Lonely Boy, Home Maintenance, the Teddy Bear Returns.

January 21^st Another restless night, it was almost nine when I woke up this morning. Isn’t it strange that you spend your younger ears sleeping alone then when you meet someone, who goes on to share your bed it takes no time at all getting used to it. Yet, when you have to sleep alone again it takes days, weeks, months or even years to get used to it!

Still time enough for a walk up the scenic mountain I thought but then I remembered. Sat on the balcony last night I heard a fizzing, crackling noise followed by a bang and the house went dark. The balcony light had failed, one of the old neon types.

Finding a replacement light was not so easy. I knew I’d need an LED version and I decided to buy a whole new one because, if you look closely, you can see that the supports for the cover gave up the ghost a long time ago. “What was the problem?” I hear you ask. Well, over half the shops in town have already shut for the holidays. I did eventually find one, not too expensive, and they said they could install it this afternoon. Yes, I know, I could do it myself. However, with Huan not being here I decided it was easier to ask someone else to do it, save me getting up and down the ladder all the time to run into the living room and turn the breaker on and off.

With light in hand I decided to cut my walk short and go and buy some lovely pork sausages to slice up and eat with my vegetable soup tomorrow. On my way home I spotted the ‘hunter’ again. I have no idea what he is expecting to achieve. I can spot three problems, can you? 1) He is not wearing the right footwear to wade in after any fish he kills. 2) He doesn’t have a net. 3) You won’t be able to see this, but the fish are too small anyway!

So the planned half past one visit from the electrician went by without any sign of him. I called him and we re-arranged for six. I was just getting worried again about quarter past six when he phoned to confirm the location and by quarter past seven it was all done. When he passed the old light down we discovered the reason for the noise last night and why the breaker kept failing if the light was switched on again. This poor little fellow had somehow got himself under the ballast transformer.

And how does the new light look? Well it’s not so easy to take a photo of a light when it’s dark outside and you have to switch the light on, but, here it is, edited just a little.

January 22^nd Today was a little more back to normal, I even managed my first ‘ten’ day since Huan went up North. The scenic mountain route was the walk of choice this morning. I spotted this RV, campervan, motorhome on the way up and thought I’d give you a snap. We see a lot more of these around these days; in fact we’ve even discussed the possibility of having a holiday in one. The problem is that even though more and more people are using them there are not many, in fact hardly any, caravan parks yet.

Not much else popped up in the way of photos today. I did meet a lot of people, many of whom spoke to me and quite a few of those in English too. It must the New Year vibe! I also met a four legged friend who usually ‘speaks to me’ but today I had to stay a little clear. There was no aggression or growling but she had been given some food by someone and didn’t seem too keen on me getting any closer.

On the way home I tried to buy Wednesday’s and Thursday’s lottery tickets but it seems there aren’t any. The next draw will be after the holiday. I always think they should put a special draw on at this time of the year, with increased prize money, and then make the draw a part of the New Year show.

Not long after lunch the doorbell went crazy, and I mean crrrraaaaaaazy. It turned out to be the committee, bearing gifts, all laughing and joking. They even brought rhyming couplets for the door, which we don’t normally use anyway. To tell you the truth it was getting a bit too much for me and I told them that we were not celebrating New Year this year due to Huan’s Mum passing. I’m not at all sure if I said the right thing or not but at least they went and left me in peace.

Dinner was the last soup while Huan is away, this time with a difference. I didn’t bother warming it up, sliced the lovely pork sausage and added some pickled red cabbage. I guess it was my version of Gazpacho and very nice it was too. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of it.

January 23^rd A better night was had last night, going to bed at midnight and waking up around six forty five, must be the exhaustion catching up. The first thing I noticed this morning was how quiet it was outside, New Year is definitely upon us. Today I took the landfill route again so I could give you a progress report on the highway. The only dust was caused by three dustbin lorries, all the construction work has stopped. Maybe Huan will fancy a walk that way next week. I was able to get closer to the bridge work this morning so you can see how the road will be passing by Wuzhishan. The town is all on the right hand side.

