Toe Pain, Ear Ache, Boby Building, Solo Walks, Needle

June 1^st “June is bustin’ out all over!” (Rodgers & Hammerstein). Their song of course was about sunshine and the onset of good weather etc. Well here, it is the rain that is bustin’ out all over. We had just about gone one kilometre from home when it started. We persevered, walking under shop awnings and the like but of course we ended up wet, again! The Nikon was wet too but we did manage one almost clean screenshot.

Almost home, after a few hundred metre detour to make sure we got at least five kilometres today, and we came across another ‘impression’ of what the island in front of our house is supposed to look like by the end of this year. I can’t quite see it myself unless they build a better dam just downriver from us. What’s more worrying though is the potential noise that will come from there. There is a park near our place in Ledong and the noise often goes on until after midnight. Just in case you wondered, yes, our bedroom does face the island. Oh, and the finished island will not be ‘stretched’ as it is in this impression!

Just to spite us, for a change, it didn’t rain in the afternoon today. Of course that’s also the hottest time of the day so no walk then. Even worse is that it came back in the evening, but not for long enough to keep us in. This meant Huan went dancing and I had to go walkies!

In addition, I spent most of the afternoon and the evening trying to get communication from my PC sorted out. The people who help are reasonably good but not always so easy to contact. After speaking to two of their ‘agents’ the problem was sorted, or so I thought. After dinner I lost the connection again and couldn’t remake it.

June 2^nd We were caught by the weather again today, thinking the rain was going to come early. We waited, and when it didn’t come we went out around nine o’clock. We were doing well and then seven kilometres out the rain came. It didn’t make much difference by then, we were already drenched in sweat. At least the rain here is not too cold! So, what photos do we have for you today? Well the first is someone who was markedly slower than us. Do you think he knew he was having his photo taken?

The second is a blaze of colour. Huan didn’t like it at all; she said it made her feel sick. Can you guess what it is?

Staying with the animal kingdom, the third and last photo was this little chick. It was alone, no idea if it had any siblings or where its parents may have been.

Today’s photos don’t quite seem as good as usual but that may be because I am not using the Fuji until I get the screen protectors from Taobao. That should be in a day or two.

Anyway, once home we decided the ‘full English’ could wait until dinner time and we had mangoes followed by iced coffee for lunch instead. After this morning’s walk, fourteen kilometres, I stayed in while Huan went dancing. I spent the evening with ‘no connectivity’ again and not much sign of when the problem would be sorted.

June 3^rd Monday, which means rest day, no walking, just shopping. We did have a few Taobao deliveries today though and it was my duty to go down each time and collect the parcels. Easy job, nobody could get it wrong, eh? To be fair, I didn’t actually get it wrong, my flip flops did. The right one decided to ‘slide on ahead’ which caused me to go into splits mode, (almost), and the left one turned up underneath my foot, in the process, pushing my toes down into the concrete. I doubt there will be any fast walking, or boots, tomorrow!

Needless to say, when Huan went out for her dancing time, I didn’t go with her. I stayed home, with, lucky for me, a ‘connection resumed’ to the rest of the world. That kept me amused for a while and I did my Yoyo Chinese of course.

June 4^th As mentioned yesterday, no boots today, not a fast walk and not a long one either. Just our luck as well, the rain has not turned up today! Huan was happy with not being out too long, it meant she could use three of her Taobao packages. As well as dancing and singing she has now decided to try and learn how to play the keyboard. We already had one of those but no stand, no stool and no power supply. All those arrived yesterday so this is Huan today, (happy as a pig in ****), in the gif that I uploaded to Facebook!

The rain stayed away so when Huan went dancing I went walking, just to make sure I got my ten kilometres in today. I didn’t make it. However, I did talk to seven of my local friends, six Labradors, or mixes thereof, (four golden, one black and one white) and then a husky.

June 5^th Another beautiful day today, not a sign of rain anywhere. I was alone again because Huan was at her singing lessons. I kept my pace fairly slow, around four kilometres an hour and stayed out for two hours. That’s your maths homework for today. My toe is getting better. Last night we stopped in at the pharmacy, chemists or as we call it, the medicine shop. Just like the UK we often ask the pharmacist for advice rather than visit the doctor’s. I guess he used to be a football physiotherapist because he presented me with a ‘magic spray’. Looking at the box I must say I had my doubts, we even explained to him that my toe was bleeding from the base of the nail. “You can still use it” he told us and lo and behold, he was right. I used it last night and my toe looked a lot better this morning, less pain too. Here’s the spray.

