Dead Garden, Dead End, Finding the Way

December 1st “December will be magic again, Take a husky to the ice, While Bing Crosby sings White Christmas, He makes you feel nice, December will be magic again, Old Saint Nicholas up the chimney, Just a-popping up in my memory.” (December Will Be Magic Again by Kate Bush)”

Well it won’t quite be like that here although we will have the decorations up and Christmas music in the office and the car. There won’t even be any Christmas cake or Christmas pudding this year! Not only have the prices increased drastically on Taobao, the delivery dates are not until after Christmas, hardly worth it then. We have two boxes of Bendick’s mints coming though so all is not completely lost.

Our first photo this morning, and this month, is our old garden centre. I don’t think we’ll be going there any more, they seem to have a shortage of green things, i.e. plants.

We had a plan today, go down the main road, take the fourth turn off and look for the route over the hills back to the third turn off. I abandoned it a couple of hundred metres up the fourth turn off. There were too many large trucks kicking up a lot of dust so we will have to plan this for another time and make sure Huan is fully prepared with a face mask.

Instead, we walked a little further then crossed the road to come back into town via the riverside. We passed the usual fishermen and today we also saw quite a lot of pretty birds. Unfortunately, in the photos, the subjects are still too small, sorry about that. We didn’t turn up to the road where we usually do, we kept going along the path behind the old army barracks until we came to this.

Huan was almost going to through the barracks, there is no fence on the riverside, but I told her, politely of course, that I was not going that way. Yes, there is no fence on the back side, but there is on the road side and there is still a skeleton crew of soldiers there. I would not have fancied explaining what I was doing in the middle of an army camp with a camera!

This next subject was easy to get in the frame. We dropped a couple of small stones nearby and he didn’t move an inch. In fact, I wasn’t sure whether he was actually alive or not.

More birds were seen on the way home, it was a good day for them today. Perhaps I’ll get a nice Christmas present of a better zoom lens after all. Mind you, we did say “no pressies” this year. Never mind, the lens I have was good enough to show you a couple of photos of us for a change, under the main bridge in the town.

The rest of the day, after our Sunday brunch, was taken up with me trying to upload last month’s Blog. I had tried for a few hours yesterday, without success. Unfortunately, I ended today with no success either.

December 2^nd It’s a good job I changed Mondays to no walkies days. I needed all morning and part of the afternoon, when we returned from shopping, to finish the Blog upload. In the end, I had to upload it in two halves. Maybe I should consider weekly uploads instead of monthly ones. Perhaps I’ll try that from the first of January.

Huan was out in the evening but I didn’t go with them. I needed to stay in and do my Chinese lesson and review, plus keep trying the ‘C’ to ‘F’ change on the guitar.

Bad news from Taobao, no Bendisk’s mints for Christmas either, they’re out of stock. We’ll have to see if Haikou has anything next week.

December 3^rd Sometimes I wonder how we lived in Harbin for nearly eight years. Yesterday evening I was wearing my full track suit in the house as well as socks. Some of Huan’s dancing ladies were wearing long underwear and we even went on to Taobao and ordered some warm slippers! I guess that way up North we were prepared for the cold, here if the temperature drops just a little, we freeze our cotton socks off.

This morning when I went out in my shorts and shirt, everyone thought I was the crazy old foreigner again. I was asked a few times if I was cold or not. What they don’t seem to be able to understand is that if you’re moving, and briskly at that, you’ll be fine. The weather in fact was pretty good as evidenced by this photo.

There’s a woman on the right of this photo that was trying to give me a dog. I had stopped, as I always do, to chat to a four legged friend. If I had said yes, she would have given me the pooch there and then. I had to say no of course, Huan is not a big fan of animals in the house, with one exception!

While today’s walk was brisk, ten kilometres in two hours, it wasn’t long. It was a planned ‘shopping walk’. More baps and sausages were needed for our lunches this week and getting to the outdoor market too late would mean either or both could be sold out. My luck was in and our pantry is replenished. The apartment complex with the market also has a lily pond, a not very well looked after one, but I did take some photos of it this morning. Here’s one.

