Normality, Monkey King, Compression Stockings

April 18^th Strange dent on the car this morning, quite a high one. Perhaps some drunk ‘put the nut on’! Another rainy day so car washing out off, instead we had a little walk around town. We had to collect a Taobao that should have been delivered yesterday. Today also being “Sān yuè sān: (三月三) the riverside had been changed to a ‘touristy’ market place. It wasn’t bad I suppose but nothing for the children to do, really only stalls making money! I caught quite a few people taking sneaky photographs of me. Even after nearly three years it seems I’m still a novelty! Just a couple of photos from me, one showing the walkway and one showing Wuzhishan townsfolk engaged in their favourite passion, tea drinking.

Bit too much walking today, Achilles tendon flaring up again. Rest time for a while maybe, at least until the weather improves and we can go swimming again.

April 19^th – Lazy day in Wuzhishan. Huan decided to order paint from Taobao for Ledong so it will be a few days before we go. You should have been seeing a photo of me in my new ‘surgical/compression/support stockings’ today. They did arrive, from Taobao of course. However, despite following the measuring instructions to the letter it was a physical impossibility to get them over my feet! Needless to say they have been returned. We will try again, with the maximum size they sell!

April 20^th Decided to have a walk on our ‘private island’ just for a change and also as the river was just a trickle, down to the riverbed too. The island at one time had a KTV, or so Huan tells me, but it was shut down because it was too noisy for the old people. Maybe it was outdoors! There are supposedly plans to turn it into a park, who knows, maybe they will. My nightmare is that they build another high rise on it! Anyway, this is what it looks like now.

If only there was a way to live there and do it up. Unfortunately China is not like the UK in that regard. Doesn’t stop us dreaming though!

It wasn’t so easy but we did find a way down to the river bed so that we could walk round. It made a very pleasant change and gave us a different view of where we live. Many photos were taken but I will show only the panorama here.

April 21^st 22^nd 23^rd Nothing special, short walks around the town, more Chinese learning. No longer at the top of the leader board. Whenever I get there, someone else, always the same person, has to outdo me. Now I am learning Chinese characters so that is the only place my points come from. He, or she, however, is learning Chinese, English, Maths, Art, Music and God knows what else. There is no way I can stay at the top! Never mind, it’s more important that the characters stick in my memory. I am over 300 now but still hardly ever recognise any when we are out! Any ideas why?

Something else happened though, which I almost forgot. Despite having been out for a walk I had forgotten to buy any ‘Nescafe Smoovlatté’ to keep me going until the next delivery from Taobao. I decided to make my own iced coffee, didn’t taste too bad, but of course needed cooling down. I stuck it in the freezer. “Are you sure it will be OK?” asked Huan. “Of course it will.” I answered and opened the door to prove it. Well the glass container decided to commit suicide so there went my coffee, all over the floor. Once Huan had cleaned up my mess (her choice), we decided that we would have to pull the fridge out to check for more coffee and glass. Well, those of you who know Huan and I will also know that we like to keep a (reasonably) clean house. You should have heard the cries of anguish from Huan when she saw what it looked like behind the fridge! No photos of that, we will leave it up to your imagination. Needless to say, we will be cleaning behind the fridge more than once every two years in the future!

April 24^th Nice walk along the riverside this morning taking in the new walkway. When they were building it, the flowerbeds around it were beautiful, not any longer though. Maybe they are going for the ‘wild’ look?

We did see some flora, here it is for your delectation.

Not forgetting some of the local fauna, seems a bit reserved though.

And just a little bit more, a little birdie feeding its chicks. This is one place where I’m afraid my Nokia is not quite good enough. If you look carefully though you can see two little beaks.

April 25^th Life can get very boring when you are under doctor’s orders not to walk fast, not to walk far and not to walk up hills. This is even more true when you are surrounded by hills as we are. Hopefully this will only be temporary. Anyway, we can still walk locally and sometimes still be surprised at what we see. Have you ever seen a Lychee Stink Bug Nymph (Tessaratoma papillosa, Tessaratomidae)? I have to credit one of my Facebook friends with giving me the name. They feed on Longan fruits and we have a tree downstairs. It hasn’t flowered since we’ve been here but it looks like this is the year. Very pretty!

Recently the Chinese news had an article, shared by Tropicalhainan.com about a farmer who found gas. Makes me wonder what is going on just outside the nurse’s school. Any ideas?

Now some of you may know the story of Monkey King. Did you know that the Gods banished him to spend eternity under Wuzhishan? That was before his ‘Journey To The West’ began of course. We see him quite a lot here. He didn’t look too pleased today and I’m sure ‘Pigsy’ would not have been happy with a clothesline hanging off his nose!

And just a little further on we found a gentleman of the Li Minority group, very frightening I must say!

April 26^th and 27^th Stuck indoors again, more rain. We are now coming to the end of our first three years here and we still can’t work out the weather. My son and his wife were here in April last year and the weather was gorgeous. This year it’s most definitely not! Never mind, more Chinese learning instead!

April 28^th This is a ‘nature’ day, starting off in our ‘garden’, otherwise known as the bedroom balcony. I didn’t want to get too close just in case this little fellow got too near my nose!

We had a little longer walk than we usually do these days, (it’s OK Doc, we walked fairly slowly), and we came across some beautiful flowers. Here’s the first –

And here’s the second which I can’t believe we haven’t seen before. How could anyone miss such a sight?

In fact this looks more like a bunch of beans before it flowers

I got a few more insect pictures on the way home, they were just sitting in the sun on a white wall. Not having a good macro camera, there’s only one for you to see here, handsome isn’t he?

And then we were home awaiting our visitors for the evening, our friends from Haikou. I hardly took any photos but here’s a couple of mediocre ones. I hasten to add that I mean the quality and the subjects!

April 29^th The second night with our visitors and dinner courtesy of Huan, home made burgers. I can honestly say that Huan’s burgers beat anything you can find outside any day!

April 30^th And finally – it’s official, I am now OLD! Here I am in my ultra fashionable ‘compression stockings’. Who thought it would ever come to this?

Ah well, c’est la vie, as they say. See you next month!