Graffitti, Lottery, Statues and Snail Mail

March 24^th Another gorgeous day but SWMBO said we would most definitely not be walking a long way today! I sneakily still got us nine kilometres though. Our route was the usual when we don’t want to go too far, up the river to the last bridge and back again and somewhere along the way I decided a few black and white photos would be a good idea. Here’s the first, which is the bridge that carries the main road through the town, third one up from our house.

This next one was Huan’s choice because there’s a woman fishing. In fact we saw a lot of fishermen today and more than one fisherwoman.

And here’s a chap who’s definitely doing better than me at snapping the birds. We stopped and had a chat with him and that is what he was doing. His camera is some kind of Canon and the lens, which is fixed, not zoom, was 600mm. I bet he can’t walk as far as us though!

And our last black and white is yours truly, on the return route, posing above his birth year, with the Chinese army below. Perhaps Hainan was a year later than China’s birthday of 1949.

We passed another snake on this side of the river, not a Green one this time, and it was dead. We saw it where they are removing the floating vegetation that comes downstream. Perhaps it came down the river dead and was hauled out with the vegetation, or perhaps they killed it when it came out alive. Anyway, you don’t need to see it.

Going back towards home we went under the bridge you saw earlier, and just as you can see in many bridges around the world, there is graffiti. Here’s a sample. Don’t ask me what it means, I haven’t got a clue.

Next up, a restaurant, one that I wonder what its future is. There have been some proposals about what kinds of food people will be allowed to eat under the new law the government is proposing. One article I saw, possibly from Shenzhen, didn’t include frogs on the allowed list and as you can probably surmise, this is a fish and frog restaurant.

Coming back home we were able to get a closer look at the posters that were being put up as we left this morning. The right hand one is encouraging you to keep your home clean, maybe people will listen, maybe they won’t. The left hand one encourages you to keep the area clean and use the recommended bins. We don’t have any such bins in our area!

And that’s our Tuesday for this week. We had planned a TV walk for this afternoon but I received a nice long Skype call from one of my brothers so I was conveniently able to forget that!

March 25^th Once again a small walk was the order of the day, with a planned TV walk in the afternoon. Our first stop was the lottery shop once again, to buy our tickets for Wednesday and Thursday and to collect Huan’s winnings from the last two days. She’s doing well, another ¥100.00 this time. Here’s the lottery terminals, not such a great photo I’m afraid, I was ducking and diving between Huan and the ticket seller.

I took us past the pet shop today, I like to pop in and say hello to the little critters.

And then we got to say hello to one of my favourite kitties. This time he, or she, condescended to be petted but would not even consider smiling for the camera.

And our last photo of the day, a little bit of Chinglish. With half the world now being under lockdown and many people in quarantine I thought it was quite apt. I believe it should have a ‘G’ at the beginning instead of the ‘Q’, thus spelling ‘Guaranteed’.

And our afternoon TV walk? I’m afraid an OAP nap claimed us today and it kept me chained down for two and a half hours! Ah well, there’s always another day.

March 26^th Today’s plan was almost identical to yesterday’s but without a visit to the lottery shop and only coming home along the riverside. Leaving our complex we passed two enormous chickens strutting about behind the restaurant. I don’t know if any of you are aware, but chickens can be quite tame and unafraid of humans, Huan told me she used to play with them when she was small. These two will of course end up in the restaurant pot. I got a good head and shoulders of one of them, he really was huge!

On our way along the main street we passed a handful of musicians and singers, usually in trios, two musicians and one singer. One lady told us they were doing 京剧, (Jīngjù), Beijing Opera. We saw one group using a violin and an 二胡, (Èrhú) but most of the others were using the Èrhú and the中阮, (zhōngruǎn). In this photo the Èrhú is on the left and the zhōngruǎn on the right.

Next up is Huan blatantly disregarding all social distancing rules and hanging on this chap’s arm. Luckily for me, both he and his wife were unmoved by all the fuss!

