July 7th Good morning all, breakfast time for SWMBO and rain stopped play!
After lunch, at one o’clock’ rain still stopped play.
Just our luck, at dinner time the rain was still preventing play!
Cue a search through the fridge and the cupboards to see if we could find something for dinner. Huan had cooked dumplings at lunch time so soup dumplings were out of the question. There was one onion, one bulb of garlic, half a cucumber and a tomato in the fridge so they went into the pan first with a little olive oil. In the cupboard I found a tin of fish in black beans so the contents of that went in next. In another cupboard we still had some noodles so was enough to give us a pan full of dinner.
Most of our crockery and utensils are still hidden away underneath dust sheets which is why we go out for dinner every evening. Today Huan had her dinner out of a small aluminium mixing bowl and I had mine out of a small plastic weighing scale bowl. I’ve eaten out of many other types of receptacles in my life, all kinds of plastic containers and of course army mess tins. The food always tasted fine and today was no exception.
July 8th Last night’s weather forecast on the PC was not bad, no rain all day. This morning it was a little different, rain would start at eleven. As it happened we were quite safe and apart from the occasional spot here and there we had none at all, all day. Our morning walk was the long way round to the supermarket. Huan found a lizard, the camera was at home!
For the first time in a while we found a couple of those secret’ cars on test. I don’t think I really need to know what these two are.
Although the camera is sorely missed for lizards, birds and other small or distant things at least our phones do all right with scenery photographs.
Huan’s phone actually takes much better photos than mine, spot the birdies.
Lunch was in the beef noodle place again where Huan had the fried bread with a dish of salad and I had sausage, meatballs and fried egg with a little of her salad.
Our morning walk was quite pleasant; we stayed dry and walked over six kilometres. Nap time was short and sweet for Her Ladyship, far too long for me. In the evening we stayed local again and had buffet style food.
Tomorrow’s weather looks good, no rain before six in the evening. Tonight’s sky looks fine too. We have our fingers crossed that we may actually get out somewhere in the morning.
July 9th Are we playing ping pong? It was my turn for the sore throat this morning; it certainly feels as if we are just exchanging bugs every day. Not to worry, we were able to get out into the fresh air, no rains expected at all today. We visited the peacock place.
The peacocks were very quiet today. Can you spot the odd one out?
It looks like a very nice place to stay, I wonder if they have English breakfast.
The boss actually agreed to have her photo taken today; she turns out better than I do.
There are Chinese characters hanging all over this tree. On this occasion mind you, we have decided that translation must the responsibility of the reader. Sorry!
Soon we were hiking back into town along the main road. Huan was pleasantly surprised.
Outside the RiYui Mansions I tried to make a trunk call. You are definitely old if you actually remember what that means. “Rubber knees, trying to forget you!”
Soon Huan’s mood levels were further increased. I can confirm by the way that these are four different lizards in different places and at different times.
And then it was time for lunch.
Our last photos all came from outside the nurses’ college.
If you are wondering where today’s dining out photos are, well we didn’t dine out. Huan went out and bought me some ready salted crisps; they would be my dinner along with some fizzy pop. She had a takeaway cold vegetable dish with some defrosted Xinjiang bread.
July 10th All plans went out
of the window this morning, mostly because I didn’t wake up early enough. The
weather was on our side though, what we would call in the
It was then my turn again, a butterfly this time.
And then Huan found her first lizard of the day, I have no idea how she does it.
I thought you deserved a scenery break so here are two of our town bridges.
Huan took some photos of me behind a historical hoarding by the riverside. She chose this one to share, she said my eyes looked far too tired in the other snaps.
And then she was back to lizards again. I do like the tail on this one and how it curves around to almost create a circle. I wonder if they can pick their noses with their tales.
Walking down the other side of the river we present another bridge, a pedestrian one.
That led us nicely into town and into the bakery. Huan had a slightly sweet pizza and I had a slightly sweet wrap of some sort. Both did the job along with the free cup of tea they gave us.
Having had a nice long walk around the town, we had a nice long nap to recover. In the evening it was the local buffet restaurant again. I even found some liver today. Next time I may just take a double helping of the liver, after all, it is supposed to be good for me!
July 11th It seems like ages since we’ve been to the market so we decided to correct that omission today. First we had to wait half an hour for the #2 bus.
At the other end the first market was quite bare and the road to the second was not very busy either. Well, it is the summer season.
The riverside market was much busier albeit still very easy to navigate.