If you’re travelling down towards Sanya, this will be your view on the right hand side. I stitched this from fifteen photos in two lines hoping it would be deeper than it is. Still, it shows you the view and some of the scar on the landscape that will disappear in a few months or so.

Because the construction work had stopped I was also able to take a look where we haven’t been before. Now we know where the tunnel will start. Someone told us that this tunnel will be a few kilometres long but we’ll have to wait and see if that’s right or not.

Have you ever wondered where street furniture goes to die? Well here, it seems it just goes to lie down outside the landfill area. What a waste! (See what I did there?)

Walking alone gives you a lot of time to reflect, nature does that too.

I walked back through town intending to visit the supermarket, on the way passing the pet shop. This little creature, and his friend who you can’t see, caught my eye. I think I caught their noses, they certainly knew I was there. I was very tempted to put my fingers in the box but in light of all the coronavirus worries at the moment, I decided against it.

The supermarket had throngs of people outside, all doing their last minute shopping I suppose, so I gave that a miss. Instead I passed by a buffet restaurant to pick up something for tonight’s dinner. I’ll be having lots of little fish, a small amount of pork, some squash and some green beans, with some rice of course.

Once home, sat on the loo, as you do, I spotted something on my arm. In the gloom of the bathroom it looked like it was perhaps a flying insect. When I touched it, I found it was a little sticky and that long brown piece was trying to take root in my arm! It must be some sort of flying seed. I suppose I should be honoured that it chose me!

When Huan is away I always do a clean-up before she comes back, and no, it’s not because I’m a slob! I started this evening with the balconies, watering the flowers, generally cleaning up and then did outside the front door where we keep the shoes. That’s not such an easy one; something is alive out there at night times and does its business in the shoe rack. It’s never in the shoes though which at least is one good thing. We keep trying various methods to keep whatever it is away, we are presently on moth balls. They don’t seem to work either. It would help if we knew exactly what it was, mouse, lizard or some other small creature. Washing was my last chore of the evening before guitar and Chinese practice.

January 24^th Busy day today but no photos, I spent all day cleaning. I knew that army training would come in useful some day. As long as the OC doesn’t run her finger over hidden spots to find dust I’ll be fine!

On the road by seven, planned to stop on the way to Haikou at the usual place and have a meal and a relax before heading on up to the airport. Would you believe it, all the restaurants, and the little shop, were closed! At least I managed to get a bottle of coffee from the filling station shop. Without a long break I reset the cruise control at 100kph, (down from 120kph) and carried on. Finding the entrance to the airport car park was not so easy, and not only for me. Lots of other drivers seemed to be having the same difficulty. Eventually I found it, parked the car and followed the signs to the food court. Guess what? You’re right, all closed up for the night. I did find a KFC on my way down to domestic arrivals, not exactly my favourite restaurant. I had a very weird burger, it was an “Australian Steak Burger”. It was a soft bun, with egg, cheese, steak, mushrooms and some kind of strange gravy. I got used to it! KFC make lousy coffee though!

Huan’s plane was ten minutes early but she wasn’t out very quickly. Her sister had given her a box of food, mostly fish and seashells, so that had gone in the hold. While I was waiting Patrick from Haikou called, he, Flora and Padraig were returning from Cambodia and couldn’t get a taxi so asked if we could give them a lift. Once Huan was safely in we headed off to the International terminal and picked them up too. There followed an uneventful journey to their house where we dropped them off.

January 25th We continued on to the highway. I was really looking forward to stopping for a coffee but when we reached the highway services, not only were the shop and restaurants closed, the filling station had closed too!

I took a detour through Qiongzhong finding a fuel station on the way, bought some coffee for me and water for Huan, and then rejoined the highway until we found a nice rest stop. We were home later than expected, around twenty past three. All the seafood had to be unpacked and stowed in the freezer so by the time we got to bed it was four. For some strange reason I was up early! Huan managed a couple of hours more than me.

Lunch was dumplings supplied by the neighbours, they’re a good bunch really. Dinner was a fry up, cooked by yours truly. Huan definitely needs rest; in fact we both needed an OAP nap today.