We returned home along the riverside but strangely there were no saxophone players out today. We saw some dancers and singers aplenty, maybe even some of Huan’s singing groups but we couldn’t tell for sure. They were packing up to go home for lunch as we passed by.

No stopping for shopping today, there’s a poem in there somewhere! After lunch I managed to avoid an OAP nap today while Huan succumbed on the sofa. Still, we did both manage to do our TV walk. It’s one of those things that is very easy to put off for another day but if you actually get down to doing it, it’s over in no time.

We’ve still had no news on if and when Huan’s singing and dancing will start again. Schools will be starting next month so perhaps the OAP school will start then too. The other singing group is more difficult as it was in another residential compound. Now, all around Wuzhishan, only the people who live in compounds are allowed in. As for the dancing in the evenings, their dance teacher has gone up north with her husband and may or may not be down again at the end of the year. Her husband has a severe case of diabetes and may need amputation, at least according to what Huan tells me. Maybe someone else will step up as the leader, we’ll wait and see.

March 27^th All alone am I, ever since your goodbye, well actually, it was my goodbye. Huan had a headache last night and a runny nose this morning so I had to walk alone. I was also under explicit instructions not to tell anyone who asked that Huan was ill, only that she was resting.

Statues feature again today, this one always makes me wonder just who these people are supposed to represent. They don’t appear to have either the shapes or the features of southern, or northern Chinese. The location is also rather odd; I suspect that the main road through town used to pass by here and that the present bridge carrying the main road is newer.

And next is yet another bovine friend. As I was approaching, from a distance, because of the skin markings, I thought I was going to see a horse. It was of course a cow. Just after I walked past it gave a low moo, (see what I did there?). I turned back and, much to the surprise of a young lady walking past, it came towards me and allowed me to stroke its head.

Not much else to see today I’m afraid. Coming back I stopped off to buy some things for Huan. Like many Chinese people she likes nibbling on sunflower seeds, why, I don’t know. It’s a lot of trouble to eat nearly nothing. Anyway, I bought her a pile of them, some water melon, which she loves and I will tolerate, not very keen myself, I prefer honeydew melon. When I arrived home Huan was both pleased and feeling better.

Yet again an OAP nap was needed in the afternoon, what is happening to us? As usual, Huan was awake after an hour and I was forty five minutes later. As I joined Huan in the living room her sister called her on WeChat, today was the day they interred their mother. Knowing that the call would take a while I debated skipping the TV walk again but saw the error of my ways. So, I did it alone, in my shreddies! (If you don’t know, you can either Google or ask me.) I was safe enough as nobody can see into our living room. If anyone lived in 704 and leant right into their window they could but no tenants there equals no problem.

March 28^th It certainly appears that Wuzhishan is just about back to normal. Traffic outside our house isn’t back to pre-virus levels yet and intercity coaches are still in frequent but it is picking up. Quite a lot of people are not wearing masks but that may well be because they are scarce again. We know of at least two pharmacies that have run out of stock.

So today, another fairly lazy day, a walk around the town to buy a new USB cable for my phone and a new charger and cable for Huan’s. Some of my canine acquaintances were around, the ones that don’t actually let me get very near and then another one who decided to come and sit next to me and rest his head in my lap. Huan was too slow with the camera!

While we were out we saw the postman who told us we had mail waiting for us in the post office so we stopped there on the way round. Here’s where they keep my mail. It’s quite easy for them, I’m the only foreigner in the city.

And the mail? One was from my pension provider giving me an update along with a little booklet on managing your finances in retirement. I could have done with that twenty years ago! The letter is dated 12^th December 2019 but there is no UK postmark on the envelope. There are two Chinese postmarks, one the 27^th February and the second the 24^th March so it’s been in China at least a month. The second letter was another belated birthday card for me from one of my brothers and his wife. I have to say they didn’t send a belated card, they sent it on the 20^th January, a whole month in advance. The Chinese postmark is 13^th March so I’ve no idea where this one has been. It’s always nice to receive cards though and just in case you’ve forgotten how old I am, here it is.