This week we have a quiz for you, one that we do not know the answers to. What are these two strange objects? We can tell you that they were on a stall that also has tree fungi, tree bark and other TCM ingredients.
This probably needs no explanation. It is a DJI drone, either sold or rented to local farmers for spraying insecticide on their crops. We have seen them spraying trees in the countryside, very impressive they are too. They had no consumer drones for me to drool over and not even consider buying, too much like hard work. Had I realised the drone man was giving us a thumbs up I would have joined him, it would have made a better photo for his buddy.
Here’s one that had us thinking. Our initial thoughts were that it was seaweed, the traders then told us the plants come from the river. Did you know that seaweeds do not have roots? I learnt that this evening Googling what we had seen.
And here’s our last product for this week. This we could learn about because of the Chinese name. You can earn more here - https://www.meandqi.com/knowledge-base/herbs/lu-lu-tong Strangely, the ones you can see here appear to be empty!
Did I say last product? I forgot that Huan took this photo of a mountain farmer selling all kinds of stuff. She had noticed the wild birds which prompted her snapping away.
We did take some final crowd photos for you. How do you feel about crowded places?
Outside the market it was time to stop for lunch, dumplings again.
And that was it for today, apart from a little caterpillar just before home.
I had plans to take Huan out for a fish dinner this evening but she decided she was too lazy to get changed. Instead she cooked herself egg, tomato and cucumber and I had a fried spam and egg sandwich. It wasn’t really spam but it was tinned meat so it counts.
July 12th Huan slept pretty badly last night, snoring, tossing and turning so she asked if we could have a lazy day today. I didn’t need much persuading! I did my Chinese lessons; Youtube threw up some movie recommendations so I followed the links. Huan did seamstress work all day. In the evening we still didn’t go far, we found a new place very near to our house.
The menu outside was very complicated, at least for me. Luckily for me there was a large picture menu behind the counter complete with numbers!
The ‘newness’ must be still fresh; it was crowded inside, many families too.
There was only one table free so I had to order very quickly and sit down leaving Huan to order whatever she wanted and to pay the bill, with my wallet of course. She ordered some kind of cold noodle salad; I had chicken steak and chips.
We both enjoyed our dinners and with this place being so near to home we will definitely be back. It is suitable for lunch and dinner, with all kinds of foods and desserts available. All we have to do is make sure we have enough time to study the menu next time we visit.
We went straight home from there, warily looking at the sky on the way.
July 13th It was my turn to sleep badly last night, three visits to the little boys’ room; I do drink a lot of water. I also had very strange dreams which continued each time I went back to sleep. I don’t actually mind returning to a dream unless it’s a nightmare, that’s a different story! Anyway, I decided that tired though I was we needed to get out for some exercise and fresh air. We took the #2 bus the wrong way round to walk back along the top road and met a new friend on the way. The owner even tried to give it to us to take home.
Even though we were walking through town we still found green.
When we rounder the corner of that building we found some buzzing things. I actually thought it was a hornet and a bee until I did a Google search when I found out that it was a wasp and a bee. Either way, I have bad memories of a bee sting as a child so I stayed well clear.
Here’s a nice local view for you.
Our town includes quite a few small villages, some abandoned and some not. This one was very much a mixture of both.
And then we were back on what we call the top shopping road.
This one I had to take. Huan told me that it is a tattoo parlour, a very apt name.
This family was trying to see who was clucking at them from across the road.
To my surprise I then found a squirrel, even more surprising Huan hadn’t seen it first. There has been some discussion among my friends and family as to whether this is a squirrel or a chipmunk. Wikipedia says it’s a squirrel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swinhoe's_striped_squirrel
Let’s have a couple more scenes from our lovely town.
Would you believe it, in the location of that second photo I found another squirrel and again I found it before Huan even saw it. Perhaps she had something on her mind this morning or her recent cold symptoms have not completely disappeared yet.
To avoid having to go out for dinner again this evening I suggested we eat out at lunch time. Huan chose the shopping centre lower floor. Well, we call it a shopping centre but there aren’t many shops there. She chose a noodle place.
The food must have fortified the boss’s eyes because on the way home she managed to find a lizard and some kind of insect.
And that’s it for another week. If you are wondering about Window Man coming to finish the outstanding work, Huan spoke to him this morning. He told her another two or three days. Funny that, he tells her that every week! I decided to relax and stop worrying; we still owe him money which he won’t get until we are happy with the finished work. So, until the next time we meet, next week on here I hope, stay safe, stay young and stay happy. TTFN.