Usual evening, dancing for Huan and a little stroll for me, I did manage to reach the magic total of ten kilometres today.

June 6^th Still in sandals, toe getting better but calf is painful, possibly because of walking strangely with my toe. We walked around the town and river for eight kilometres though which means I should reach ten easily enough today. The only photo from today was this little critter. There was one of him going for my feet but that didn’t turn out so well.

Huan’s singing class is in the afternoon on a Thursday and for a change, I went out with her. Once I had walked her and her singing partner there I carried on walking, for yet another eight kilometres. That means of course that I easily made the ten. Are you suitably impressed? I know I am. Sometimes walking around the town we can find little gems, like this one, a beautiful water feature in front of someone’s apartment block. Even better, it’s not all dried out as they often are.

They also had some nice places to sit down but you don’t need to see them. I will show you this next picture though, a building named after me!

Well, not quite. It would appear that someone got the English wrong, especially the spelling. Here’s the inside of the “building”! Do you think they meant “Body Building”?

Having done my target today I let Huan go dancing alone and stayed home for Yoyo Chinese, Facebook and watching Youtube.

June 7^th Another beautiful day in our little corner of the world and another walk around the countryside. Our first job was to be good Samaritans again, this time for a little gecko minus its tail. It was on the path and seemed to have no idea where to go, perhaps it was a baby. Huan picked it up and put it in the grass verge. I took a couple of photos but they didn’t turn out so well. Later on we came across a bunch of villagers harvesting their fish. Today is the first day of Duanwu Festival (端午节) more commonly known as the ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ and the village was going to have a communal feast this evening. We watched them go ‘one way’ and filmed it after which they were going to do a return run to get some more.

Heading back towards home we came across this. Never mind that it’s a road, it seems like a perfect place to put your crops to dry. Huan told me she thought this was black rice.

The afternoon was difficult, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Huan had decided that we shouldn’t have a nap today. What she didn’t tell me was that while I was struggling in the office she would be flat out on the sofa making zzzzs.

Having done nine kilometres this morning not too many were needed this evening but I went out before Huan’s dancing practice and got another six in anyway. No dogs today but for a change, a cat. We see cats around but more often than not they won’t come anywhere near us. This one did, and let me make a fuss of it, although getting its picture wasn’t so easy.

Today, apart from being the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival was also the first day of this year’s Gaokao examinations. This is the hardest test that Chinese students ever have to take and it lasts two or three days. If you’d like to know more, Wikipedia has this -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_College_Entrance_Examination

This year, ten million students will sit it. Our little town is no exception of course and the local government does their bit to help. They block the roads off near the school where the exams are held, and if you should have to go that way, because you live there, they also forbid the use of horns. Here’s a couple of the road signs which will be put back in place again tomorrow morning.

June 8^th Well, aren’t we blessed, another wonderful day with not a drop of rain in sight. My plan today was to walk eighteen kilometres and get the electric bus back. Unfortunately, after just over six kilometres the commander in chief insisted we walk back home which meant we only got just over thirteen kilometres in. Still, I shouldn’t complain, that’s more than the target ten per day isn’t it? Somebody was terribly British today though, socks and sandals. For some reason these sandals have been chafing my feet, none of the previous five or seven pairs have. Never mind, no Brits here to extract the Michael!

Having done all that exercise in the morning I had a restful day, not even going out for an evening walk. I let Huan go dancing on her own while I did my Chinese lessons and then played with my Ultrasonic bath. I wonder if they could make human size ones that would make all these layers of fat disappear!

June 9^th It looked like it was going to be a scorcher today but luckily for us the sun hid behind the clouds for most of our walk, ten kilometres for Huan, fourteen for me. My outside legs were good for more, but my inside leg told me to go home, quickly! As we were walking so fast not many pictures were taken today. We did see this specimen, which unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, had already popped its clogs. It would have been good to see it mobile, from a respectable distance of course.

Tomorrow we have to take a drive again so today we had another trip to the tyre shop as the ‘onboard computer’ keeps telling me my front right tyre has low pressure. This time they decided that the computer is still reacting to the wrong wheel from when two of the tyres were rotated in the past. The rear left tyre had a nail in it and that was the cause of the problem. I think I need to study how these things actually work. Remember I said it looked like it would be a scorcher today? This was the temperature when we went out.

