Christmas, Old Wine, Dead Chicken, New Year

December 24^th Christmas Eve and I have no bathroom standby duty. I decided a walk was in order, after all it’s been eight days since I had one. Mind you, my knee is still not 100% so no hills were planned except the mild ones in town. The first photo comes from our new park bridge, they have begun the suspension cable installation. I wish I could get inside to see exactly how it’s done.

I took one or two photos on my walk, nothing special though. Of course I also had an ulterior motive for going out today, I need white wine for tomorrows dinner. Now buying red wine is easy, it’s called 红酒 (Hóngjiǔ) which literally translates as ‘red alcohol’. If you want to buy white wine, you can’t ask for 白酒 (báijiǔ) because while the meaning is ‘white alcohol’, it is not wine. Báijiǔ is a spirit, whose alcohol by volume can be anything up to 65%. That’s not exactly what the recipe calls for. So what do you ask for? According to my lessons, I should ask for葡萄酒 (Pútáojiǔ) but that just means ‘grape wine’. It may work in cities where they have more availability of wines but it doesn’t work here in Wuzhishan. Every shop kept directing me to the red wine display. Here, I need to ask for白葡萄酒 (Bái pútáojiǔ) or put the colour at the end, 葡萄酒白色 (pútáojiǔ báisè). Eventually I understood but it made no difference, nobody had any. Well one shop had a 187ml bottle which would have sufficed but they wouldn’t sell it to me because it was the only one they had and they had no idea of the price. That reminded me of the store men in the army who would never let you have what you wanted if it was the last item in stock. It was explained to me as they needed the ‘last one’ to be able to recognise what it was when replacement stock arrived. I had to give up and go home where I did some searching for possible substitutes. There would also be a chance this evening in the shops I’d missed this morning

After lunch, it was time to assemble my new chair. I can’t say I’m over impressed; there was some minor damage here and there, but not enough to warrant sending it back. If we lived nearer the supplier we may have done that, but returning things from here is a pain in the proverbial. Even worse than the minor damage though, it’s just not very comfortable! Still, I guess it will do what it has to and I’ll be able to use the guitar more easily. Here’s what it looks like, one arm up for demonstration purposes.

After dinner, it was shopping for me again and this time I was lucky. The wine is made by Great Wall and they are fairly trustworthy, we’ve had many of their red wines. This one looked like it had been in the shop a long time; the sales girl said it was thirty years old. That’s obviously not right, there’s an Olympic logo on the back so it should be 2008. Because it’s ‘old’ and ‘looks it’ I thought I could wangle a cheaper price. I did, I got a whole ¥3.00 off! Instead of ¥98.00 it cost me ¥95.00. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. Once home I had a quick taste and it seems like it should do the job. I’ll let you know when we’ve eaten the chicken tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s the wine itself.

On the bathroom front, the new installation team wanted to come tomorrow afternoon. I pointed out to Huan, perhaps not as gently as I should have, that tomorrow is Christmas Day; she’s rehearsing all morning, and then they’re all having to go back for make up tests in the evening. We only have the afternoon together. They will now be coming on Boxing Day.

December 25th Well this was not the best of Christmas Days. Huan has successfully passed on her cold; I now have gunge in my nose and throat, a headache and achy bones to boot. At least I could stay in and relax, I thought. Shortly before Huan was due home I decided to get everything out of the fridge ready for this afternoon’s cookathon. Our fresh bird, which we, (or I), had followed all the instructions for, had gone off. The bag it was in smelled like urine and the legs were changing to a grey colour. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Once Huan arrived it was off out for both of us to try and find a replacement bird. We had no chance at all. By midday, a lot of the market traders had closed for lunch; those that were open only had tiny 1kg chickens. I know there’s only two of us but I didn’t fancy cooking such a small bird, or even two of them.

We thought we’d try for some pork, that would do just as well. We had much the same result, nearly all traders closed for lunch and those that were open didn’t have anything worth roasting. African swine fever has a lot to answer for.

