Complacency?, Snail Mail, Needle

March 10^th Another very lazy morning, Huan watching the TV and me surfing the web. All I was finding was more and more information about the bug causing all the problems. It seems that every day they learn something new, today it was how far it could travel in the air and how long it could live on surfaces. Both figures were far higher than before. I also see that Western countries are now facing more problems; their data is shifting, upwards! What is more of a worry, as I see it anyway, is the complacency in the background. Here in Wuzhishan everyone seems of the opinion that it’s all over now, despite people in the North of China still having restrictions imposed on their movements.

Shopping was on today’s agenda, the supermarket was nearly empty when we got there, of people not produce I hasten to add. We even managed to get our beloved kitchen towel and a couple of bottles of bleach today. We still have to wait for Dettol though.

On the way home we stopped at the post office for me to collect the mail while Huan went to check the lottery ticket shop to see if they were back in business yet and then the police station for her local Hukou card. Her results, the lottery should start again later this week, no sign of her card yet. My results, a birthday card from one of my sisters, spot the date it was sent.

At least it wasn’t a letter from the pensions people, yet!

March 11^th Miserable weather this morning so we played couch and computer potatoes. After lunch the sun showed its face so we decided a walk around the town was in order. Not much to report, fewer people were wearing masks, life slowly coming back to normal. We spotted some goats along the riverbank behind the house but they’re not included in the photos, you’ve seen them before, further downriver. Instead, we thought you might like a view of the main street, going up to the main post office and then onwards to Sanya. We see the ‘pointy’ mountain from all sorts of places, no idea what it is, except that it’s not the famous five finger mountain.

The post office is where we turned right back towards home, and where we took this next photo. It’s a nice bit of misspelling for you. What makes this one even worse is that the same sign is spelt correctly just a few metres away on the left of the main entrance. You’d think someone, even if they don’t know English, would realise that the two signs are not the same.

Not much else to report, I did find a replacement for “The Bill”, still on YouYube and that is “The Midsomer Murders”. That should keep me going for a while.

March 12^th Struggled to open my eyes this morning, could have had something to do with the time, half past three! Yes, it was Haikou day again, or needle day as I prefer to call it and as usual we wanted to be there and back in one day. Here we are, just starting out.

The highway looks deserted doesn’t it? It wasn’t. Traffic was pretty much back to normal today with quite a lot of cars and trucks, the numbers increasing as dawn approached and we neared Haikou. There was one exception though, no inter-city buses.

We were still early arriving at the hospital, as planned, so it was breakfast, (ham, cheese and tomato baps) in the car park just like last time. What wasn’t like last time was getting in, it seemed we needed the green “Healthy” QR codes on our phones. Here’s Huan trying her best to sort it out.

Even with the help of the security guard she couldn’t complete the process. The poor old woman in the queue had even more of a problem; she had no phone at all! I lost count of the number of times she went back and forth between her husband and the security guard, she was so worried as to whether or now she could get her husband in to see a doctor. I then saw this sign near the door. So, if you have a healthy QR code you can go this way, if you are staff or family visitors. All patients, with or without a healthy code had to be pre-screened. That meant standing in line, getting zapped by a thermometer, filling in all your contact details and then walking through an airport style fever scanner.

Success, we were in, and once we were it was pretty much business as usual although whilst busier than last month, it wasn’t back up to normal levels yet. One slight worry, for me anyway, we met another gentleman in the ‘needle’ room with the same box from the pharmacy as me. I’ve been told I have to have these needles for three years, he is now starting his fifth year! Hopefully that will not be the case with me. I guess we should have asked him if he had a full or partial prostatectomy and then compared our experiences more. Anyway, we were out by half past eight and could get on with the rest of our day.

Our first port of call was RT Supermarket, where once again we were zapped, scanned and logged, because we had no healthy QR code. It was good to see their bakery section was still operating and we loaded up with sliced bread. Huan bought some boneless fish but we were unable to buy the necessities of butter, cheese and sandwich meat.

Carrefour was our next port of call, but we failed miserably there. They were working on the healthy QR code only, so if you didn’t have one, you didn’t get in!

We had a choice now, try Corner’s Deli, or go back onto Haidian island and try the Grocery. We opted for the latter and a good choice it was too. We were zapped and logged again of course, but no need for the QR code. The cool box was loaded up with butter, cheese and some German bratwurst. From the shelves we found Raisin Bran and our much loved pickled beetroot, our shopping trip turned out well after all!

The ride home was exhausting, Huan nodded off more than once, I managed not to. Luckily, the service stations were back in action, enough for us anyway, and we were able to have lunch and much needed coffee for me. When I say coffee, I mean bottled of course, there’s no good cafes on this highway yet. I bought an extra coffee for the anticipated second stop as I doubted very much I would get all the way home without it. It was a good decision.

Home and straight to bed, we both desperately needed an OAP kip today. Huan was up again by quarter past three and gave me a call. I did respond but it was almost as bad as getting out of bed this morning. I felt as though someone had super-glued my eyelids together while I slept!

Dashcam work took a fair amount of the rest of the day, but what took the most time was getting a “Healthy QR Coce” onto Huan’s phone. Her storage was at the limit but I had no idea why, she doesn’t have any programmes loaded, except WeChat. I guess it’s all Huawei ‘bloatware’. In the end I did a factory reset which then allowed me to install AliPay and WeChat. Going through AliPay allowed us to give her the QR code so she’s fine now. I, on the other hand, am still stuck until such time as I buy myself a new phone!