Nice relaxing evening for me, a soak in the bath, some Chinese and some ‘Bill’ while Huan went out for some more exercise, dancing.

June 10^th Awake most of the night, or at least it felt like it. We had set the phone alarm for half past three in order to get to the hospital early enough for the car park. Maybe we were worried about oversleeping? The longest stretch I had seemed to be from quarter to three until half past. Anyway, we were up on time and out on the road just after four. There was no queue for the car park and we were in by just after half past six allowing us to go and have breakfast before joining the inside queues. This was the queue for the downstairs cash desk at twenty past seven, ten minutes before they opened.

We were queuing up on the second floor which was a little easier. The first queue is to arrange and pay for your doctor’s appointment. You then go the relevant department and queue again there to actually see him. Because mine is a repeat prescription we managed to get through a little quicker. After that, you return to the cash desk and join the queue again to pay for your medication. Once that is done you go to yet another window, give them your prescription plus proof of payment, and wait again. The last hurdle is to take your medication downstairs again to the nurse who will treat you, not much of a queue there. Of course, for me, this is the worst part. It was a different nurse this time, with a different method, and it hurt more! Most of that is my fear of needles though. I said to Huan that maybe next month she can take a video of it; I still haven’t seen the needle yet!

Being so early has its benefits, we were out of the hospital before nine o’clock and could get on with the more pressing matter of shopping. First stop was the wholesale market for some more sausages and bacon. Second stop was ‘Corner’s Deli’ for cream, cheese, butter etc. They are refurbishing the store so many of the things we like were not available. Hopefully they’ll be done by next month. Last stop was ‘RT Supermarket’ for some of their wonderful sliced bread. Back on the road home than, stopping at Tungshan rest stop for Huan to have some lunch, I didn’t feel like it, too many drinks this morning. Getting back in the car the temperature was even hotter than the picture you’ve already seen, this time 43ºC.

We thought our luck was changing a little later on. There was this enormous noise and then the windscreen was covered in what looked like bird poo. We English think that’s a lucky omen, the Chinese think the opposite. As it happens it wasn’t birds at all but we didn’t know that until I stepped through the video frame by frame. We must have gone straight through an insect migration and travelling over 100kph we didn’t see them. You can get an idea from this picture though, and the windscreen was a right mess after. It was in fact a ‘cluster’ or ‘flight’ of dragonflies. (PS I had to Google the collective noun.)

Evening was a very short walk for ‘dinner out’ and then dancing for Huan, dashcam for me.

June 11^th Well we both slept well last night! Tuesday today but as we were absent from Wuzhishan yesterday, today became shopping day. Another day’s rest with no walking, I wasn’t complaining. In fact I still had to take an afternoon nap!

June 12^th Wednesday today so singing lessons for Huan and a solo walk for me. My plan was to walk almost eighteen kilometres but somewhere along the way I took a wrong turning. I realised when after seventeen kilometres I was going uphill and not finding it easy going at all. I had to retrace my steps which meant I had done twenty and a half kilometres when I reached the ‘electric bus’ stop. Lots of cold water needed on the way including an extra bottle at the bus stop to pour over my head! No photos taken today, I was going too fast but I did get a couple of short videos. The first was a wedding procession, note how the most expensive cars are at the front.

The second was a herd of cows with the farmer and a car trying to pass them. Spot the cow giving me the eye. He, or she, made sure to give me a very wide berth after.

Walking home from the bus stop was not very easy I can tell you. Restful afternoon with a nap followed by a long soak in the bath. Needless to say, I did not accompany Huan to her dama dancing in the evening!

June 13th Another solo walk today, Huan was off to court, along with two other members of the ‘committee of eleven”. We left the house together and it was worth it just to see the face of the leader of the eleven. I’m not sure what she was more worried about, me going with them, how to fit me in the car or the fact that I was dressed for walking complete with obligatory boots, hat and Keymission camera! Huan explained and she visibly relaxed.

So, after yesterdays long, fairly fast walk, I decided a more local one was needed today and just went up the scenic walk in town. Here I am, at the bridge, just before crossing and coming down again. I was walking slower, but still sweating cobblers!

Still, once up to the bridge, the descent is mostly under the trees, so nice and shady. I was doing a Keymission video again today which probably explains why this photo doesn’t look as I wanted it to. Memo to self, sort out the Fuji!!