Quite a while ago Huan had fed some of our visitors by buying a ready cooked duck and then sticking it in the oven prior to serving it. It’s not what I wanted to do, but I gave it a try. To me surprise, it worked out quite well, here it is. We also had sprouts and peas of course but they are not shown. We didn’t feel very Christmassy but we did enjoy our dinner!

For the rest of the day I just sat there feeling sorry for myself while Huan went out for yet another practice. We did try and sing Silent Night in Chinese while I played the guitar, for my sister Sandie and her husband John. That darn ‘F’ chord is still causing problems.

December 26^th Feeling a little bit better this morning, maybe I’ll kick this little bug faster than Huan did. I had two duties today, the first was second bathroom standby, again. The second was doing a good impression of a dashboard nodding dog while I was on the PC carrying out the first duty. Needless to say, nobody turned up before lunch.

Dinner was yesterday’s duck leftovers, reheated and guess what? As soon as we sat down for dinner, the guy turned up to do the bathroom. He didn’t need our help though so nothing to worry about. Because he turned up so late Huan had to cancel her dancing date with the Dama dancers which secretly pleased me. I do like having her around! Anyway, here’s the finished ceiling. I’m not quite as pleased as I was with our bathroom, but it’s OK.

December 27^th Almost back to full fighting fitness today, another day should do it. Perhaps a walk today would have helped but the weather was miserable. I did have a little job left to me by the Minister of the Interior though, finish off the cleaning of the second bathroom and replace all the gubbins that normally lives in there. Easy enough for a man of my capabilities and my military background of cleaning toilets!

The rest of the morning was spent on guitar and Chinese. At least I don’t have to keep trying to learn Silent Night anymore, I can get back to following the lessons I was doing. Chinese is a lot of review as well as a new lesson a day. It’s not easy and although I am learning to speak, listening is still terrible, especially when we’re out talking to friends and neighbours.

So tonight was Huan’s show and I thought I’d better go and give her some moral support. My first mistake was to leave my glasses at home; this meant that all the pictures, and videos, were of absolutely atrocious quality. Now, when I said earlier about them having a technical rehearsal, you can scrub that. Even last night they only had the stage, with no sound or lights. That was fairly obvious as I was watching some of the acts on before Huan’s group finale. The sound was terrible! For some reason they also had rotating footlights on for all the acts as well, which not only disturbed the performers but made recording videos almost impossible. The video I made of Huan’s group is not good enough to share anywhere but I am hoping that the TV people will send me something better. WeChat details were exchanged with that in mind. Anyway, here’s a screen shot from mine, you can see Huan on the extreme left.

P.S. The lovely TV lady sent me the link today so if you have a couple of hours to spare you can click on it here. If you only want to see Huan’s bit, fast forward to about one hour and forty seven minutes. 

https://live.fang.com/liveshow/play/tuwenvod/1251953760-concatFile-bd704b44b78d3bf98e0557cb3a9076b7t0/10/sanya/wap/0/?fbclid=IwAR1UHL1-jIXludoo1WuE-QWi2u3hGHWb9hUsTjTYIS7Kf9T-tctw5L09iU8

December 28^th The weekend is here, no singing for Huan, full English lunches and walkies! Well, that was the plan. The weather was miserable this morning and I was doing a pretty good impression of a nodding dog again, having woken up far too early. We stayed in and I cooked, pig in a blanket, (except it was a chicken and garlic sausage) with the usual egg, beans and toast. Here’s the sausage part.

It didn’t work so well, perhaps the sausage was too big. Once we’d eaten up and cleared all the dishes away we decided, that as the weather was fine, we would go out for our planned walk. Before long I was wishing we hadn’t. I started sweating but it wasn’t an “I’m hot” sweat, it was more like an “I’ve got a fever” one. We probably walked about twelve kilometres doing the scenic mountain route and then the river side to buy some baps. My legs were exhausted when we eventually got home. Mind you, we did see some performers down by the river. There were a bunch of people doing 太極 (Tàijí), more commonly known to you as Tai Chi and then some 新疆 (Xīnjiāng) dancers. However, Huan tells me that very few of them are actually from Xinjiang, they are mostly snowbirds who have learnt how to do the various dances. We stayed and watched two very good ladies; the first one was ‘just an ordinary dancer’ while the second one danced with ‘bowls on her head’. I was convinced she was cheating until she got to the end and proved that she wasn’t. Here they are, the first in the middle of her routine and the second just prior to starting.