My turn to cook again today, we had too many vegetables left so it was a two or three day stew again. Huan says she really enjoys them. Of course, she might just be saying that because she doesn’t have to cook for two or three days! While the stew was merrily bubbling away I made sure we both did our TV walk today. It was a bit like a competition to see who could sweat the most. I won, probably because I have a lot more lard around my middle!

March 29^th Not quite the day we’d planned, for which I take full blame. We were going to do the scenic mountain walk today, avoiding the new route we found because that is where ‘the snake’ probably went downhill from. I spent too long on FB so we were late going out. Our first photo is a choral group, I took it so we could look more closely when we got home and see if any of Huan’s cohorts were there. They weren’t, hopefully she will hear something soon. If you look closely, you can see one woman wearing a mask.

Today was a fortuitous day, as we didn’t go up the hills, we went around the river and checked the apartment complex with baps and sausages. Entry was once again allowed so we came home fully loaded.

Other than that, all I have to offer you is some pretty flowers.

March 30^th Admin day today and I made a list. Exercises, Guitar, Shave, Shower, Shopping, Guitar, Blog, Chinese. Yes, I did a solitary TV walk again this morning, Huan was busy on the keyboard. I decided I needed to do it because next month’s appears to be much harder! I had to do two guitar practices today because I was too lazy yesterday! Shopping, I’m pleased to saw, was no problem whatsoever. There were hardly any cars in the car park, hardly any customers to speak of and no shortages of anything at all. I even found dried mint leaves which I wanted for a curry side dish this week. Maybe I’ll manage to photo that for you. The rest of the admin was synchronising directories between Huan’s PC and mine.

So, that’s it, another week in paradise over, see you next time.

Burn, Return to Normal (?), Brownout, Sunburn

March 17^th Moody weather sometimes equals miserable people. Well I guess we weren’t exactly miserable but there was no walkies today! We could have gone out, it wasn’t raining, it was just a dreary day. I did an extra guitar practice having yet again missed one yesterday. Skype calls used up my usual practice time in the evening. Huan kept herself busy destroying and recreating her clothes. She seems to do that quite a lot! Surprisingly, even though she refuses to wear her reading glasses, she can still thread a needle.

We did debate going out after dinner for an evening stroll but that decision was rather taken out of our hands. Dinner was nearly two hours later than usual due to our oven playing up. If we ever buy a new one we’ll make sure it has analogue knobs on the front and not a computerised display panel. Recently it has started switching itself off every time you open the door!

March 18^th “Good Day Sunshine”. Name that song and singer, answers by postcard please. Yes, the weather was better today, a little sunshine, enough to have a pleasant walk without being too hot. Bob was injured before we even started but it didn’t affect his walk. He burnt his left hand on the oven last night, poor little soldier. Of course the dressing fell of before we were half way round our route for the day.

And what was our route for the day? Previously we had seen a truck delivering rebar just down the river and we wanted to see what they were doing with it. We thought they may have been repairing the small dam or making another small bridge to the island. Here’s Huan climbing over the wall to get to the steps on the other side. (PS They will make an access point here when everything inside is completed.)

As usual, we saw a beautiful bird but couldn’t get near enough for a decent photo. We passed the construction works but you’ll be able to see better from the other side of the river. I took various photos of limpid pools, or perhaps you would call them stagnant pools! Hopefully we’ll get some water moving by April when the rains start in earnest. I did like this next pool though, at least it was clean inside and it had a lovely little island too.

Would you believe it, we were back to bovine friends again. This was a little calf with no sign of its family anywhere. It was struggling a little to eat these leaves because they weren’t anchored at all. It did accept a little help from me but not much, it was a little too nervous.

Could this have been its family I wonder? If they are, I can’t see how it escaped. Anyway, for a change, as these cows never come to say hello, I tried feeding them today. They are quite fussy, some leaves they just wouldn’t touch even though Huan said people ate them, other leaves they were happy to scoff from my hand.

