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!