December 29^th We both decided initially to go through the countryside but before too long changed our minds to a more leisurely stroll around the river. We thought we’d try and find our ‘frog’ from two previous visits. There was no sign of him at all but we did find a crab and a snail around the same place.

Today was Huan’s day for spotting, she’s the one who saw the crab and the snail as well as more snails further one. She also found this little creature.

She didn’t see this next one though, it was all mine. I spotted a few birds flying into the reeds and although I couldn’t see them very well, even zoomed in through the viewfinder, I tried to get a photo. The result is far from perfect but much better than I had expected.

Huan got this next one though, a fish, hiding near the bank. We did ‘disturb’ it with a piece of bamboo but it didn’t move very far. Huan said it had a hole in its side although I couldn’t see it. Maybe it had escaped from one of the many fishermen out today.

And here is one of said fishermen, complete with umbrella on his head!

Despite not going off into the countryside, we still managed ten and a half kilometres and we were home a little too late for a ‘Full English’. Instead lunch was tuna fish sandwiches. I did make us a ‘Full English’ for dinner this evening, before diving into a hot salty bath while Huan went walking on the stones.

December 30^th Today was a very important day; it was the Annual General Meeting of the shuǐ àn biéshù Residents Association. Well, I may have exaggerated just a little there. We don’t actually have an association and although it was a meeting, I have no idea when they last held one for all the residents. I can tell you one thing, if you think meetings in the west are tedious; do not go to one in China! Only five people spoke and the meeting lasted nearly two hours. I even had to make a video of it, which I won’t bother sharing with you. Here you can see the enraptured throng in attendance, some of the committee and my cameras.

You might be wondering if we learned anything new, the answer would be no. Lots of blame was apportioned and lots of promises were made but once again, we will just have to wait and see. Every cloud has a silver lining, and this one was ‘dinner for the committee’. Two members were absent, one way up North and the other has a sick husband, so that left twelve of us. By the time it was over I was extremely bloated. The food was good, as always, even with a couple of dishes we had never tried before. Apart from eating too much, there were also far too many cries of干杯, (Gānbēi) which is translated as “Cheers!” but literally means “dry cup”. I joined in the first toast with a small, very small, glass of白酒 (báijiǔ). After that I stuck to beer, also in small glasses, but the cries of “Gānbēi” kept coming. Huan wasn’t able to escape today either and she hardly ever touches alcohol of any kind. Within minutes you could tell by her face that she’d been drinking, she goes very red, very quickly. I’m not going to show you a photo of Huan alone, but here’s the whole crowd, with the exception of me, in a panoramic shot.

Needless to say, a very quiet day followed for both of us. Huan had a little snooze while I compiled the video for the committee. No cooking was required, not even any sandwiches were needed, we were both still too full.

December 31^st The last day of the year, and not a ray of sunshine anywhere, just miserable rain clouds. SWMBO had given me orders today, no walkies, (just as well with the weather), instead I was to pick her up after singing so that we could do our weekly shop. No driving was possible yesterday! (Hic!)

There followed another lazy day, Huan watching TV, me watching The Bill on YouTube. All was going well until there was an enormous crack and my (new) chair arm broke. As the arm is connected between the seat and the back, it was quite a worrying surprise for me. I’m not having much success with chairs am I? This is the third one we’ve bought from Taobao since 2015. Photos were taken, showing what it’s supposed to look like, and what it does look like, as well as photos of the actual ‘break’.

Huan then began the process of fighting with the Taobao store concerned. This is one case where we should perhaps have checked other people’s comments and not just relied on the ‘reliability score’. “We’ll send you as new arm” they said. As the chair had already begun leaning far away from its vertical position before the arm broke, I wasn’t too keen on this. After much arguing back and forth it was agreed that we would return the chair and get our money back. Of course we will have to pay the return shipping costs. We’ll see tomorrow whether it’s worth doing or whether we just forget all about it. For sure, my next chair will be bought locally!