As expected, I was home long before Huan today, I only walked twelve kilometres in two and a half hours, much more relaxing than yesterday. Anyway, when Huan returned I asked about the news from the court and it seems we are still in the realms of maybes and possibilities. She thinks the judge will come down on the side of the eleven, mostly because the maintenance company haven’t had a contract since the beginning of this year. Of course, we don’t know for certain and now we have to wait, again…

The afternoon saw Huan out again, this time for her Thursday singing lesson. I stayed in, did the blog, did some more Chinese study.

In the evening I decided that as I had done my ‘ten’ today I wouldn’t accompany Huan to her dancing. To be honest, I knew that after yesterday’s fast twenty kilometres I would be a bit stiff today but I hadn’t realised quite how stiff. My calves are fine, probably due to this morning’s walk but my thighs are not so good. I also have pain in my lower back and for some strange reason in my shoulders and upper arms. I’m sure I was only walking and not marching like my army days!

Huan called me from the town square, there was a show on. China celebrates its Intangible Cultural Heritage on the second Saturday of June so it was a Li minority show. (I know, today’s Thursday!) It included a variety of Li customs and traditions such as bamboo dancing and weaving. I didn’t join them, I didn’t really feel up to it and the photos they took are not good enough to use here. However, if you want to know more about the weaving you can follow this link to UNESCO’s Youtube channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=QI96KUULaBY.

June 14^th Today started off with us both trying to analyse the weather. Looking at the sky and the clouds we both thought it was going to rain. Huan’s phone said it would rain today. One of my weather channels said it was raining already, the other said it would rain by eleven o’clock and that it had rained on this day 28 out of the last 30 years! We had another look at the sky and clouds and decided it was worth the risk and what do you know, it was. We made sure we didn’t stray too far but still walked over seven kilometres around the town. As I write this (12:37pm), the rain still hasn’t appeared even though all our weather channels tell us it is raining here now. No photos taken again this morning, just a short video of a little beastie, I think it was a centipede, which I made sure I didn’t touch! Screenshots were rubbish!

After dinner the rain still hadn’t shown itself so when Huan went dancing I went to make sure I got my 10k in today. Not having taken any photos today I looked for something especially for you. I found this, on a car bonnet. I have no idea what it is supposed to represent, only that it is something to do with football. If you know, send your answers on a postcard please or put them in the comments below.

And here’s an extra, a screenshot from the little riverside video I made. It’s quite a pleasant walk although unless you’re walking very slowly, it’s a sweaty one!

June 15^th Another solo walk today, Huan was not well, I think it’s her menopausal problems again. She gets them every two to three months. Leaving Huan in bed I wondered where I could go for a decent walk but without staying out too long. I decided on the landfill route again. The continuation of the highway to Haitang Wan is slowly coming on, a few more bridge legs are visible now. This is the side you saw before, now with much more to see.

This is the other side of the road, much lower, you can see I am looking down on the scene. They are getting the foundations ready for more legs on this side.

The rain held off while I was out but once again I was drenched anyway, it is all uphill for the first five kilometres. Arriving at the little shop back down in the village it was another bottle of water over my head and one inside my belly! Anyway, I was back home in less than two hours to make sure the boss was OK.

The rains came in the afternoon which in a way was a good thing. Huan was up by dinner time and made herself some rice soup, (not for me, don’t really like it). No full English for us today, I had salty duck egg salad instead. If the rain hadn’t come, Huan would have gone out dancing, much better that she stayed in and rested. It also meant that I couldn’t reach my 10k today, I’ll just have to try and do more tomorrow!

June 16^th Her Majesty was feeling better today but didn’t fancy a long walk so once again we kept to the town, still got seven kilometres in though. As we were getting home we were arguing as to whether it was raining or not. Huan was convinced it was, I was convinced it wasn’t. In fact it was less than what we would call ‘spitting with rain’ in the UK. Anyway, neither of us got wet. Once home it was one of my nice iced coffees again and then a break before our ‘Full English’ for lunch which I must say, we both enjoyed very much.

Having not made my target of ten kilometres per day, (except for Mondays and hospital days), either yesterday or this morning I went out before Huan’s dancing to get another five in. That would give me a total of twenty two for the two days, good enough. I got back just before Huan finished her dancing and about a minute before the rain did show its face! Only one photo for you today, the first bridge support to our ‘new island park’. The walkway will be through the middle, the supporting cables over the top. I still can’t see it all being done by the end of the year.