January 26^th Almost back to normal today, both of us up at a reasonable hour, Huan around seven and me three quarters of an hour later. Walkies was on the cards but I made sure we were never to far from the house so that we could head on home as soon as Huan decided she’d had enough. We started off the other side of the river, took more photos of cows, a photo of the track we were walking on and a photo of our house. Huan wanted me to take that one but it’s not worth showing you, we were too far away. The next photo was also taken at Huan’s bidding and although it’s not as good as it could be, (that lack of zoom again), it’s not too bad.

Coming back onto the road we passed this which I thought you should see, a wall protected by rusty nails and razor wire. You would think that there I something very valuable or secret in there. You’d be wrong, it’s a small allotment!

And even more security for you here, these are on every road in and out of our town and on quite a few roads within the town too. They’re no problem in the daytime, after all I try to keep within the speed limits. At night time though, they all have very bright lights as well as a ‘flash’ every time you drive through them.

And our last photo of the day is just to show you the weather. It certainly wasn’t a hot one today, in fact it was so overcast we were expecting it to rain at any minute. Not long after this we headed back to town and then home. The heavens did eventually open up but that was long after we had arrived home and finished our lunch.

The rest of the day was almost a repeat of yesterday except that I wasn’t too lazy to do some guitar practice today. Much more is still needed!

January 27^th Winter is back! The temperature is down by ten degrees since last week and in fact during the middle of the night this week we can expect to have a low of 10⁰C. Because it is so dreary you can have black and white photos of our morning. This is on the road side, I was intrigued because the cloud usually forms between the first and second ridges and not the second and third as it has done today.

And this is a lovely long panorama from the riverside, bedroom balcony.

Today being Monday we weren’t planning on walking anyway, it’s our rest and shopping day. As usual we left the house late in the morning to miss the crowds. We failed! Being the day after New Year everybody and their Gran was shopping. The car park was chock a block so we had no chance of using our normal supermarket. Luckily, along with the new one way system they increased the parking spaces in the town so we were able to park a street away from the other branch. Inside it wasn’t too bad but as planned, we wore our ‘Wuhan Virus Masks’ anyway. (At this time the virus had not yet been named Covid-19.) I know they are not very effective but they may help in crowded places. In keeping with today’s theme, our photo is in black and white, don’t you think we look very ‘with it’?

I can’t see much else happening today so we will wish you a Happy Monday and enjoy the rest of your week! See you next time.

Fame, Feet, Fish, Birds, Rabbits and an Airport Trip

January 14^th Madam was out of the house by quarter past six this morning; she’s joined yet another group of Chinese OAPs. This one is for太極. (Tàijí), known by the Western world as Tai chi. Tai chi is of course one of the martial arts but hopefully Huan is sticking to the slow movement version used for health and meditation.

With all her extra-curricular activities, because ‘school is off for the holidays’, we do still have time for walks. Our plan today was up and down the scenic hill, with a stop at the bank for me on the way home. Before we reached our turn off we spotted a new road sign so we ambled up that way for a look. Straight on is the road we know, eventually leading to Ledong. The sign also has a left turn pointing towards the bridge to nowhere near our house. There is no turn off yet. The right turn is just as bad, it points to a road that hasn’t even been started yet. The whole thing, when finished will be the western bypass road.

Anyway, by now Huan had found that the sun was very nice on her back so rather than turn round to go up the scenic hill we carried on into the countryside. We stopped off at a new apartment construction site where someone we presume was a salesman told us that there would be no problem, we could buy one if we wanted to. There are a lot of fiddles to get round the government’s rules on house purchases! We did quite like the decorations on the trees outside the complex though.

Mere minutes later we were off down this little lane. As you can probably imagine, on a hot summer’s day it can be a bit too much, but on a day like today it was perfect. We get to see a bit of nature, a bit of farming and yell out greetings to those working in the fields. That’s me of course, not Huan; it’s not really a Chinese thing. Most of the time, the people I yell out to, or just speak to at the side of the road, are friendly enough and usually more than willing to talk back.

After a ‘wee wee’ stop at the petrol station, for her Ladyship, not me, we came back the other side of the road on another lane, just as nice.

When were almost back to the main road, we came across this. It almost looks like a shrine at the side of the road but all is not as it seems. Huan translated for me and it’s a waste water, or sewage management control point.

