August 4th What a wonderful start to the week, NOT. Window Man told Huan that doors would be delivered today and that installation would start. I didn’t believe a word and went out for a walk to town via the road to somewhere.
I didn’t get far, the rain got me first.
Before lunch I decided to remove all the photos from the hallway, with the Interior Decorator’s permission. The Santorini pictures will be given to Lu the engineer. The other frames, which showed all our siblings and parents, were also removed. I doubt very much whether any siblings will ever come to visit us, it is too far and too expensive. Those frames will be given to Wang, who is Lu’s assistant.
As for the rest of the day? Well firstly, as I had expected, the doors would not be arriving today. In fact WM said that it would be a few days before the doors even reached Wuzhishan! Why he can’t just tell us the truth to start with I have no idea. Secondly, the rain rained and the electricity didn’t electric. Our power went off sometime after naptime and despite the efforts of Lu and Wang it stayed off for the rest of the day. We went too bed too early and slept very badly!
August 5th When we woke up there was still no power so walkies were taken. First we had to go down the stairs, hoping that the lift would be working when we got home. With the weather still being not too good we stayed in town.
Someone obviously thought it was an auspicious day.
And someone else was clearly worried bout rain!
We continued on our merry way.
I tried taking photos of these two and failed, Huan did a much better job with her phone. They have a cage which they go back to when they want to. Their wings aren’t clipped and they can fly. I have no idea why they stay with their ‘daddy’.
She also did a good job with Dafu, even getting her to look at the camera. The cone of shame has now been removed so we could have a play fight with her cuddly.
Back home the lift was working but we still had no electricity. It came and went, each time causing me to yell out in despair at the computer going off again! Eventually we gave up and went out for dinner; we both had the same pork noodles.
After dinner I did my Chinese lessons on my phone and read some more of my Richard Osman book left to me by #1 son. The power came back about an hour before bedtime so we didn’t go to bed so early tonight. We also had A/C instead of damp air through the windows.
August 6th I disappointed Huan this morning by telling her we were not going walkies, I was going to do all the updating of this week’s Blog and do today’s Chinese lessons. She was not too happy about that but I took her out for dinner at lunch to make amends. Of course it rained and we only had one umbrella.
Our dinner destination was a new hotpot restaurant where the old Baijiahui used to be. They even had a special offer, ¥29.9 for whatever ingredients you wanted plus ¥3.0 for your broth of choice. Pretty good values for money I would say, wouldn’t you.
As you can see we were the first customers of the day. In fact we were so early that the rice wasn’t even ready. The selectable items were though; here are some things for frying which we completely forgot all about and the sauce corner which we dived into.
These cabinets held the meat selection; strangely there was no beef or lamb.
And here are two sides of the vegetable offerings from different angles. No shortage of choice there, even soft drinks are included.
What did we chose? Well I made a bit of a mess with the photographs so the bottom left corner shows you Huan’s meat choices, her broth and her sauce bowl. The top right corner shows my meat choices, my vegetable choices and my broth. Huan’s veggies and my sauce are missing
With the price being fixed Huan had to try lots of extra stuff, cake which she didn’t like at all and ice cream which left a lot to be desired.
On the way home we bought another small umbrella. We do have a large one in the house but we may need two small ones later in the year for travelling. I didn’t use it of course, it was too new!
We were too late for any naps today and anyway, Huan had finally called the TV repairman. For sometime now, perhaps a month, the TV has been switching itself off after being on just a few minutes. My advice to call someone was ignored, until today.
It’s amazing how little there is inside the electronics of today. The TV had only two small PCBs, the repairman studied them both and then took what he said was the motherboard. He will more than likely just order a new one; we have to wait a few days.
Having already been out for dinner at lunch time, and not needing to go out for anything else, we stayed at home and just had sandwiches this evening.
August 7th Huan had planned
for me to go back to the
For something completely different, I just learned a new way to open jars. Bear in mind that I am just a youngster at seventy six years of age. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1018934157785965 PS The egg peeling method also works.
The rain eased off in the afternoon so we went for a pre-dinner walk, just around little island, the river and the town. Our little island has a new walkway.
Facing our apartments is the ‘viewing platform’ although what anyone using it will be viewing is anybody’s guess. Maybe it has something to do with fengshui.
Continuing on our way, here’s a few more shots.
And then we were back up to the island and off the other side.
We met an old friend coming the other way and had a little chat. I am asking the dog and its owner why its feet are so big and if it will grow much more. Hardly likely, was the answer, as the dog is already eight years old!