Drowned Rats, Towel Day, Dead Sandals

May 16^th Somebody, by that of course I mean me, slept in again today so it was after eight thirty before we got out. Our plan was to satisfy our befuddled brains that we could still remember where “Binglang Village” is. It’s not really betel nut village, we call it that because they tried to get me to sit and chew last time we were there. We found it easily enough.

This time we walked back on the other side of the fields so you can almost see the whole village in this next photo. When we first visited, we fancied a couple of those balconies to sit and have ‘sundowners’ in the evening. It wouldn’t be so pleasant now though, the fields have been taken over for highway construction, temporary inconvenience!

I fancied a black and white panorama today but I decided that instead of using the camera program I would take a few pics and then use Microsoft’s ‘Image Composite Editor’ when I got home. The result is not too bad at all.

Took some more black and white pictures of old buildings on the way home, and some of Huan fighting through the undergrowth. Yes, we strayed off the beaten track again, lots of dirt and scratches on my legs. Anyway, here she is trying to untangle her skirt.

Late singing lesson for Huan today so no afternoon naps. Luckily no cooking required as yesterday’s dinner had already been prepared before our surprise visitor and menu change. A quick reheat from yours truly and Huan was fed and watered ready to go out again, dancing. Before she went though, I had to take her ‘hostage picture’ with today’s newspaper again, as proof of life for the pensions department up in Dalian. PS I’m not allowed to post that! Once I was left to my own devices I did another Yoyo Chinese lesson, now almost up to where I stopped the last time.

May 17^th SWMBO, otherwise known as HM, PM, Minister of Foreign Affairs (absolutely not allowed), Minister of Home Affairs (position redundant at this time), Minister of Finance, Hyacinth, ‘er indoors and all kinds of other things decided we should walk around the river today and that I should try ‘no lady pads’! Of course, like all good minions, I always do what I’m told so off we went, me with some trepidation. It felt strange after a while because, although you may not know it, after an operation such as I had, after about an hour of walking, you have a continuous feeling of ‘wanting to go’. However, eleven and a half kilometres and two hours and forty minutes later my undies were still dry, apart from the sweat that is! Temperatures were above 30ºC when we got home, although there was a little breeze now and then. Having been ordered to follow today’s plan I didn’t take the big camera with me so no photos I’m afraid.

Evening time and the now usual routine, out for Huan and Chinese for me. I have now reached the point at where I finished last time. New stuff starts tomorrow! If you’re interested, this is the website - https://www.yoyochinese.com

May 18^th Today we decided to go the reverse way round our local mountain walk. We don’t do it so often because there are more steps to walk up this way. What a day we chose for it as well, when we got home and checked the weather, the PC said we had 37 ºC. No wonder we were both soaked, but I was still dry where it counted! Anyway, I decided you could do with a couple of black and white photos again so here’s the first, our very own Disney castle. It would be even better if it was utilised in some way!

The second is a bridge into ‘Jade Mountain’ apartments and villas which we can’t cross because we haven’t got an electronic key. However, I liked this picture and, unusually for Huan, as it’s B&W, she did too. I hope you will like it as well.

Lots more photos of the scenery taken but nothing special to put here for you. I did like this next one though. Watching some cows at the side of the road, and chatting to them as I usually do, I suddenly realised how the shadows were playing on this one. I wonder if he realised he was becoming a ‘Zebow’ or is it a ‘Cowra’?

After our walkies, as it’s the weekend again, it was time for another 'full English'. Perhaps I should have taken a picture of that but I was too hungry!

Another unit of Yoyo Chinese in the evening for me, it’s stuff that I already know so I’m not having to try too hard yet.

May 19^th Two lazy people this morning, we really didn’t feel like walking at all. Huan was just feeling lazy and I had slept badly. According to her it’s because of my ‘female hormones’, I’m more of the opinion that the bedroom was too warm last night. Anyway, we did go out, I need to walk as much as possible otherwise my feet swell up. That’s not female hormones, just old age! Now Huan’s dancing partner has gone off to Thailand for a week with her husband and daughter which means Huan will drag me out walking again this evening. We arrived home, dripping wet again after, just over nine kilometres.

So, what have we got to show you today? How about a ‘test car’, make unknown, and this is the best picture I could get in a hurry. There is a logo on the front but it’s not one I recognise.

Next is something that you can see quite a lot of in China, a swimming pool. You will note though that it is not only empty but in a state of disrepair. Once all the apartments have been sold no one takes care of the maintenance.

There were some other photos of people drinking tea, people building bridges, etc, but nothing much worthwhile.