Back into town we went and off to the bank. “Why are we going to the bank?” came the plaintive cry of the “don’t like spending money bird”. Well, it’s time to renew my ‘keep in touch with friends and family all over the world’ software so money was needed for Alipay. Huan is not over keen on me spending $99.00 every year but without it I can’t keep in touch.

After that we did a once round the river walk where I took this picture. This is one of those where a professional photographer may well be able to show you just why I thought it was so nice, but you’ll have to make do with an amateur shot.

Once home and after lunch had finished I’m afraid I needed yet another OAP kip, it seems to be getting more regular. Huan went out for a show rehearsal after I woke up and I started sorting out my photos. It wasn’t long before I was disturbed again! She came back early and told me I had to go down and test my guitar and voice on the show amplifier. I must say it’s much bigger than mine! Of course I’m even more worried now seeing that they have a stage of sorts and lots of chairs for an audience.

I did my song practicing in the evening while Huan was dancing. I have no idea just what I’ll sound like tomorrow. Even worse is that I’m the only foreigner so if I make a right b***s up of it I won’t be able to hide anywhere. Photos and videos will be taken, some of which you may even get to see…

January 15^th Not a very auspicious start to the day. Huan went out for her Tai Chi again but came home severely under the weather. What I believe are her menopausal problems resurfaced this morning with retching and generally feeling terrible. She did come downstairs with me for moral and translation support. However, she wasn’t up doing either so as soon as my spot had finished she went off back to bed.

So, what about our ‘show’ then? Well Huan came down with me just to help me out a little at the beginning. Unfortunately she was too worn out to provide either the moral support or the translation. I was third on and unfortunately my planned Chinese didn’t come out quite as I intended it to. This is what I was facing, but I was further over to the right, on stage. More people appeared out of the woodwork during my performance.

And the performance? Let’s just say I will not be sharing the video. I messed up a little with the chords in the first song and for both songs the microphone volume was too low and could have done with a little more echo. I looked alright though! The audience did give me a round of applause and I heard a voice shout, in English, “Very gooder!”

As soon as my bit was done Huan went home and straight back to bed. I stayed to make sure the organisers got a video from which I also took screen shots to give them photos of each act. Even though I wasn’t happy with my bit the audience were very kind and generous with their compliments and some of the acts that came after me were just as bad as me if not worse. I have to say though that the organisers, the committee of eleven, did a marvellous job. We had ample entertainment provided from within our group of residents thus incurring no cost. Apart from the singers and dancers we also had, amongst other things, a brass band! Some of the children were also involved. Every one who took part was also entered into a raffle, with the prizes supplied by the Bank of Hainan. This was the queue for those prizes.

Once it was all over, it was back up the apples and pears for me, or should I say the lift. I had a quick check on Huan then got on with uploading all the videos and photos. While this was in progress I also played nurse and made some rice soup, (rice porridge or congee) for Huan, it’s all she can eat when she’s not well. She did manage to eat some for lunch and then disappeared back into the bedroom again. I carried on working.

By early evening Huan was feeling a little better and, after another bowl of rice soup, moved from the bed to the sofa. I had to have a quick trip out, it’s lottery ticket buying day. Unlike the UK, you can’t buy in advance here; you can only buy for the next draw. One day…

January 16^th Huan felt a lot better this morning but not up to long distances or hills. That meant my boots were not needed and I could wear my new casual shoes. First of all I had to put the new socks on, bought especially for the new shoes. At least I can’t get this wrong!

And the new shoes? Well, they’ll do, they were cheap enough. I’ll be happy as long as I get six months to a year’s wear out of them.

We only went around the riverside today, via Huan’s bank and the sausage market. She had to put money into her account to pay my Alipay bill for the software I mentioned earlier. The sausage market was for the weekend’s breakfast, time we had another good fry-up. The Fuji was in action today but apart from my shoes the only other thing was this. Just imagine if this little one had to spend money on shoes!