And so we come to the end of another month, and the end of the last long monthly tome. From now onwards I’m going to try posting weekly, probably on Mondays when I’m not out walking. Should anything out of our ordinary humdrum existence happen, then that may well result in a special post, we’ll see. Let me know in the comments if you would rather see a long monthly magnum opus or a shorter weekly digest.

From me, and the boss, that’s also it for this year; we’ll see you, tomorrow, next month and next year. Sleep tight and have a very

New Glasses, Rabbit on a Hot Tin Roof, The Sky is Falling

December 9^th It was that time of the month again, time for us to visit the hospital and get someone to stick a big needle in my belly. We were prepared, up reasonably early, and ready to go by seven forty five. However, we couldn’t go!

We knew whose car it was, Huan went and knocked on her door. She didn’t knock very hard because the lady in question has a dicky heart. There was a phone number in the car, but we both managed to read it incorrectly, thinking that it began with 137. It was another neighbour passing who said it was 139 that got our morning back on track. By twenty past eight, she had moved her car and we were on our way.

Arriving at the hospital and seeing the lengths of the queues everywhere we thought we’d end up having to return again after lunch. I’m sure if I’d been alone that would have been the case but Huan is braver than I am when it comes to Chinese bureaucracy and so we were actually all done by lunch time.

After lunch, we had a walk to the ViVision Lasik centre to see about my eyes. I will be seventy in February at which time my driving licence will need to be renewed, and I will have to pass an eye test. With my eyes as they are now, I would fail. When we arrived there, the English speaking member of staff was on a day off. The girls on the desk told me that they could test my eyes, for ¥300.00. Being the cheapskate that I am we moved on.

We went to a place very near the hotel and made enquiries there. The staff handed over to the ‘doctor’ who said I would need to have my eyes tested to see if I was suitable for Lasik. She also said the test was free. Well, how could I say no? It was a very thorough eye test and the doctor’s English was superb. She even found the remains of a dead mosquito in my left eye! Because I was asking questions she explained everything as she did it. I had to sit in front of four different machines in one office then another one in her office before sitting with the multi-lens machine. What was her verdict? My eyes are not suitable for Lasik surgery. Instead she could recommend either “Lens Replacement” or plain old glasses. My brother and his wife both had their lenses replaced in the UK at a cost of £6,000.00 each. Here, it would cost me between £10,000.00 and £12,000.00! Needless to say, I opted for glasses. I will have to have ‘progressive’ lenses.

So, it was back to her office again for more tests after which I had to walk around for twenty minutes wearing the long distance lenses, then, with the near distance lenses, read a book (which Huan fetched from the hotel for me) for fifteen minutes and finally wear the long distance lenses for another ten minutes. Here’s a picture of me with one of the lenses.

The next step was to choose some frames. Now, those of you who know me will know that I am not a big fan of name brands so the first thing I did was try the cheaper frames. None of them really worked for me, comfort wise or style wise. I ended up settling for Ray Bans, who I thought only made sunglasses. More test were then done with me wearing those frames. The lenses will be Zeiss so they should be OK. The glasses will be ready in a week but we probably won’t collect them until January when I have my next ‘needle’ appointment.

In the evening we met Jake for dinner and introduced him to the pleasure of大盘鸡, Dàpán jī which as you may remember, translates as ‘big plate chicken’. This time, the proprietor offered us the bigger pan and as there were three of us, we accepted. Here’s Jake sat with Huan waiting for me to finish with the camera so he can dig in.

I’m pleased to report that Jake was suitably impressed and even took a doggy bag home with him so that Rachel could try it too.

December 10^th This morning, after a good night’s sleep, it was a shopping day. Strangely enough, we always sleep well in this hotel, so much so that we have tried to find out where the mattresses are from. Unfortunately, there are no names on them and the hotel staff have no idea!

