Getting Back to Normal, Ants, Sofa Pants, New Bike

August 24^th All good things must come to an end I suppose and today we took Chris and Amber off to Haikou airport for their return journey to the UK, via Singapore. Let’s hope they have better weather there. If you fancy coming to Hainan you don’t need to worry about the airport at all. For an international one it’s small.

and not too busy.

Once our guests were on their way, SWMBO had asked me to drive to Sanya to collect the rent on our apartment there. That’s another 240km on top of the 170km I’d already driven this morning, plus of course another 130km or so to drive home again. It’s a good job I like driving! After all that, it turned out to be a wasted journey because our tenant was not there, so we still have to go back next week sometime.

Finally, we arrived home, in the pouring rain, to a quiet empty house, where we had a sumptuous meal, comprising of a chicken sandwich and a cup of tea. I did get a pleasant surprise in the evening though, my nephew Kevin gave us a video call with my Aunty Sally, smiles all round.

August 25th Well, we should have slept like logs last night, we were both exhausted and in bed fairly early. However, I was up three times and Huan up once so we were nodding off most of today. Huan did do all the outstanding ironing this morning, despite my protestations. I know, I could have volunteered, but today was not the day. No cooking though, out for a Chinese cheapo buffet instead, and then another early night. The house seems a little empty and quiet at the moment, but we’ll get used to it again in a few days.

August 26^th Neither of us is back to 100% yet but we’re getting there albeit still a little sleepy today. No walking yet, we had other plans. Our first stop was the Traffic Police office to do my annual check for fines and get a new emission sticker. Success on both counts! There are no fines on the computer as of today, more than likely because I’m becoming more and more paranoid about the armies of cameras. To get the emission sticker all I had to do was produce my registration, the latest insurance papers and passport. No money required at all today and that’s us good for another two years.

Second stop was shopping; the fridge needed re-stocking and a few other bits and pieces. On the way, we passed by the bank to put some money into Huan’s ‘Taobao’ bank, I’ve agreed to buy her a bicycle for her birthday. She will receive it early so that she can practice before her singing and dancing friend returns, they will then cycle to classes together. I’ve started worrying already! Look out for upcoming cycling, or falling off, photos!

Today’s ‘Chinglish’ comes from the supermarket, it seems what they are trying to do is rent this space for advertising.

Lazy lunch for both of us and then we moved the keyboard back into the living room so that our budding pop star can get back to her daily practicing. Maybe I should order ear plugs? Of course, if I buy a guitar I can go into competition with her!

August 27^th Another lovely day in Wuzhishan but unfortunately we could not enjoy it. No ‘walkies’ today, instead we were off to Sanya again, our tenant said she would be available around lunchtime. Heading for the east side of Sanya we always take the mountain roads and not the highway, if it’s not too busy it’s quite an enjoyable drive. At the last village we buy some bottled coffee and then drink it under the highway bridge. I missed that particular spot today and we parked up on a side street, right near the Mercedes dealer. No, I’m not considering buying one. When we opened the doors, were horrified to find that our car was full of ants, they were around all the door frames. Last night we had parked up in a different place, under some trees, so maybe that’s where they came from. Our next port of call was a car wash to try and get rid of as many as possible. The attendant took a picture for us; just as well he did as I didn’t. A quick WeChat connection and then I had the picture too. This shows the rear nearside door but the read offside door was just as bad and there were some around the front doors and tailgate too.

Off then to visit our tenant, a wasted trip as it turned out. She had had three months to think about our proposed rent increase and then laid straight into us about problems with the door and she would only agree to the same rent. Huan suggested we fix the door, but she still argued. Finally Huan said “OK, if you don’t want to pay you have to move out in ten days”. That is not as harsh as it sounds, the tenant knew three months ago that there would be a rent increase and her existing contract has already expired meaning we are out of pocket. She also has a very favourable price when compared to others in the area. We left her saying she would have to ‘talk to her husband’ who always tells us we have to ‘talk to his wife’. Let’s see what happens. With a little luck they will see that we are not big meanies and accept the new rent or Huan and I will be back in the renovation business again!

On our way home we had to pass the express delivery offices to collect two of our latest Taobao orders. Here’s Huan holding up her pants and mine, guess who’s got sofa pants this time? Yes, it’s me!