The evening for me brought a nice Skype call from the family, I do like it when that happens, and of course Chinese and guitar. That was not so easy today, I had a ‘cramped up feeling’ in my left hand. I’m not sure if it was due to ‘bad practice’ last night, or carrying the shopping bags upstairs yesterday.

December 4^th Last night we were two old fogeys when we went to bed, Huan with her nightdress T-shirt and me with my pyjamas, (George, from ASDA). It seems our sudden snap of cold, (for us), weather was caused by a typhoon that was much further south. At least we each have our teddy bears, Huan is mine and I am hers!

This morning on my walk, I spotted a little lane that we had been down a fair while ago so I decided to go that way again today. It used to be quite pleasant, especially on a sunny day, and there was a fairly easy way out at the other end. It’s not sunny any more!

Yes, building doesn’t stop despite all the new rules here about just who is allowed to buy. The way out wasn’t so easy anymore, I had to go through a building site. No problems for me though, I had my boots on! Photos of a plane, a bird in the river and another crab followed, all far too small to share with you. I did find a wonderful beach though, if you imagine you are up on a hill looking down a long way that is. In reality, it’s only about a metre wide.

I came home along the riverside again, I wanted to check on the frog we had seen on the first of December. It was almost in the same exact spot. I’m not sure if the water had moved it just a little bit further out. One of its legs appeared to be at a different angle and its head was inclined a little higher. Huan wondered if it wasn’t moving because it was laying eggs, a quick Google check reminded me of my biology lessons and hence that wasn’t the reason. Perhaps the cold weather has affected the frog too and it’s hibernating! I’ll try and remember to check next time we walk that way.

Huan had her, hopefully, last visit to the dentist this afternoon. I didn’t do much except watch another episode of ‘Taskmaster’, lazy boy. I read a lot of complaints about the state of TV in the UK, but I think it’s still better than most around the world.

December 5^th I was a lucky boy this morning, Huan had no singing and so was coming with me for my walk. We decided to try and find the mountain route from the fourth turn off back to the third and we had a plan. Not only did we have a plan, we had a print out of Google maps satellite view. The plan may have been good but the execution was not. I thought we had to pass the highway tunnel construction site which is what we did. A few kilometres later we arrived at a spot we had been to before which Huan remembered. By now I was almost convinced we were in the wrong place but not quite. Going further up the hill, through the forest, we met a woman coming down so Huan had a chat with her. She told us that when they went on this route from their village they were usually away all day and on top of that, I would not be able to trek the route with my shorts on! We called quits on today’s plan and made our way back home. Endomondo said we did 15.8 kilometres but as I forgot to start it until we were two kilometres from home and we did another kilometres from the bus stop at the end, we walked a total of 18.8 today. Not bad eh?

Once home and on the computer I did some checking and found out where I had gone wrong. What I had thought was the tunnel entrance on the map, wasn’t. Next time we’ll get it right. There is a video of today’s trek, you can find it here - https://youtu.be/MtPLVCpb6fo Not many photos were taken on the way, just some chickens and ducks along with a lady washing clothes in a mountain stream. You might like this one though.

While we were out Huan told me that my eyes were bloodshot and that I was catching a cold. Of course I laughed it off, but I had to admit that the centre of my back was very cold. Although it had been an overcast day I had still been sweating, but the coolness of the mountain breezes meant it didn’t dry. When we got home, I dug out the hot water bottle and sat with it down my shirt until I was warm enough to go and take a nice hot shower. A little bit of #1 son’s Black Label and some coffee may well have helped!

I spent the rest of the day joining all the short videos into one long one to upload to YouTube, very difficult, especially as my access to foreign parts was pretty hopeless today. Dinner was unusual in that we had steak; red meat is something we hardly ever have. It was lovely, so much so that I had no time to take a picture of it!

December 6^th Under orders from SWMBO, when she went singing this morning, I stayed in. It was a bit cool outside so I just surfed the interwebs. However, I escaped in the afternoon, much against the advice of the boss, but the sun was shining so out I went. You should have seen me go, the first kilometres only took one minute and fifty three seconds! Usain Bolt has nothing on me. You guessed it, the GPS started in the wrong place again. Anyway, I tried to stay in the sun as much as possible and started off on the other side of the river where I met an unexpected change. The nice naturalistic path had become a bomb site!