Carrefour was our first stop where we found cheese, butter and red cabbage. The Grocery was next where we bought a few things but nothing for Christmas. They did have huge turkeys, well, too huge for Huan and I anyway, but there were no cakes, pies or puddings. From there we went to Corner’s Deli, where we found marmalade but again no Christmas stuff. They did have European style Christmas cakes but they don’t work for me. Our final shopping stop was RT Supermarket where, after a little lunch, we stocked up on sliced bread, filleted fish and other odds and sods. One of those odds and sods was ‘fish skins’, what’s left after they’ve prepared the smoked salmon. We fry them, they’re quite tasty and of course fish is supposed to have goodness in its skin. Another of the odds and sods was this; the sales lady said it was some kind of broccoli. A Google search tells me it’s ‘Romanesco broccoli’ or ‘Roman cauliflower’. I’ll let you know what it tastes like!

Back home in Wuzhishan by around four o’clock, the first surprise for Huan, the house was cold, much colder than Haikou had been. There followed a lazy evening for me and the usual dancing for Huan.

December 11^th This morning the weather was miserable so when Huan went singing, I stayed home and got on with dashcam work, enjoying FB because I was able to get back on, and also enjoying reading the Daily Telegraph, free of charge. Once the UK election is over, it won’t be free; it’ll be back to a paid subscription, which I don’t have.

Our normal weekly shopping was done this afternoon, much less than usual though. No sooner were we home than Huan was out again, rehearsing the teacher’s tribute act. She’s a busy lady! In fact, after our dinner, ‘fish skins’, she was off out again, dancing. Rain stopped play there though so she was home early. Back to normal for me, guitar and Chinese.

December 12^th Another miserable day for the weather so consequently a lazy day for us. Huan didn’t have singing today as she is not part of the ‘show group’. If she hadn’t missed a day taking me to hospital, she could possibly have been included. She did the washing, I spent ages changing the aspect ratios of old photos from 4:3 to 16:9 wherever I could. 2007 was completed and five months of 2008. Only another eleven years to go! Well, it should be less than that, I can’t remember when I decided that 16:9 was better for the computer.

Oh, I nearly forgot, we had our new fangled broccoli tonight, but as it was cooked in the rice cooker along with the soft pork and the vegetables I can’t say very much about it. If you cook cauliflower or broccoli in the same way, the result is the same, mush!

December 13th There was a slight improvement in the weather today, glimpses of sun now and then, so Huan suggested I take the scenic mountain route. I agreed and then didn’t bother. Instead, I just zigged and zagged around the town until I got the daily ten done. I started off checking on the allotments. You can find these all over the place in China, any old bit of land will do. Sometimes the local government has its hands full trying to keep public areas free of local ‘farmers’. I hasten to add, these do not belong to us, nor do any others.

After a few zigs and zags I took the river route and as I was passing the ‘public conveniences’ a man came out and engaged me in conversation, as you do. He asked the usual questions, was I from America, was I from Germany etc. I gave him a negative response to each and when he finally asked which country, I answered England, in Chinese of course. I had to tell him twice at which point he carried on the conversation in almost perfect English. He was giving me history lessons about the opium wars, the ‘Empire’ and America. He told me that English was better than American so I pointed out his American pronunciation! Law came into the conversation and he was convinced that Chinese law was better than UK law. Funnily enough, he also said he was a Christian and did a lot for charity. He was carrying some articles he had written, in English, about support for children with cerebral palsy, autism and something else which I forget. We then had a small discussion about his faith and the government, interesting. I would say he is a good, although quite a mixed up person.

I also met quite a few of my four legged friends today, they had obviously missed me! No photos of them though. In fact, the only other photo I took today was of my belly. When I took a shower after my walk, I noticed that this month, the nurse had bruised me, quite badly in fact. Perhaps it was too near her lunchtime. However, I don’t think you need to see that!

December 14^th As promised it was a walk up the scenic mountain route today. We still had to go via the apartment complex, the road is not accessible yet. Not much has changed there except for the addition of a few small creatures. I’m not sure whether they are loudspeakers or lights. I couldn’t see any speaker grills and of course it was daytime so no sign of any lights. Here are some of them.