Because I knew I had to walk out with Huan in the evening I did my Chinese lesson this afternoon. However, it was interrupted by a power failure. That gave us a chance to be good Samaritans, someone was stuck in the lift, almost at our floor, so Huan went off and found the security guards who had a key to open the outer doors. A few minutes later the lift man arrived and moved a lever opening the inner doors, I hope I can remember that for the next time. We then helped the gentleman out of the lift. He turned out to be our neighbour, on his way down!

I managed to finish my lesson and after dinner we set off out again at a much slower pace. The humidity meant we were still soaked when we got home. Two photos for you this evening, one some lovely Chinglish.

And the other, a car that I’ve seen a few times. I have no idea what the English is supposed to mean. Were they trying to spell ‘fortnight’ and got it wrong?

I bet they don’t know how close to a quarter of a penny it is. In fact, dear readers, if you are young you may not know either. The ‘farthing’ used to be the smallest coin in circulation in the UK before it was ‘demonetised’ in 1960. (If you’re interested, you can find more info and pictures here - https://www.historytoday.com/archive/farthings-last-day

May 20^th NTR well apart from shopping, dashcam and who knows what was going on in the evening. Anybody listening would have been very amused. Huan was practicing her singing in the living room and I was learning all about ‘ü’ in the office. Lesson seven finished.

May 21^st Afternoon on the 22^nd and I’m writing this in a hurry! It’s thundering and lightning again outside. So, today, (May 22^nd) we went off on our long anticipated river walk which had been meticulously planned some weeks ago. Unfortunately, the village idiot, and I’m sure you can guess who he is, forgot the most important part of the plan which was to take with us two pre-frozen bottles of water. Anyway, off we went. Our walk started off very well, spotted lots of ducks in the river.

Next was a little friend who followed us for a while and seemed to have the right idea on what was a very hot day.

Not much further on, underneath one of the highway bridges, we came across a 'few' baby ducks. There was no sign of any parents though.

Before too long we decided that we needed to cross the river rather than walk back the way we came. By now of course we were both overheating, me more so than Huan, and remember I told you, the village idiot had forgotten to bring any water! Here’s Huan getting out the other side.

I had a lot more difficulty than Huan, trying to keep cameras, phones and wallets dry, here I am, almost at the limit of my strength.

That was the end of any Fuji photos for the day, I was absolutely exhausted. For a while Huan was very worried about me. I wonder if it was the result of being very overheated before plunging into the river and struggling across. I can tell you that I have never felt my age as much at any time in my life. Slowly I recovered though and carried on with the video of our day. You can find that here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9iugdUisuQ.

Arriving home, I took a selfie of my head which I had hurt trying to destroy the farmer’s hut, he had graciously saved our lives with bottles of water. I should have had a photo taken with him but ‘brain’ was out of order!

Home was never so welcoming I can tell you. Anyway, once lunch was out of the way I loaded the photos and videos on the PC but before I could do anything with them, the electricity went off. An hour or so later, sat on the balcony looking out of Wuzhishan I heard a loud ‘whumpf’ behind me and turned round just in time to see a large white ball of flame on the gantry carrying the power to our area. Look closely, you will see the damage.

After dinner we went ‘downstairs’, (no electricity = no lift), to see what we could find out. Three power lines had been damaged in the city due to the thunderstorms, repairs were underway. A walk around town showed that to be true. As we neared home though lights were coming back on so our hopes were raised, until we got closer. Our area was still off and the repairs would be completed by half past eight.

Sometime after nine we decided to have another little walk downstairs, the engineers had almost finished repairing the burnt cable underground in front of our place, but would still have to go across and repair the overhead damage seen above. It would be at least midnight before they finished. Ah well, back upstairs and off to bed we went.

May 22^nd Huan had a singing class this morning and ‘ordered’ me not to walk too fast or too far. I didn’t need telling twice today, only walked four kilometres or so.

Afternoon was sorting out photos, combining the Nikon videos, uploading to YouTube etc. And once again the evening was Yoyo Chinese, I had missed yesterday and my plan was to do at least one lesson a day.

May 23^rd The boss said not too far and not too fast so we did just over ten kilometres in two hours and twenty minutes, only around the town river so no hills. A little disappointment for us though, the man who was making sausages, before the pork scare, has now disappeared completely, along with the whole of that outside market. What are we going to do?

Huan was at singing classes again this afternoon so I got stuck into Chinese again, another three lessons done, unit nine complete. No evening walks, the heaven’s opened again!

