Freedom(?), Birds & Exercise

March 3^rd We’ve decided that we’ve had enough of self-isolation so unless we hear anything to the contrary, we’ll start wandering again. Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays will still be exercise days though, now we’ve started we may as well continue. We can take shorter walks on those days and I can walk further on the other days.

Today was a pleasant ramble around the riverside, still with masks when required, mostly to assuage other people’s fears. The weather is on the up, getting warmer, and almost as if to celebrate that people were out in droves. What we saw first was not people though; we thought it was some kind of caterpillar until we looked closer. It’s a seed and it’s dive bombed its way right into a spider’s web. I think the spider is right cheesed off because we couldn’t see him anywhere, probably gone to build a new web!

As for the people in droves, in this scene you can see two lots of saxophone players, one including a trumpet player. There’s another two groups around the corner and as you can see there’s also a fisherman. The river was busy today.

As mentioned we had our masks with us. Huan has stopped using the disposable ones and is using one she already had, probably from our time in Harbin. Here she is resting on a riverside bench. I did try and get her to pose reclining but, she refused!

Finally, we managed to get some photos of those elusive birds. It wasn’t easy and I still want that bigger lens but his one came out reasonably well.

We didn’t feel like it but we were conscientious and did our indoor walk after lunch. The ‘coach’ says it’s equivalent to a four mile walk in an hour so I add 6.4km to Endomondo, make sure it’s counted. Last month’s figures will probably not be so good!

March 4^th A countryside walk was planned for today, remembering that we might have to avoid villages. Almost immediately, after the bridge to nowhere, we came across the first sign, telling us that only villagers could go straight, we had to take a detour.

Our first glimpse of wildlife, or farm life, was ducks and goats.

That was down by the riverside. After we left the river we came into the back road of a village, where there was another sign asking us to keep away. Another group of OAPs had gone before us so we decided to do the same as them and ignore this particular sign. Who knows how many months it will be before the village committees decide to remove the signs!

I like this particular walk, I always get to see my bovine friends. I like to think they were waiting for me although it may be they just heard the other people.

Round the side, by the gate, the ‘inmates’ did come and see me. Three came very close, one wouldn’t quite come close enough to touch, the second allowed me to stroke its head a few times and the third was right up there, having a good old sniff of my shirt and shorts.

Past the cows and through the village we found that life is fairly much back to normal. The crops were doing quite well and some of the villagers were in the fields.

From here the route was to take us to the medicine factory, via what was supposed to be the old airport. I can’t confirm whether or not any planes ever flew from here. It looks like they have started clearing the land ready for more apartment buildings now though. Here’s the view.

I went wandering around a dried up lake, Huan wouldn’t follow me, she thought she might sink into the mud. It was safe enough though and I did take a photo of her for you. Unfortunately, she was just a bit too far away!

Instead of working my way all the way back round I clambered up the side to join Huan further up on the path. I should have gone back to ‘go’, then I would not have ended up with bloody arms and knees! You don’t need to see that, do you? How about some wild tomatoes instead? At least that is what Huan says they are and who am I to argue with her.

I do argue sometimes and even occasionally put my foot down. “I used to eat these when I was young” said Huan as she was about to eat the little black berries you can see in the same photo. I explained to her that a) berries in Liaoning, up North, may not be the same as the berries here down South, and b) she couldn’t possibly remember if they were the same berries over fifty years later! I think I won this one; at least she didn’t eat them.

Only one more photo for today, and it’s both of us having a well earned rest after eight and a half kilometres. The weather was great for walking but for some reason, probably due to being out of practice, we were both in desperate need of water, well me more than Huan.

How far did we walk today? I’m pleased to say it was our first ten kilometres for quite a long time. Mind you, we both felt it! No indoor exercises today, just good old fashioned rest.

In the afternoon I spotted the first inter-city coach back in business. Strangely enough, it was not Wuzhishan to anywhere, but Haikou to Sanya. I guess they don’t have too many passengers yet and they stopped off here to collect a few more.

Life is slowly getting back to normal, for us anyway.

March 5th Rain stopped play! Actually, that’s not quite accurate, it should say “weather forecast” stopped play. We were supposed to have rain all day but as often happens, they lied! It did rain, in the late afternoon. Never mind, we enjoyed our lazy day, didn’t even do any exercises, both too lazy.

March 6^th Well wouldn’t you know it, rain did stop play today. We woke up to rain and it continued almost non-stop until the evening. Still, we did do our indoor exercise today, took a video of it, and as promised captured some screen shots for you. Here we are doing a knees up!

And this time some leg kicks, check out John Cleese!

And then we got into a little trouble. One of us, who shall remain nameless, but it was someone of the male gender, broke wind. That had us in fits of giggles for a while but we did manage to persevere to the end. Why the giggles? Well Huan knew that we were recording this and that quite possibly it would end on the internet. She was right of course; the full video went up on YouTube so people can see what life is like for us here during these ‘difficult’ times. A small snippet, including the giggles and the reason for them was also uploaded to FB. So, here’s a screen shot of the giggles.

March 7^th The weather forecast said it would be nice with sunny periods today and it was right. However, one very lazy person didn’t get out of bed until just after nine and that was because Huan made enough noise to wake him up. By the time breakfast was over we stayed in for the morning, it gave Huan a good excuse to make some steamed bread and more dumplings.

We did go out after lunch, you know, the warmest part of the day. “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” It seemed very much like that today, not many other people were out walking at all as these two photos show.

Miracle of miracles, I managed to get another bird photo today. This is a huge percentage crop from the original but at least you can see it, and if you’re an ornithologist, a bird watcher, or heaven forbid, a twitcher, you may even be able to recognise it. Let us know if you do.

March 8^th Procrastination was the word of the day. We were both up a little late although not as bad as yesterday. Walking was cancelled but that was OK, we needed to go out in the car anyway. Supplies were needed, in particular, drinking water, I had emptied the cooler yesterday. Normally we would call the water company and they would deliver. However, under present circumstances they will only deliver to the gate and carrying three large bottles from there is not quite my cup of tea. They did fit well enough in the car so we only had to get them to the lift and then into the flat. Here they are in the car.

Procrastination repeated itself in the afternoon when we decided to skip our exercises today and instead do them tomorrow. We won’t be going shopping so it gives us something else to do!

March 9^th Another day indoors today, partly because the weather was miserable this morning. It did turn into a nice day but we had planned “indoor exercise’ for the afternoon. In the morning I got an extra guitar practice in whilst Huan got some singing and keyboard practice done.

We do have something to look forward to for tomorrow, the Post Office phoned; they have a letter for us. We’ll pick it up during our shopping trip. Now we wonder… Is it Huan’s extremely late birthday card from November? Is it a very late Christmas card? Is it my late birthday card? Is it an extremely early anniversary card? Or is it something from the State Pension or my other pension? I hope it’s not one of the last two, it may well mean going through the whole palaver of proof of life again!

Exercise was fine today; we got through it with no giggling fits!

Outside, life appears to be getting more and more back to normal. There is now the sound of construction machinery in the daytime, work has recommenced on the river park island, all the workshops on our building front are back in action. Most of the restaurants on our road are also back in business. Even the weather took a huge leap today, the maximum was 37^oC! It will go down again over the next few days, cloudy with rain at times, but all in all a good end to the week. We’ll be back again soon!