Next, a bit of bum shuffling was required, I had to get from the upper to the lower walkway before I could continue and this is what it looked like, not safe for an OAP to walk on!

On my way round I passed a few gentlemen fishing so took a photo of them with the dam in the background that the authorities may or may not repair by the time the island park is done.

Next up we have a close up of the sluice gates which I’ve never shown you from this side. I only had my phone with me but the photo’s still not bad.

As we’re off to Haikou shortly I passed by the bank to draw some money out, yes, people do still use money in China, sometimes. The ATM took my card and then nothing happened. Luckily Chinese banks nearly always have someone on hand to assist you, the young lady even knew some English. “It’s stuck” she said. While

we were watching, it came back to life and asked for my PIN after which it stopped again to which the young lady responded “It’s stuck”. I gave up with that machine and went to the next one and of course, the young lady followed me and even told me, because she could obviously see over my shoulder, how much money I had in the bank. She sounded disappointed!

Home again to what is fast becoming this year a very cold house, butter no longer has to be kept in the fridge! As I write this the dining room clock, which has weather details, says it is 21^oC, it tells lies. Windows 10 weather says it is 11^oC and will go down to 9^oC. For me, it feels like it’s already less than 10^oC! I am wearing my dressing gown and these two items. I bought my half gloves in 2017, didn’t need them last year, and I got the “Sport” slippers from Taobao, they were delivered today!

Huan of course was out dancing in the square tonight, but, just like the other ladies, she was wearing long underwear and lots on the top so she wasn’t cold. I wish my circulation was more like hers!

December 7^th We got up this morning to a wonderful blue sky.

Being a Saturday meant I had the pleasure of Huan’s company for our walk. We decided that today wasn’t the day to resume our search for the ‘mountain pass’, instead we would do just enough to make sure we got ten kilometres in and then head back via the river to check up on the Wuzhishan food festival. We were also interested to see if the usual Saturday farmer’s market would be there. When we arrived at the riverside we discovered that both events were taking place at the same time, busy or what?

The food festival was a bit of a let down, there didn’t seem to be much there that we can’t see in any other street market. We will visit again though, in the week, when only the festival will be taking place, when we can have a better look and show you some of the offerings. That also means I will be able to get a closer look at the cars, yes there was a mini car show going on there too. Being so crowded I couldn’t get the right sort of photos to show off the cars but I did get this brochure. Check out the specs, it’s electric and will do 520 kilometres on a charge. The recharge times look pretty good too.

And the last picture from our walk? Well, it’s more like from my ‘falling over’ and not from a walk. These things are all over the pavements in Wuzhishan where the authorities have removed a rubbish bin or some such like. I’ve lost count of how many times my feet manage to find them and send me flying!

Saturday fry-up was the order of the day, Bob cooking, tasty as always. I spent the afternoon “dans le conservatoire”, I’ve renamed the kitchen balcony. I took my Hammond Innes book out there and read it in the lovely warm sun. Huan had a rest from singing and keyboard and watched the TV. Of course, her rest was over after our evening meal, which should be called ‘tea’ because we had a cooked lunch; she was off out dancing again.

December 8^th Today we set off again to find the route through the mountains and this time we had a different satellite print out, one that I was convinced was right. There was a part of the print out where there was no obvious place to walk but logic said there should be a way. We had wonderful weather for hiking today, the sun was shining but there was just a little chill in the air. It was enough to stop us overheating but not enough for us to feel cold. Success! We found the way without too much fighting through the woods and what's more, it didn't take us as long as we thought it would. Here’s our first photo, on the way up.

And here is the one where I realised we had found the way!

And finally, the wonderful view of the mountains when we returned home.

If you want to see more of where we went, follow this link - https://youtu.be/DSIyHYN0oIM

Sunday meant another fry-up, cooked again by ‘moi’ and enjoyed by both of us. Being Sunday, it also meant another soak in a salty bath but this time with the fan heater on in the bathroom. It is still chilly in the house especially as evening approaches. Huan hasn’t needed the hot water bottle yet though!