One Day, One Walk, Solitude

October 25th Another lazy day today. Well, I did go for a walk but I didn’t feel the need for speed, hills or distance. What I felt the need for was the countryside, peace and quiet. I still walked ten and a half kilometres but it took me almost three hours. Mind you, in that time I managed to take a hundred and sixty six photos, probably half of those in black and white. The first run through I got them down to one hundred and twenty two, still too many. Second run through and down to ninety, still too many for you but OK for me!

So, where did I go? I went across the bridge to nowhere and that’s where I took the first photo. I thought the cloud in the valley behind the hills looked very pretty. Huan liked it too when she came home and saw it.

Villages in black and white followed, here is Zali Cun.

No pigs were spotted today, it looks like Central Government rules have eventually reached Wuzhishan. Lots of chickens were seen though and lots of photographs of them were taken. Here is one showing two of them.

Next up were three ducklings and I was able to get quite close. They had obviously been having a bath and were now cleaning themselves up.

Another village followed, Fuguan Cun which of course meant I had to take more black and white photographs. Just to give you a little variety, this one’s not just a building, but a truck too. The radiator and the headlamps jumped out at me when I was sorting out the pictures on the PC. I wish I could remember what it looked like in colour!

I left the village and headed to the old medicine factory, the opposite way to our normal route. Lo and behold, another chicken, or should I say a cockerel. I caught this one in the middle of his ‘cock-a-doodle-doos’.

A lot more black and white photos taken in the medicine factory but I think you’ve seen a lot of them before. Leaving there, I had a small obstacle course.

It was worth it though, I stopped here for a wee while, revelling in the sounds of nature and the solitude I’d been looking for today.

Today wasn’t a sandal day, you probably guessed that when you saw the obstacle course. I was wearing my boots. Somebody however, wasn’t wearing his, or hers. Do you think this is some kind of secret signal?

That was going to be the last photo for today but I do like these next two, both black and white ones. In the first one the subject is the two water towers. I like it is because of all the other details that are visible in the picture too. The second one is a more unusual view of the island in front of our house complete with non-operational sluice gates.

Lunch was very good. Here’s a little advice for you, if you have a curry, make sure to leave a little in the pan, add some water to it and heat it up the next day, “et voila, soup du lendemain!” You could even whiz it up, put it in the fridge overnight and have a “Currysoise”. The afternoon brought rain but that didn’t worry us, both of us were staying put. Huan was doing her homework in the living room and I was writing this in the office.