Another cheapo Chinese buffet, a place we haven’t been for a long time, and as before, all was tasty and filling. We sat in the town square for a few minutes for me to have a ‘coffee and a fag’. That was also long enough for a couple of labourers to come and grill me with the usual questions. It didn’t take them long to get onto money, they thought that I, just like all foreigners, was earning at least ¥50,000.00 a month! Chance would be a fine thing. It took Huan a while to get them to understand so they then asked me ‘if I got money from my son when he visited’. It seems that is what they do when family visits. We enjoyed the chat and I learned something from it but I doubt he went away believing us.

August 28th This morning we took advantage of the nice weather and went out for our first walk since Chris & Amber left. We didn’t even manage five kilometres! Slowly we are feeling less washed out though so I guess we’ll eventually get back to normal. I took Huan past the ‘rabbit shop’ as we call it. It’s really a shop for farmers but they have a couple of rabbits there and there had been five little babies. When I visited with Chris I misunderstood the lady there and told Huan they had all died. It seems they had been given away to friends. Next stop was to check up on my little four legged friend’s puppies. She was very pleased to see me, it’s been a while and one of the puppies took a fancy to Huan’s shoes. She had nine pups, eight of which survived; this is the one who was tormenting Huan.

While we were there, ‘Daddy’ came back and two of the dogs and the chicken went straight for him. I guess they knew he had brought ‘goodies’. Here they are being fed some kind of sweet bread I believe.

After dinner we were both very lethargic but decided another walk was in order. I don’t think either of us really wanted to go but we knew that if either of us said no that the other one wouldn’t go alone. A stroll around the river still gave us slightly over six kilometres which put us back into the routine of at least ten a day. Coming home, we both thought the sky looked lovely, hopefully you’ll all think so too.

August 29^th Typhoon PODUL was poodling around off Sanya today so we had rain here all day. I guess we’re on the fringes of the storm. No walkies ergo no photos.

August 30^th So typhoon PODUL had poodled across to Vietnam when we got up this morning but it seems it was still wagging its tail over Wuzhishan. The rain didn’t stop until nearly nine in the evening. This was the view we woke up to which at times through the day was even worse but the flow does appear to be slowing now.

August 31^st Much better weather today and we got out for a nice eight kilometre walk. It would have been longer but we had a call from one of the delivery companies to say that Huan’s bike had arrived. On our way back we passed her vegetable garden, which, after nearly a month of neglect, is looking just a little overgrown. These are her sweet potatoes.

Once we had the bike we sat down to our first ‘full English’ at home for over a month. It was absolutely lovely! Work started then, I had to assemble the bicycle, from a set of instructions in Chinese that didn’t always make sense when Huan or Google translated them. Anyway, all was going well, Huan even took a photo of me hard at work. You’re not seeing that because it is a side profile of me bending over with quite a large belly reaching for the floor! Things started to go awry when we got to putting the front wheel on. The front forks were not aligned at all, and there was no way I could get them to where they should have been.

A long chat with the supplier on Taobao resulted in us visiting a local bike repair man. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do but at least the view was good.

What he did in fact was use a pipe and put it over one of the forks and then bend it into the shape required. He’s obviously done this kind of thing before. He then continued to assemble the rest of the bike, good news for me eh? Here’s her Ladyship sitting on the finished result.

The rain had come back while we getting the bike repaired so we were stuck in a quandary. Huan didn’t feel brave enough to ride home, on a main road, in the rain, I couldn’t ride it because I had the car to drive. Huan has no driving licence (yet) or she could have taken the car. We solved the problem by stuffing the bike behind the front seats with both our seats as far forward as they would go. Huan didn’t mind too much but my knees were touching the dashboard. It’s a good job the car is automatic!

The supplier had told Huan he would pay for any repair work but in the end only offered to pay half. It wasn’t expensive, only ¥40.00 but that’s not the point, there was a sad lack of quality control before the bike left the factory in my eyes. Eventually Huan agreed to take a pump and a bicycle lock in lieu of any money so we’ll wait and see how that goes.

And so we come to the end of what for us was a lovely month. It already seems like weeks since Chris, Amber left, and it’s only a week. Life goes on, and so must we. We’ll be back of course, next month, so don’t forget to check in then. Bye for now!