We continued on our merry way turning back to town when we reached
the
On our stroll this evening both of us had tried to snap a lizard and some birds, both of us failed. We can blame it on poor light, our old mid-range phones but mostly on sheer lack of skill! Still we had a good walk and eventually ended up at our destination. This is a restaurant that we have been to before but in a different location. This is their new place, it was not busy today. Huan had a tomato soup for her base and I had a pork bone broth. Both of us asked the chef to go easy with the spices, he did a grand job!
August 8th Two dummies misread the weather this morning, thinking that the heavens were in imminent danger of opening and confining us indoors. Consequently we were a little late going out. As usual we waited for the bus, showing you our island walkway from another angle.
With the skies being so full of water we left the camera at home. The director managed to find me a lizard and amazingly, to me anyway, I managed a x3 zoom fairly well.
Huan took a fancy to Li ladies demonstrating their local dress and providing tea.
She then caught me up and snapped me with the Ethiopian coffee lady and the Chinese lady showing her what they use to brew the coffee.
This was a first, two stilt walkers in the market. I suppose it wasn’t too busy today but I wouldn’t fancy being knocked over. Hands up those of you who tried using stilts when you were younger. Of course we could easily climb up onto ours, these are much more difficult!
We did get drizzled on from above on the way home but the rain for the most part stayed away. Summer here is also known as the wet season! After a lunch of sweet potatoes and boiled eggs it was time for naps and then Chinese lessons for me.
In the evening some shopping was needed so we ate across from Baijiahui.
August 9th Well we only went and did it again, that is we read the weather wrong. This time however it was the other way around. Check out the blue skies as we set off for Luobote village and the countryside beyond.
It’s been so long since we went this way that the villagers have managed to build a few new walls. They look pretty good and we both like them, very much.
Passing through the village and one of the houses where they usually have dogs we discovered that their son was home for the holidays. He picked up a puppy for me to chat too.
And so for the first time in a long time we went through the village and headed to the cows. It’s been so long that either the cows have changed or they don’t remember us anymore. Before they would all wander down to the gate, today only two came.
There were no chickens around the byre today either, just one solitary duck.
Onwards we went, intending to go down to the river.
It’s not obvious from that collage but the route down to the river was not so good. We envisioned ourselves slip sliding away, all the way down and then struggling to get back up. There has been a lot of rain over the past few days. Huan’s consolation prize was a lizard.
Remember the misreading of the weather? Well the rains came, those blue skies went.
Back on the main road I took the weather views and Huan needed a snap of me.
I took one final view for you.
What should you do in weather like this? How about following the cat’s advice?
Passing the coffee shop on the corner I spotted a sign in the flowers. Well, I had to borrow it as I’m sure you’ll understand. Your homework is to translate it.
Back home, it was hot showers for both of us before having fried egg butties for lunch. Naps were still a necessity of course. The manageress of our local cheapo buffet place has been asking recently where we have been, (other places), so tonight we visited her place.
Our last one for the day is a quiz for all you civil engineers out there. The nurses’ college has lost its little park and something else is taking shape there. I have no idea what it could be; maybe someone out there can enlighten me.
August 10th “Don’t go on the computer this morning!” Yes, I was under orders because it was time to go and try my annual eye test for my driving licence again. It had been a week since I had failed. Today I thought I was going to fail again but with a patient doctor who allowed me to rest my eyes a little when I asked I met the required limits. Obviously the eye drops provided by the other doctor, the eye doctor, had worked.
From there we went to the police station to make sure that my eyesight test had been registered for another year. We really didn’t need to go, the police computer had already been updated. Still, better safe than sorry. Outside the police station we found a bug. Identification welcome!
My plan then was a long walk around the town ending somewhere we could have lunch out for a pleasant change. I succeeded and we ended up at the dumpling restaurant.
We actually walked nearly nine and a half kilometres, the furthest for a while. Our nap extended its usual duration by quite some time. In the evening a very short walk was needed to another of our cheapo buffet places.
And so we come to the end of another week. We are still waiting for doors to be delivered and installed and for our wrong pane of glass to be replaced. There is also the ‘snag list’ of course, something that Window Man has probably never seen before. One of our old doors has gone though. On instructions from Yú, Zhào dé has removed it and taken it to his apartment where Yú feels it will be better than one of their existing doors.
According to Huan, our shower door will be delivered and installed tomorrow afternoon, the bedroom doors should be the day after and the bathroom doors within three days. I don’t believe a word. All I do believe is that the TV repairman will call Huan when he is going to come and finish our repair. That may be tomorrow or the day after.
To see what really happens though you will have to tune in again next week for another exciting episode of what life is really like for a couple of old fogeys living in China. Don’t forget to click to subscribe, to enlarge, to comment etc. Bye for now!