May 24^th The two dummies didn’t check the weather forecast today before we went walking! Huan fancied the countryside but my boots were wet after being left out on the security bars to air during the rain so we had to stick to the tarmac. Not long after we were out I took some cloud pictures. I like this one.

A little further on we came across a duck standing on one leg. Unusually this one let me get quite close. Do you think this is their way or forecasting rain?

A little further along, about three and a half kilometres into our walk, we came across two motorcycle riders, parked at the side of the road. “It’s going to rain” they told us. I replied by saying “Yes, by eleven or twelve o’clock”. Five hundred metres later it bucketed down! Needless to say, there were no more photos taken with the Fuji! Huan took a picture of me with my phone which didn’t turn out so well, even the insides of my pocket were wet. You can see how wet I was though and how I was trying to hide my Fuji under my shirt.

The rain carried on so we stayed in for the rest of the day. I cooked us a version of noodle (spaghetti) Bolognese, more spice than the Italian version and with a few other differences too. Evening time, well, more Yoyo Chinese of course, another two lessons finished.

May 25th Boots still wet so sandals and tarmac it was again today. We did wander a little off the road and had a look at the work they are doing further upriver. I’m not sure what the idea is except to perhaps stop the river eating the banks when it’s in full flow.

Got home and the first job for Huan, before our weekend fry-up, was to take a few pictures of me with a towel. Today being “Towel Day” I had decided to upload a few pictures of me with said item to Facebook. Here’s one for you, spot the frog photo bombing!

What is “Towel Day” I hear you ask, well as always, here I am with the answer, (from Wikipedia):- The importance of the towel was introduced in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy original radio series in 1978. The follow-up book explained the importance of towels in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universe in Chapter 3, using much of the same wording as the original radio series:

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)”

 Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

PS It’s well worth watching, listening to or reading. If you can find the BBC TV series, it’s far better than the 2005 film. Even better find the BBC Radio series where it first appeared or read the books which came after the radio but before the movie.

Usual stuff for the rest of the day, Facebook and Chinese, followed by ‘The Bill’ before bed.

May 26^th Would you believe it, boots still wet so a walk around the town and river was all we got today although we still managed twelve kilometres. Almost home when I decided to do what Huan has been egging me to and pose in an old banger. We see a lot of these around our way, still working too. This one is for sale. You may not be able to see very well but I have my foot on the accelerator. I guess it would be pretty difficult to drive. How many of you are old enough to remember how to ‘double de-clutch’?

Sunday fry-up as usual followed by a little nap for the old fogey. Huan had a visitor, a lady we call the ‘shop lady’ because that’s what she did when we met her. She is now selling health insurance on a commission only basis and was here to give Huan her answer. “No, your husband is too old!” I didn’t expect anything else.

Evening time and Huan was happy, her dancing friend has returned from Thailand. Mind you, they weren’t dancing today, just walking barefoot on the cobbles! For me, unit 11 of Yoyo Chinese finished. I’ll probably have to slow down when I get to stuff I don’t know so well!

May 27^th Monday, our day of rest, well, rest from walking anyway. We did the usual shopping this morning after making sure we had filled the car with fuel. We have one of these computerised thingummyjigs which tells us how long until the next refill is needed but sometime after we get below 100km it will suddenly show nothing except digital dashes. The warning light also comes on at that time which can be a little worrying. We were OK today.

Peaceful rest of the day with all the usual stuff. I did make a video recording for ADDS, Abu Dhabi Dramatic Society, of which I used to be a member. It is their 50^th anniversary this year and I was asked, along with many others, if I would contribute a small greeting for them. It only took me five attempts to get two versions that I hope they can use at least one of! Otherwise it will be back to the ‘studio’, otherwise known as the sofa in the living room.

May 28th Boots dry so I let Huan take me up the hill walk, it’s one of her favourites and I can always add a little on the way home if I want to make it longer. Today we found that they are doing a lot of work on the road up, could be a problem when #1 son comes to visit. I’ll have to see if they have arranged a detour for the hotel at the top.

We walked up to the rest place with the ‘limpid’ pool today, very hot, so we took a selfie for you, hope you like it. I had to stop Huan going swimming in her undies, well, there were other people there!