You may remember the route we took last time on this walk, over the hill and not up the road. I didn’t fancy the steps today so we took the more usual road route, along with what appeared to be half the population of Northern China. The snowbirds were out in force. It’s actually not too bad, some of them are regulars and will remember us and stop for a chat, others are ‘newbies’ and surprised to see a foreigner, so they also stop for a chat.

To make sure we, or I, got my ten in, we came back via the river and the farmer’s market. I had seen yesterday that the Wuzhishan Food Festival had disappeared along with the mini car show, but Huan was a little surprised. We’ll have to check the signs again to see what we got wrong. Anyway, today’s photo of the farmer’s market is again TCM, or Traditional Chinese Medicine. Supposedly, whatever is made from these would be good for the problems I have with my hands now and then. I think I’ll give it a miss; I have trust issues with some TCM.

December 15^th What a lovely day for a ramble today. We decided to go through the countryside, but not as far as I’d planned yesterday as we both woke up a little late. Our first photo however, is not the country side, but a set of doors. I’m sure you’d agree that they look to be quite expensive ones too. Now take a closer look and see how they secure them. This is far from unusual in China, in fact it is far more common than seeing doors with actual locks built into them!

Once in the countryside, apart from the usual ducks and chickens, we found a rabbit on a roof! He wasn’t in a hutch on the roof, just scampering free. We missed the photo of him on his back legs having a good old nose at us, but here he is anyway.

The next thing we missed was a real live snake. Well, Huan saw it in the irrigation canal for the rice fields at the side of the road and she called me. By the time I got there it had disappeared into a crevice somewhere.

Now, you know we like planning and that our plans don’t always work out the way we want them to. I wonder who, if anybody, planned these steps.

By the time we reached the steps above we had covered eight kilometres so it was time to turn for home. If we had been up earlier, we would have gone much further and maybe caught a bus home. I wish we had done that. “Why?” I hear you ask. “Because I fell in a ditch!” I respond. To be fair, only half of me actually fell in, my left half. It slid not so very graciously down the slope. My right half tried to follow, not so graciously, and slammed my knee into the road surface. Pain! I had to sit for a few minutes before I could struggle to a standing position and then carry on walking the remaining five kilometres home. We have no photos of that because Huan was too busy worrying about me to take her phone out. Good lady!

Sunday meant a full English for us both, teacher tribute practice for Huan and a nice long soak in the bath for me. It wasn’t so easy getting out today! Ah, don’t you just love it when old age creeps up on you? I must admit to feeling this more than usual, despite it just being a knock on the knee. I didn’t feel like writing the blog, practicing the guitar or doing Chinese lesson reviews. Needs must though so I knuckled down and got them all done.

December 16^th The “ditch dummy” slept very badly last night! I am not a great fan of pain as I’m sure many of you are aware and last night I was tossing and turning all night long trying to find a position that would ease my knee. I failed!

Thank God Monday has become my new rest day, I would have found it difficult to go walkies today. In fact it may be difficult for a few days. Standing is not bad, sitting or lying, while awake, is not bad, but transitioning between sitting and standing is not easy at all! Even getting into the car for the weekly shop was a bit of a struggle.

Shopping itself can sometimes be a struggle too. I don’t recall ever seeing this in the UK, or even in the large supermarkets in the UAE. Here, they stock the shelves while the shop is open, not only that, but during busy times! There’s not much chance of navigating your trolley through there is there?

Mind you, I was not the only one with troubles today, the Queen had some too. She was sat in the “Throne Room”, minding her own business, as you do, when the sky (ceiling) began to fall down around her ears. Luckily for her, she was out before the worst of it. Here’s the initial photo looking from the door and the final one looking towards the window.

We managed to get someone to come and have a look this evening; we will of course need a new ceiling. He seemed totally unperturbed that a ceiling should fall down after twelve years and thought that ten years was pretty normal!

December 17^th “Hopalong Cassidy” is much better this morning although he still didn’t sleep so well. At least he doesn’t have to visit the hospital today which was worrying him a bit last night. Now transitioning from sitting to standing is merely a mite uncomfortable. Walking, to be on the safe side, was postponed for yet another day!