March 13th Well we woke up a little easier than yesterday! Our plan for today was a short walk around the town in the morning, get some important stuff out of the way, and then our indoor exercise in the afternoon. First we had a little browse of the internet. According to Chinese news, the worst of the virus is over now, there are far fewer new cases in the Wuhan / Hubei area and it seems that there are more cases among incoming travellers.

And off we went, two happy little teddy bears. Before long it became apparent that the local people must have interpreted the news rather differently to us. In other words they didn’t hear or read (in Chinese of course) “the worst is over”, they heard “Everything’s fine now, you can return to normal”! Some masks were still being worn but small restaurants and shops once again had their chairs on the pavements and tea was being drunk everywhere. Our first port of call was the important stuff mentioned up above, the lottery ticket shop! Here’s Huan, happy with some previous (small) winning tickets and with money in hand to buy the weekend’s.

From there it was a short walk down to the riverside and the first thing we noticed was that the tea shops were once again doing a thriving business. Why there were so many people today we had no idea, it’s only Friday, a normal working day. Perhaps they were all off because of the virus still? Spot the masks!

Carrying on along the riverside, taking the slightly long way home so that we could buy some Xinjiang bread, we noticed that almost everything was back to normal here too. People playing instruments, this time normally and not two metres apart, singers with them, dancers too. The only groups missing were the large singing groups like Huan’s.

And finally, today’s wildlife, which I was able to get quite close to before it flew away. As I was getting into position to take the photo it actually turned its head to look at me. I only had my phone with me today; I wonder what a Fuji photo would have been like.

Our planned exercise went by the wayside, Huan had an afternoon nap, and I was also feeling a little bit tired too. I skipped the exercise but didn’t sleep, instead I carried on with dashcam work and searching for phones. I’m still not buying one yet though!

March 14^th Out for a slightly longer walk than recently but still nowhere near as long as I would like. Today’s walk was along the main road to the doggy toilet and then back along the river. No, it’s not really a doggy toilet, it’s a public convenience where the cleaner has a dog that always remembers me. Sometimes explaining routes is easier this way. The dog was there, and happy to see me as usual. His mum stayed away from us, she stayed in her little office. No photos because you’ve seen this dog before. Instead you can see a tributary flowing into the main river.

Quite a few fishermen were out today, some fishing while some just appeared to be lazing by the river. Walkers were aplenty too. One walker, whose husband we later found out was a fisherman, left her little pooch resting under her electric scooter. She also told us that she thought her dog was很可爱 (Hěn kě'ài), this means ‘so cute’ or ‘very cute’. I suppose you could call him that and at least, unlike his movie counterpart he wasn’t afraid, or petrified. This is him back under the scooter after coming out for a chat and a stroke.

A little later on we spotted our white bird again and as usual tried to take some photos. You’ll know by now that I can never get close enough but today when we got home and checked the photos, there was a surprise. Huan was often wondering if these birds would ever lay eggs to make sure we have a lot more around. I doubt very much whether they will stay around but there is now a chick. You can see it slightly to the left of the white one taking off and you’ll see by the colour why we didn’t see it in ‘real life’.

And our last photo of the day, a tattoo parlour. Actually, I thought “Tattoo” was the name of the RV company, it was Huan who pointed out that it is an actual tattoo parlour. Today I only got photos of the outside, he was busy inside and with my needle foibles I didn’t really want to go inside. A long time ago, between 1970 and 1973, I visited a tattoo parlour in Hong Kong, Pinky’s if I remember rightly, quite a few times. On every occasion I was drunk on arrival, to put it mildly, but had sobered up a bit by the time I got to the front of the queue. Fear of needles then set in and I chickened out every time! Maybe some other time I will venture in for you, but just for a look, not a tattoo.

So we walked just over nine kilometres day, not fast and no hills, it took us nearly two and a half hours. Our plan was to do our indoor exercises this afternoon. It wasn’t a very cunning plan and it failed, miserably. Sat in front of the computer I couldn’t keep my eyes open so both of us retired for an afternoon OAP nap. Waking up from that, neither of us felt like doing the exercise so we procrastinated and said we’d do it tomorrow. Maybe, having had to self isolate and not being able to go so far, we are not used to longer walks any more. More practice needed!

March 15^th Miserable weather today so we stayed in this morning. At least it gave me a chance to catch up on my guitar practice, I had missed a day when we went to Haikou and hadn’t made it up yet. With a practice this morning and another after dinner I’m back on track again. That doesn’t mean I’m getting any better though! Staying in during the morning also meant we were not too exhausted for our indoor exercise this afternoon. Our plan is to keep going with this one, the “Walk at Home 1 Mile” until the end of the month and then graduate to the “Walk at Home 2 Mile”. Another video will be made next month. Apart from the exercise and guitar it was quite a quiet day, for both of us.

March 16^th Our weather today was very English, it rained all day, somewhere between drizzle and downpour. Luckily it’s Monday so no walks planned, no exercise either, just shopping. That went without a hitch today although there does seem to be a shortage of granulated sugar. That’s more than likely due to supply difficulties rather than panic buying.

Huan also had a trip to the lottery store to buy today’s and tomorrow’s tickets and to collect our winnings from the weekend. They were huge, ¥35.00! It’s all good practice though for when the big one eventually comes in.

A good day for me, on Skype. First I had #1 son, checking on me, which also allowed me to check on him! All is well at his end, he works from home most of the time. After talking to him I was also able to call one of my younger brothers, turns out he is in Indonesia now. I’m pleased to say that as far as this virus goes he is also well.

And so we come to the end of another not very exciting week. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we can get out and about a bit more. Bye for now!