Around to the bottom of the hill, the beginning of the actual ‘scenic walk’, and then, via the bank, around the river, back to the ‘top’ road via the court and home. I managed to go a*** over t** on the way. I was looking at something in an apartment complex garden and going to ask Huan about it when, whoops, over I went. Sometimes, when it has rained, under the trees in town can become quite treacherous, this was one of those places. Lucky for me though, Huan didn’t have her phone with her so no photos!

Another afternoon of rain, lots of those these days. Mind you, the mountains can look quite good after the rains. Here’s a panorama of those clouds again.

The rain eased off in the evening, as it often does, so Huan went off with her little USB music player for he dancing hour and I decided to try and clean up my Fujifilm camera display. I had asked for recommendations on the camera Facebook page and the first was children’s toothpaste, the second ordinary toothpaste. I tried both, neither worked. It makes me wonder how the screen ever got scratched in the first place! There were other recommendations but they don’t work in a “small” city in China. I guess I’ll have to put up with it for now. To be honest, when the camera is on, the display still works well enough and I compose most of my shots through the viewfinder now anyway.

May 29^th Music lessons for Huan again this morning so I did the scenic hill walk the ‘other’ way, the scenic part first and the roadway second. I wanted to see if it would be possible to get to the hotel by car just in case the work isn’t finished by August. It looks like there is a way so that’s good. I walked exactly twelve kilometres before collecting Huan from her class and adding just over one more. Quite fast today, I was pleased with myself.

Lazy afternoon for Huan, Chinese lessons for me, I’ve now come to the end of the Pinyin introduction. The difficult stuff will soon be coming. Huan went off dancing again in the evening and came back having taken 40 pictures of a frog eating moths, and a video of it too, sometimes with a dog. Unfortunately, being night time, the video didn’t come out well at all but we did manage to get a couple of photos. Here he is in all his glory.

May 30^th Quite a few photos today but we are nearing the end of the month. No long walks today, just two short(ish) ones. In the morning we thought the rain might be coming in so we kept to the town and the river, just over five kilometres . Huan had me taking pictures of mushrooms! This one looks rather odd and I wouldn’t like to say whether or not it is edible.

Next off to the ‘cheapo’ supermarket to buy a new hat, for me, and some new hair ties, also for me! Look what Huan found. It does say ‘Hecho en China’ on the label which I presume means “Made in China” in Spanish. Whoever buys one here, and there were a pile of them, will have no idea what they are buying.

And what about that hat then? Who decided on this particular one? I could say it was a joint decision but I’m not sure that you would believe me. Still, at ¥15.00, (less than two quid), who’s complaining?

“Another one bites the dust”, or in this case another two. My sandals grew jaws and really did bite the dust. Not to worry, there’s a brand new identical pair in the wardrobe. Whenever we use the last pair, we order another two. So far, that particular online store has not closed down so fingers crossed for later.

We beat the rain back by about thirty minutes and I treated us to a home made iced coffee. Take a bottle of Nescafé Smoovlatté, add some ice cream, some whipped cream and enough milk to fill our two glasses, whiz it around a bit, et voila! It was lovely. In fact it was so good Huan started talking about opening a coffee shop again! She enjoys her dreams.

Thursday afternoon means singing for Huan again so I set off, with my new sandals on, and my umbrella in my hand. This time I didn’t beat the rain back but at least I was prepared. Luckily for Huan, by the time she came home it had stopped again. I saw something on my way home though that I haven’t seen in Hainan before. Is this a bad omen?

And our last photo of the day ends sadly. This little creature was caught between our windows so we managed to get it to where you see it in the photo and then Huan gently picked it up and put it out of the window. It was half way across the road when out of nowhere a few birds appeared. You can guess what happened next. I guess we are murderers now…

P.S. The sandal store hasn’t closed yet so another two pairs ordered!

May 31^st A fine day today, no rain all morning or afternoon, but we didn’t go too far. Huan needed to visit the bank(s) to top up her Taobao account. As always, she was trying to get me to photograph all kinds of flowers which we already have hundreds of on the PC. I’m not so sure we have this one though so I agreed.

Unfortunately for Huan, the rain came back before the evening so no dancing. I should say no dancing, outside. While I was doing my Chinese lesson, I did hear the dance music and the shuffling of feet from the living room! We’re both learning, that’s what counts.

So there we are, the end of yet another month. If you are wondering about the progress of the waterworks since the operation, it’s getting better all the time. I don’t think there’s much danger of embarrassing myself outside any more although there is still the occasional leak.

Don’t forget to tune in again next month, until then, it’s goodbye from me, and it’s goodbye from her.