Rules, Fresh Air and Self-Isolation

February 11^th Up before the street lamps today after a sleep that was less disturbed than usual. I was still worn out from yesterday though and was back in bed by half past nine. I was woken up by “Nurse Nightingale”, not the Florence type, more the bird type or even the “Hyacinth Bucket” type singing in my ear!

Today was another self isolation day, mostly because we were too lazy to do anything else. More photo aspect changing for me and more singing for Huan. I did the usual guitar and Chinese too, neither of which are improving as fast as I would like.

One of the benefits of all the recent restrictions has been a much quieter road in front of our house. We have even been hearing more birds than usual. Ominous forebodings of change came this afternoon though with the first two large trucks for a while going up towards the highway. I wonder how long it will be before the intercity buses start again. Mind you, many cities are now imposing restrictions on private cars too; maybe the worst is yet to come.

YouTube and the movie “Icon” for me in the evening while Huan was out doing her committee duties. She had to visit every resident in our building, take their details, ID card number, telephone number etc, and also take their photos. In exchange for this info the residents were given another face mask each. I suspect we are going to have more restrictions placed on us in the same way that areas in other towns have. Some places only allow one member of the household to exit the area once every two days. At least our freezer has something in it, enough for a week or two anyway.

February 12^th We did it, we escaped! The weather was fine today so we snuck out; well actually, we just walked out of the gate. Members of the committee were not too impressed with us but we explained that we were going downriver first and then to buy some food later.

It did feel nice to walk around outside with our masks below our chins. Mind you, other people from other parts of the city must have had similar ideas as we did see quite a few out today. It was not crowded by any means and everyone we saw had masks like us. When we got closer to each other, probably about ten metres, all masks went up and after passing each other, another few metres later, they went down again. It was also nice to see my bovine friends albeit from a distance. I doubt very much that they could hear me ‘mooing’ at them! About half way down our walk, before the turn round point, I took this picture for you, actually fourteen pictures stitched together, to show you the view.

As the rainy season hasn’t started yet the river was less ferocious than usual and we were able to get across using stepping stones that would normally be underwater.

Walking back into town on the other side we saw some more wildlife. Well, I suppose it’s not really all that wild but neither the goats nor the dog would allow me to get anywhere near them.

Our next stop was the market, yes, I know, we should avoid wet markets. Unfortunately, if you want food in China you don’t have much choice. Anyway, we bought half a duck and half a chicken, already cooked which we will cook again before we eat them. Huan needed some tofu and I suggested she buy some fish too. I think we need to buy some food every time we go out to make sure we have loads in the freezer should the situation deteriorate. Our market photo shows that it must have been a slow day!

Once safely ensconced at home we carried on with our usual routine. Dinner was nice though, roasted pre-cooked duck with sweet potatoes and other assorted veggies. Huan was the architect of that. I will do the pre-cooked chicken next week, but boiled rather than roasted. Other than that all I did, apart from watch movies, was make a list for tomorrow, “Blog, photos, scanning, filing, guitar, Chinese etc, (where etc is anything I forgot when I made the list).

February 13th Self isolation again today, just as well as the weather had turned and it was raining again. First job, catch up on news and social media, done. Second, yesterday’s Blog entry, done. Third, scanning, done. Fourth, photos aspect changing, done up to the end of 2013. Fifth, filing, done. Sixth, guitar, will I ever get the ‘F’ chord right, done. Seventh, Chinese, I was lazy and just reviewed yesterday’s lesson, done. All duties completed I watched a couple of movies on YouTube, ‘Final Approach’, not too bad, and ‘The Employer’, not really my type of film but I watched it anyway. So that’s it, another boring day in paradise.

February 14^th We’re indoors again, we decided two days in and one day out should be enough to keep us sane, and the weather is miserable again. Today was much as yesterday but with the added inconvenience of no Facebook and no YouTube for most of the day. That meant I finished reading one book, started and finished a second one and then started a third one. Anybody got piles of old books they can send me? (F.O.C. of course!) I finished my day by starting a binge watch of Starsky and Hutch, I have all four seasons on DVD. That should keep me going for a while and then there’s a few more to carry on with after.

February 15^th Fresh air again, with an overcast sky so definitely not too hot. Today we went along the main through road and back along the river, masks on and off as required! First for today, here’s quiz for you. Can you spot the deliberate errors with these two cars?

Get them? Well the white one is a Land Wind which is a copy of the Land Rover Evoque. Note the small badge on the grill, it does say Land Wind but it’s almost identical to a Land Rover badge. The mucky brown one, (well I don’t know what colour it is, I’m a man), is a Ford, that’s true. As you can probably guess, it’s not a Mustang, it’s a Mondeo.