In the afternoon we spent a while trying to pay my bill and eventually we succeeded. I’m not quite sure where the difficulty was. The final part, when we knew we were doing everything right required a code sent to Huan’s phone. Checking that, Huan saw two other transactions, one each from August and September last year. Panic set in and after my bit was all done Huan was off, Speedy Gonzalez style, all the way to the bank. After she left I found September’s by searching on my computer, it was my guitar. August’s needs a little more searching but both of them should definitely show on Huan’s Alipay list. I tried calling her to let her know but, her phone was on her desk. She came home reasonably satisfied so I asked her to open her Taobao list and there they were, my guitar and her bike. Sometimes, even after fifteen years, we still have communication breakdowns!

I spoke too soon when I said Huan was OK now. Just as she was finishing cooking dinner she had to run off to the bathroom again. This time it wasn’t just retching, something actually came up. I worry when she has these bouts but they are few and far between. In many ways they resemble morning sickness but an internet search resulted in ‘menopause problems’. By half past eight she was back to (almost) normal again, just in time to greet one of the committee with loads of fruit and yoghurt for her.

January 17^th Huan much better again this morning, lets hope for her that she stays that way today. The order of the day was much like yesterday; walk but not uphill, fast or too far. While waiting for the GPS to find a signal we went round the road with all the empty villas in our complex. This little road has a Buddhist shrine which we have seen many times but never taken any pictures of. So, here it is.

To keep the sun on us we crossed the river via the bridge to nowhere, where we heard some voices from the bushes down below. Me, being me, I shouted out something or other. The next thing we know is the son of the foreman who supervised out house in 2015 came running out. Of course he had to climb over the bridge wall to say hello. He was ‘sans shoes’ so a few minutes later he and his friend sped down again to fetch his shoes before yet again coming up to pass a few more minutes with us. We carried on after and went down to the river. You may remember where I had to do a ‘bumslide’ before; well they obviously took pity on me and built some steps.

Next up we spotted some movement on the wall which we both thought was a spider or maybe a queen ant with some followers but when we got home and saw the picture it’s five ants moving something. They were fairly shifting too!

We took a few pictures ‘in the river’ where I could walk and then carried on along the side. Under the main bridge we played with the echo and each of us sang a little. You can see the bridge in this next panorama. We stopped there, trying to get photos of little birds and failing. Note that not all of China is wall to wall people.

Crossing over at the pedestrian bridge to begin our walk back we spotted some men looking down and occasionally using a catapult. There was a small shoal of fish down below, almost stationary in the water, and they didn’t seem at all worried by the ‘hunter’ up above.

We had so much fruit and yoghurt in the house after our visit from the neighbours yesterday that we had no option but to have fruit and yoghurt for lunch. Aren’t we the healthy ones? No OAP nap today, which quite surprised me, I had half expected to fall off my chair again.

January 18^th Another fairly easy walk so that we could come back through the market today. Here’s the view on the way.

And here’s the market, bigger and fuller than we’ve ever known it.

As always the birds had their eye on me!

And I had my eye on them.

And our last one from the market today, it seems a shame that all the creatures we see will eventually be eaten, but, that’s life I suppose. These little bunnies will of course be allowed to grow more first and some may be used to breed more.

We had bought some fresh baps on our way so lunch was banana sandwiches, still using up the fruit from the neighbours. Today we both needed an OAP nap. In fact once Huan was up I felt like I could have stayed there another few hours. I didn’t of course, it’s the weekend again so I had to rouse my weary bones and cook our routine fry-up.

Unfortunately the evening brought bad news. Huan was out dancing when her sister phoned. It was expected, but maybe not quite so soon, Huan’s Mum passed away today. She’s gone out now to buy a plane ticket, only one as she doesn’t want me to go with her. I guess I wouldn’t be a great help to her anyway and the family will all be there. I’ll be ready with lots of TLC when she comes back.

Tickets bought, not in the town, that was impossible, online was a little easier. This is not a good time for travel in China as 春节, (Chūnjié) Spring Festival also known as Chinese New Year has already begun. I read somewhere that there will be three billion trips in this forty day period. Huan will be off tomorrow morning early, from Sanya. That means starting from here about half past two so the best thing for me is no sleep.