This morning we had the foreman of the bathroom repair gang round, measuring up again, and then we went with him to choose our new ceiling tiles. He also took us to a couple of light shops but I wasn’t impressed at all. After lunch, it was straight onto Taobao again to see if we could find anything better. We think we did, you can let us know when we eventually receive the lights and fit them.

The ‘gang’ were supposed to be starting work tomorrow but lo and behold, one of them turned up late in the afternoon to ‘prepare the way’. He removed all the hanging bits of wood and ceiling and left us with this.

We’ll see how they get on tomorrow and keep you informed.

“Lonely Table Set for One” this evening, Huan had to go out. They are trying to sort out a video for the old people’s choir area boss, the one who provides the practice space for them. They had to get dressed for the part. This morning’s “Tribute to the Teacher” was rehearsed in red T-shirts and black skirts, looked good to me! However, the class coordinator of the old people’s choir was not impressed and they have to wear dresses. They will also decide the order of the performance etc. They have been told to allow five hours for tonight’s effort. I guess it would be like our technical rehearsals although I’d bet it’s not as well organised.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not my week. Tonight, I managed, of all things, to fall off my office chair. I knocked a receipt onto the floor, leaned forwards to pick it up whereupon my chair wheels decided to go backwards very rapidly. Luckily, it wasn’t my knee that broke the fall this time but my large posterior! I’ll survive to fight another day.

December 18^th And so we come to the end of yet another glorious day in Wuzhishan. For my sins, I was on ‘bathroom duty’ today, no, not cleaning it, but standing by for the ceiling installation team. Would you believe that by this evening, with dinner well and truly over, they still haven’t turned up? I thought that kind of thing only happened in the UK.

Something else that hasn’t shown up today is water. Of the six buildings in our complex, five have water and ours doesn’t. Trying to get any sense out of the maintenance company is like trying to get blood out of a stone. It went off just before lunch yesterday so it’s now been over twenty four hours! Need I remind you also that we still have no gas?

Tomorrow they have a committee meeting which you would think would be about essentials such as gas and water. You’d be wrong of course. The meeting is about the ‘annual show’ put on for the residents who happen to be here. I say ‘annual’, but there’s only ever been one show and that was last year. If they are going to spend any money on a show, I will be most annoyed and have asked Huan to make sure she lets them know that she is too.

December 19^th Bathroom standby duties for Bob again and a committee meeting for Huan. No annual show was mentioned at all in the meeting; perhaps they had a change of mind. Gas was mentioned, there will be another court case on the twenty second of this month, a Sunday. It appears that the courts are very busy at the moment and work seven days a week. Anyway, this court case is to try and retrieve the money that was paid to the previous gas company, who as you may remember, had an owner who died. The company is now under new ownership. I’m afraid I don’t have the faith that everyone else has; I don’t believe that money will ever be recovered. Water was the other item on the agenda. The solution it seemed was to repair and clean the pump which would then be used to pump water up to our rooftop tank. It needs repairing because it has never been used!

Just before lunch there was a knock on our door, it was one of the maintenance team telling us that the water problem was solved. They had discovered that someone had turned off the water outside the gate to our apartment complex. My first question was “Why did it take them two days to find that out?” My second question, which I didn’t bother asking, not trusting any kind of understandable answer, would have been “How come five out of the six buildings still had water, and only ours didn’t?” The only reason I can think of is that we have more residents than them and thus emptied our tank quicker, not very feasible though.

Just settling down to watch ‘The Bill’ after dinner when there was another knock on the door. It was a man from the bathroom team; he had come to leave his ladder and tools and to prepare the lateral supports for the new ceiling. Now we have installation materials on the bedroom floor and a glue smell to sleep with! He left just before half past six promising to be back between eight and eight thirty in the morning. All we have to hope now is that our new ceiling light arrives tomorrow.

December 20^th We slept in the spare bedroom last night to avoid the sealant smell from our bathroom. Huan slept well, I didn’t. Memory mattresses, which are comfortable, rely on your body heat. As I get very hot when I sleep, the mattress seems to amplify that heat and it feels like being in a soft oven!