From the other side of the river we got a much clearer view of what they are doing with the rebar and its associated concrete. They are burying the sewer pipe that crosses the river there to join the route to the sewage works further downriver. What I can’t work out is what the flat bit to the right of the pipe hump will be used for. Any ideas?

From there it was a trip to the lottery shop, Huan won last night. There was a squeal of delight from behind her computer, almost got my hopes up for the jackpot. Still, ¥200.00 is not to be sneezed at and it’s good practice! Our last stop of the day was the Xinjiang bread cart, we were lucky today they only had two left. This is what they cook them in, it looks terrible doesn’t it? The bread, on the other hand, is very nice indeed!

A quiet day was the ‘order of the day’ for the rest of the day. Guitar practice has been postponed for at least a day maybe more. The skin on the burn area of my hand is now tightening up and there is a swelling on the back of my hand, presumably due to the water from the burn area. If you check the photo you may be able to see that the burn stretches from just above the knuckle (proximal interphalangeal joint) on my little finger up to a point just above the knuckle (metacarpophalangeal joint) of my ring finger. Moving my fingers is now not so easy and forming chord shapes is nigh on impossible! PS The colour is Chinese burn medicine, not covered because I’m at home. It does work, Huan has used it before.

March 19^th “Nice day for it!” Did you know that is a common English greeting where “it” can refer to almost anything at all, even if you have no idea what the person you’re greeting is going to do or where they’re going to go. For us, it was a nice day for a walk.

First of all, how do you feel about electric cars. Personally, I quite like them except for two rather salient points. The first is the range, remember I have a four hundred kilometre round trip to buy cheese! The second point is charging. If you’re lucky and live in a house in the suburbs of UK you might be fine, but what happens when you live in an apartment. Here’s a Geely home charger, in this case connected to an empty shop. Can you imagine dozens of these connected to all the apartments in one building and what that would do to everyone’s electricity consumption not to mention the wiring!

Some people may say that you can charge the car on the way to buy your cheese, which is all well and good, if you have enough time to spare. Present cars can not exactly be fast charged and of course they may be a queue when you find a charging station. I can envisage many people carrying a generator in their boot, (trunk), at least while it is still possible to buy fossil fuel.

Today we took one of the routes behind the main street, up the first turning, through the woods and down to the second turning past the fish pond restaurants. Here’s the turning, very easy to remember, it has a speed limit sign. We turned left.

This walk, while being a little short, is very pleasant, taking us past a small farm or two, some beautiful overhanging trees, two or three canine friends who will have nothing at all to do with us. They bark a lot, and then run away if I approach them. The walk ends at the afore mentioned restaurants. There are at least two fish ponds, one completed restaurant, another one or two plus a hotel under construction. In this picture you can see the future hotel on the right and a future restaurant on the left.

When we reached the left hand corner of this photo, just beyond the glass building, Huan found a creature in distress. It was a small frog, less than one centimetre in length, trying its hardest to find a way over an enormous kerbstone. Using a leaf, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts we were able to help it. Hopefully, it will manage to find its way to the water.

Huan often tells me that she is not the compassionate or empathetic type, (my words, not hers), so I rather like it when she proves herself wrong. Now, if only I can convince her that we need a couple of dogs, two or three cats and perhaps a parrot…

Now something I do like is cars! I’m not usually a fan of this next one though. It’s a Mercedes Benz G-Wagen, more often seen in white or black. Normally I’d prefer some other 4WD to this one. However, today I fell in love! Not only does this one have increased ground clearance, very useful on a 4WD, but it’s also in my favourite colour, yellow. Quite often the colours you like will not always go with the shapes and sizes of the cars you like, I don’t think ours would look good in yellow for example. In the case of this G-Wagen, it works. Now all we need is either a lottery win, or two, or a gracious donation from some kind reader out there!

We were both good little exercise bunnies in the afternoon and did our TV walking exercises. I have to say that I for one wasn’t really in the mood but I’m glad we did them. The whole exercise takes roughly fifteen minutes and we certainly do feel the effects afterwards. I can’t say how long it will take before we see any results though.