I did take a couple of photos of the streets but they are nowhere near as deserted as other cities in China. It looks just like a sleepy summer afternoon when there are no Snowbirds here. There are obvious signs that something is amiss, there are no groups of musicians, groups of singers or groups of dancers.

Next up is one of my three legged friends, yes, I have more than one. Actually, this one has four legs but one doesn’t work so well. His ‘Mum’ looks after the public toilets where we join the river to walk back. If I see her ‘office’ door open I only have to clap my hands and say something and he’s out in a flash. His Mum usually follows for a chat, today she stayed inside, probably in view of the rules about staying away from people and wearing masks. Pets don’t care about those things of course, and as I have read that Covid 19 cannot be passed on to cats and dogs I wasn’t worried either. I must apologise though, my mask fell off my nose and I didn’t notice. It’s a free issue one and is a little on the small side for my big schnoz. So here we are, bosom buddies as always.

And here he is having a chat to Huan, who, although you can’t see her, is desperately trying to ignore him and not touch him.

What would a Blog post be without a panorama now and then? This is on the way back home, you can see that the weather is not so hot. In fact a lot of the time we could feel tiny droplets on our bare skin, I suspect that rather than rain it was actually clouds. Nice view though.

Some of my bovine friends were relaxing down by the river, giving me a lazy look, probably knowing they were reasonably safe from rampaging human beings like me. Once back to civilisation we looked for baps or sausages, they were nowhere to be found and the usual Saturday market is closed until further notice. There are still people around though, living their lives just like always, except most are wearing masks, as you can see in this photo.

Our last stop before coming home was the pharmacy, I needed to top up my supply of Aspirin for my circulation. Guess what? Our usual pharmacy had run out of Aspirin. Huan was surprised until I told her that Aspirin was the medicine of choice for colds and flu when we were young. We did get some from another pharmacy so no worries, that gives me sixty days supply now.

After lunch it was more aspect editing, finished up to the end of 2016 now. My phone was bought in 2014 and I think that’s when I started using 16:9. Only a few needed editing here and there, some from Huan’s phone, some from other people, some screen shots and the occasional one I had cropped differently.

Then, I’m sad to say, it was back to normal, or worse than normal, no access to the real internet again. You don’t realise how much you rely on Facebook until it’s not there. Hopefully, my family will understand that no news is good news. My brothers and sisters probably will because we were ‘travelling people’ long before the internet. In fact at least four of us were travelling before Mam and Dad ever had a telephone in the house. Communication was by ‘airmail’. I do have to say though that the postal services were much better in those days.

February 16^th So, I had a plan, start with guitar, do some Chinese, repeat again in the afternoon. YouTube ambushed me! No, my VPN is not working but the unreliable free proxy was this morning. I was down the rabbit hole for two hours, until coffee time, listening to a lot of the good stuff from the sixties and seventies. I did get a fair bit of guitar in after lunch and reviewed four old Chinese lessons, some of the ones where it had taken me more than one attempt to get 100% on the tests.

Did some checking of ‘outgoings’ today and realised there was no record of December’s or January’s needles and no mention of them in my medical file either. Minor panic until I checked the side pocket of our computer travelling bag where a whole load of receipts were found, silly me.

When Huan finished her singing, which is driving me crazy, I managed to get some more practice in on the guitar. I am trying to increase my ‘chord changes in a minute’ by using a metronome and setting the tempo above my last figure. It seems to be working although that darned ‘F’ chord still won’t play nicely! Just so that you know I’m not fibbing, here’s the latest picture of my poor fingers.

I found bad news this evening as well. I thought my photo aspect ratio work was finished but it seems I started from 2007 which means I still have to do 1941 to 2006! Not all will be suitable for the 16:9 aspect ratio though so it shouldn’t take as long as what I’ve already done.

February 17^th Our routine is decided, by us I hasten to add, until such time as we get the ‘all clear signal’. It will be Sundays – home, Mondays – shopping, Tuesdays – home, Wednesdays – walking, Thursdays and Fridays – home, Saturdays – walking. On walking days we will try and avoid crowded places. On home days, we are thinking about using one of Huan’s fitness videos, so far, only thinking about it!

So today being Monday, shopping it was. Some of the shelves are beginning to look a little empty although the only things we couldn’t buy today were kitchen towel, Dettol, bleach and salad cream (or mayonnaise). The cashier told us that they were having trouble getting things into the store. We presume she meant from the mainland. So far there are no food shortages but it looks very much like milk will shortly be gone too. I’ll have to do what my mother did and water down carnation milk, we can probably order than on Taobao.

Managed to complete 1997 photo editing so not too bad a job today. What is surprising is that sometimes, the whole of 1987 for example, I don’t have a single photo. Hopefully the children have some from that time for their memories when they get older.

Finally, because it’s Monday, we come to the end of another episode. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to upload it though, and the previous few? Never mind, you’ll have a lot to read when they eventually get there. Bye for now!