Bathroom standby duty was worthwhile today, the fitter turned up five minutes before Huan left for her singing class. He was done by ten fifteen, apart from the light, so I began the ‘clean up’. I thought Huan would be so pleased when she arrived home to find everything moved back into our bathroom. I failed! Ten minutes after I started the water went off again.

Huan came home, angry with me because I had ‘switched my phone off’ and there had been a Taobao delivery. Needless to say, I had not switched my phone off! Seeing is believing for Huan and when she saw that my phone hadn’t moved since last night and that it was still on she almost believed me. It was only when she tried calling me and got the same error message that she believed me. Just a glitch in the matrix! I called her with no problems and then she called me back, this time, successfully.

She had come in carrying the delivery which turned out to be the two lights we had ordered. The bathroom team were recalled to fit one of them on the new ceiling. I am perfectly capable of doing this but I wanted it included in the same job just in case of future problems. I’m quite pleased with the finished job, Huan is happy as it’s better than she had hoped. The bathroom foreman was suitably impressed; our choice of light fitting was very different and much better than any he had showed us previously. So, here it is. (P.S. That’s the view looking up from the throne!)

Just after lunch the water came back on so I was able to finish the job I had started earlier. All our junk has been moved back to our bathroom. Mind you, we have far less junk than most westerners have. The next item on the agenda? Well, we will be emptying the second bathroom and calling the bathroom team back to replace that ceiling and light too. It hasn’t fallen down, yet, but if you look closely, you can see that it is beginning to bulge. Better to be safe than sorry.

December 21^st Well, I wasn’t on bathroom standby today, not exactly anyway. I had to stay in because it was the turn of Doctor Bob. Huan was poorly, not too bad this time, it was only her nose and throat but she still needed looking after. I was there with ginger and honey tea as required. Like all good Chinese girls she had rice soup for lunch, so no full English today. I spent my time cropping photos again, 2010 is now completed.

By evening time she was on the mend and sandwiches were acceptable. After dinner I walked her down to the town square for her daily dancing, a little bit of exercise and fresh air was probably beneficial. For me, it was lottery ticket duty. I did try and get you another picture though, it’s been a while. Most evenings these birds seem to settle down in this tree. I don’t know how long they stay there but it’s not the first time I’ve seen them. I’m afraid I am still just a little too far away but they are visible.

December 22^nd Huan was much better this morning, just as well because she had a singing practice. I was once more on bathroom standby. I did do the cooking for lunch and so we had our full English today. We’ll have the second one tomorrow. Huan told me that when she was out she had seen and spoken to the bathroom foreman. He said he will come on Tuesday or Wednesday. I was not impressed with Wednesday at all and Huan wasn’t sure why. She won’t be here in the morning because they have another practice that day. The ‘show’ will be on the twenty seventh. I reminded her that Wednesday would be Christmas day and that I will be busy cooking. Mind you, I’m only doing roast chicken this year. PS The court case for the gas was postponed yet again.

December 23^rd Last night we had a call from the bathroom foreman, the tiles we had chosen are out of stock. Huan was free today, so half our morning was spent trying to find some new ones. We succeeded in finding some that pleased the Minister of Home Affairs so then the complications started. I don’t quite know how, but we have ended up with a new bathroom installation team, the foreman of the old one decided that with Huan and the new supplier, he wasn’t going to make any money! We now have to wait at least another three days.

The rest of the morning was taken up with the car wash and shopping. I let Huan go into the market alone to choose a live chicken for our Christmas dinner. I guess I must be an even bigger chicken! The supermarket had its usual Christmas display, complete with Father Christmas and his obligatory saxophone. Don’t ask why, we have no idea! Neither the lights nor Santa were operational though.

The evening was taken up with me preparing the oven; we haven’t used it for a few months, and cleaning up the hole where the hob fits. I also took delivery of my new chair, yet another one. The one I have now keeps going down! The new one also has arms that will fold out of the way. That should help when I practice the guitar in front of the computer. I didn’t feel like assembling it this evening but you can see the state of the box it arrived in.