March 20^th No long walks planned for today, just a short one around the town in the morning followed by some TV walking in the afternoon. After catching up with all the latest virus news, and fake news, we set off. It was a good day for walking, Huan got to have a gossip with many of the people we know and I got to chat with a few of my four legged friends. However, the first photo is a couple of beautiful two legged friends of the flying variety. Unfortunately I couldn’t get them both to look at the camera at the same time.

Next up was a new four legged friend although this one was not quite so friendly. I only had my phone with me today which, like many phone cameras, of a certain age, has some delay between pressing the shutter and taking the picture. No matter how hard I tried I could not get a photo of his face head on. That’s a shame because he was such a handsome fellow. I doubt very much if he’s fully grown yet, just look at the size of his feet!

Now we are back to two legged creatures again, this one with a large metal extension to its body. Yes, work has begun again on the installation of the underground electricity cables. I couldn’t get him to smile for the camera either!

Now the reason for our short walk today was our trip to the police station. I took Huan there and handed her over to the boys in blue. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t keep her and handed her back to me along with her new local Hukou card. We need this one when I renew my visa.

So our morning plan went perfectly unlike our afternoon one. I was playing nodding dogs in front of the computer again so we took an afternoon OAP nap. Huan slept for just over an hour, most unlike her as she can normally be back to normal after thirty minutes. I was even worse and slept for two and a quarter hours then woke up with a headache. That meant no afternoon TV walking for me, and as Huan doesn’t like doing it alone, none for her either. Not to worry, at least we walked five kilometres in the morning.

March 21^st Today’s plan worked out well. My only grumble about it was that we went around the mountain park route in an anticlockwise direction which means more steps going upwards! It would appear that as far as snowbirds go, Wuzhishan is almost back to normal. This chap had the right idea although I don’t know if he was planning on staying the night.

And just so that you realise what I mean by snowbirds thinking all is normal again here’s a whole gaggle of them on the turning just before the next ascending pathway. Notice how there is a dearth of masks in this picture.

Next we saw a couple of ladies on a rock, one of whom was belting out a song. I have no idea what she was singing about but it definitely wasn’t ‘rock’!

Next up is one of the reasons why I don’t like going this way round. Coming down these steps is fine but going up them is another matter. Today my knees were giving me gyp and I even found myself getting short of breath. I guess it’s been a while since we’ve had a walk that involved using a bit more energy than just a pleasant stroll in the country. What’s worse about these steps is that there are even more higher up!

Like many countries, our views of nature can sometimes be blighted by ‘fly tippers’. In this case they had dumped a load of old mattresses right by the side of the scenic bridge. Personally, I don’t only blame them but I also blame the authorities, in any country, for not making it easier to dump rubbish that can’t be collected in regular bin rounds. My opinion is that there should be a place that you can take it to and it should also be free of charge.

What you don't want to see on your walk. The country folk in front of us both raised their feet high on their little motorbike just after they passed us, I thought they were having fun. Huan realised they were shouting 'snake!' This particular one is Trimeresurus stejnegeri, common name here "Green leaf bamboo snake". It appears that it is very venomous but only rarely kills. It is a nocturnal creature so this was a rare sighting. Because of its venom and its proximity to people, the country folk killed it, which I suppose was for the best. Lots of OAPs and sometimes children do walk down this road. If you want to know more about this snake you can follow this link -

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

As we progressed we could see further signs of a return to normality, the market at the side of the road was back where we always look but don’t buy. A little further on the road works were back in full swing too. In the case of this truck, ‘swing’ is the operative word. He had broken down and they used the excavator bucket to move him to one side. Words from the C-in-C when the job was milliseconds away from completion; “Why don’t you do a video?”

My hand had healed enough to do some guitar practice by this evening. Three days off hasn’t helped at all. Nearly all my ‘one minute chord changes’ are lower than before. Still, at least my hand is working again.