January 19^th We got away on time, more than likely because neither of us had slept. I stayed awake to make sure I could wake Huan in the morning, but she couldn’t sleep at all. After a while she lay on the settee to watch TV but ‘her eyes still didn’t fall down’. Anxiety would be my best guess; all I can do is to try and take the pressure off. We stopped at half past three for a break. The moon was beautiful this morning, three quarters visible in some streaky clouds with the other quarter hidden behind a cloud. The cloud didn’t appear to be moving either so if I could have taken a better picture you’d be seeing it. As it is, all the ones I took showed the moon as a glowing orb, not special at all.

Not long later we went through a psychedelic tunnel. The lights on the ‘bands’ of the tunnel roof kept changing from blue to green and the bands were in all different colours too. Now that we got a screen shot of.

We reached Sanya airport far too early, lesson learned for future trips using that particular highway route. Huan had rice soup for breakfast, I had Kentucky (wash your mouth out) coffee. We waited, sitting and wandering while the airport filled up. Huan’s flight was a half past seven and it was the twenty ninth on the departure board! Speaking of departures, this next poster is something you would expect to see in arrivals. We had a walk down there too and it was bare, the poster was only in departures. Maybe it’s to make sure the tourists come back another time to see the bits they missed.

By ten to seven Huan had gone through the security checks and I was back on the road again. My eyes did start to feel heavy around seven thirty but luckily for me it was right across the carriageway to our stop on the way there. A bit more coffee and a little walk helped. The SD card was also playing a lot of D’Oyly Carte’s Gilbert and Sullivan, which without Huan in the car, I had turned up quite loud. I was home just before ten; it would have been earlier if I hadn’t made such a simple error coming out of Ledong! Time enough to guzzle some water before Huan rang at quarter past ten from Wuhan. You may have seen Wuhan on the news a lot in the last couple of weeks; they have a new ‘coronavirus’ there. I’m hoping Huan will not get exposed to it!

Dashcam work kept me awake for the “I’ve arrived” phone call, I had to do something to keep my eyes open. The call, when it came, was late; the flight was delayed, not by much though. Huan landed to quite a warm temperature for Dalian for this time of the year, 3ºC. She is with her family now, burning her mother’s clothes. Traditions are a little different to our way where we would give them all to charity.

An afternoon sleep was definitely on the cards today so that’s what I tried. Despite having no sleep last night I didn’t find it easy to drop off this afternoon though. As far as my body is concerned, every little bit helps at the moment. I played Paddington Bear and had marmalade sandwiches for tea before settling down to some guitar and Chinese with the last bit of dashcam work going on in the background.

Bonus today, a Skype call from my brother John, it was great to speak to him again and to see him of course. Mind you, there was a slight problem which I didn’t realise until Maureen came into the picture, from my left where she usually comes in from my right. Now they haven’t moved the furniture so it appears that their Skype is giving me a mirror image. I’ve never seen that before, Google search required! So, on mine, using a Logitech camera, I can set it for mirror image or normal. Message sent to big brother!

January 20th Last night was a late one, I don’t like it when Huan’s not around. In fact “I don't like to sleep alone” (Paul Anka). As a result I slept badly and late, it was after eight when I got up, a real nice minty time of the morning. Monday is usually a rest day and that’s all I wanted to do but common sense took over. I went for a stroll around the town to buy the lottery tickets for today and tomorrow and to do a little shopping. With Huan not being here the list is miniscule this week.

Speaking of the devil, she called me while I was out and told me I had to go the post office and pick up a letter. It turned out to be a Christmas card from one of my sisters, postmarked in the UK 11^th November 2019. I don’t know where it’s been but it looks a little travel worn.

Being alone means that I am also the chef. Today’s dish will be nothing special, just a vegetable stew made from all the stuff left in the fridge when Huan left. This will last me at least three days, maybe more if add some meat in tomorrow or the day after.

Correction to my previous paragraph, this is what is left over after I’ve whizzed everything up and eaten today’s. Most of it will have to go in the freezer.

I’d just tucked into today’s when the doorbell rang. It was Yu’s daughter with a duck dinner for me! I explained that I wouldn’t be able to eat it today but I’d be more than happy to eat it tomorrow. Chinese people can be very neighbourly, especially if they feel someone is either ill or wanting in some way. More soup going into the freezer methinks!

And that’s it another week over. See you next time!