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!