March 22^nd Oh what a beautiful morning! Today we were advised that our electricity would be off from half past eight in the morning until half past five in the afternoon, cue a nice long walk. Life is getting more and more back to normal, here’s the outdoor gymnasium by the river.

Next up is a picture of some kind of seeds and the location of some (accidental) British vandalism. One chappie was trying to get one of these pods down but having little success. I thought I’d help by bending a branch down for him, not such a good idea. There was an almighty crack as the branch broke which led to grovelling apologies from yours truly.

Today’s walk took us on the other side of the river, over the bridge to nowhere which we can now see is actually going somewhere. We still have no idea where its final destination is though. We took a lot of photos today so some places you will not see such as the road works referred to above. Someone not interested in speed is this little fellow. I did try for a ‘head-on’ photo but without falling in the river I couldn’t manage it.

This next one almost has a wartime feel to it, looking a bit like seaside fortifications, except of course they’re all made of wood. These places used to be restaurant rooms looking over the river. Despite the tourist spot still being there, these have all fallen into disuse.

Not far from our turnaround point, the village of Nancheng, we came across a couple of lads fishing so I tried for a nice black and white photo while one of them cast his net. I’m reasonably pleased with the result.

By the time we arrived in Nancheng we had walked thirteen kilometres so a break was called for, in fact a second break. We had had a drinks stop around ten thirty but it was now time for a lunch stop. I was quite looking forward to a small bowl of fried rice but as usual there was none to be had. I don’t know why fried rice is so scarce around here. I had to settle for fried noodles instead while Huan had a bowl of noodle soup. I guess you don’t need to see noodles!

Something rather strange caught my eye in the restaurant though, the ceiling fan. Was it made like this? Did someone cut off the long blades? Does it also double as the village barber shop? Answers on a postcard please.

Some more wildlife for you today, you could say some local colour. I took the first one just in case the little creature disappeared as I walked round the tree. Luckily, I was able to get a second one too, handsome isn’t he?

As I mentioned earlier, it was a beautiful day today. The sun had definitely got his hat on and had come out to play. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my hat one. If you look between the shady bits you may see a Belisha beacon shining through. When Huan was trying to find a word to describe how red I was, I told her it was beetroot!

We eventually arrived home around four after a very long walk. How long? Well, we had walked nineteen and a half kilometres when my phone battery died, but knowing where we were an extra four and a half kilometres can be added. So, we walked twenty four kilometres today! Apart from being a tad sunburnt, I also ended up with chafing on my thighs and on my bum. I wonder if I should go walkies ‘au naturel’ in the future.

So our last photos of the day, the reason we were out, the electricity cut. Here are the gentlemen responsible for it just putting the finishing touches to their handiwork.

As they hadn’t finished their work, we had to climb the stairs for seven floors, oh to be young again! Luckily for us, our hot water tank still had enough hot water in it for Huan to have a shower and for me to pour a bath. That’s when I realised that my forearms and my lower legs were also a bit on the overcooked side! It’s a good job I kept my shirt on today or I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all! Neither of us felt like doing much in the evening, we were two very tired little warriors. I did a Chinese review and Huan did a little keyboard then we just relaxed with our respective programmes.

March 23^rd Surprisingly, we were both up before seven this morning, very unusual, especially for me these days. It’s Monday of course so no walks planned for today, just shopping during Hainan’s siesta time. It did give me a chance to do yesterday’s guitar practice in the morning. Huan was back to destroying and recreating her clothes!

The only other thing to report is that I was a bad boy today. In our rush to get out of the house and go shopping, I forgot all about my face mask! Still, because of the time we now go there weren’t many customers in the supermarket at all and I kept my distance from what few there were. Huan always goes to the fish market too but I sit in the car and drink coffee while I wait for her. When she summons me, I drive up like the good chauffeur I am and pick her up.

So another week comes to an end, still no idea when I will be able to upload these small epistles, but whenever it is, we’ll be back next time, see you!