappeared and fixing it all together horizontally was much easier. All that was left was to re-attach the door. Boy was I happy when it was done, exhausted but happy.
Happy I may have been but I didn’t want to go out for lunch. Huan went and bought herself some noodles and a bottle of coke with some ready salted crisps for me. Neither of us napped, we had gone far beyond the time. Later on though Huan’s eyes would not let her stay awake. When she woke up, instead of going out for dinner I found two doggy bags in the freezer for her to eat and I had sardines and bread. We’ll have to go out tomorrow; the trash needs taking down to the bins! On that happy note we’ll say bye for now, hopefully we will have more progress with window finishing and door replacements next week. I won’t ole my breath though, tata!
