Lazybob, Chefbob, Badbob, Chauffeurbob, Ambobob, Boredbob

May 19^th A lazy day was on the cards today, it seems that not only did the doctor recommend shorter and slower walks yesterday, he also said I should have my foot raised as much as possible. I decided that today we would follow that advice and sat with my foot on a pouffe or an ottoman or a stool, whichever you prefer.

Mind you, I didn’t stay recumbent all day, I had promised Huan I would cook today. The dish of choice was a Philippine one, ‘Chicken Arroz Caldo’, I suppose it’s a bit like a Chinese rice soup dish. Now I’m not a big fan of rice soups, rice puddings yes, but that’s something completely different. Anyway, Huan does like her rice soups hence the reason for cooking it. I must say I was quite impressed and may even consider trying rice soup when we go out again. Here’s what my version looked like.

While we were scoffing our nosh I received a text message, ignored it of course, nothing is that important. After dinner was all finished we checked it, it was from the traffic police. My first port of call was my dashcam videos, unfortunately I can’t argue this time. Can you see why?

May 20^th Well, doctor’s orders went out of the window today! Due to yesterday’s text message a visit to the Traffic Police was called for and rather than take the car, we walked. It’s actually not far, only about two and a half kilometres but, that’s still double what the doctor ordered. Mind you, we did walk slowly. On the way we passed some guys cleaning up one of the feeder streams that comes down from the reservoir area, looks like a long time since they’ve done it.

A little further up we saw the small dredger that they had previously been using in the main river so they obviously needed sand from this stream too. It was quite interesting to see how they made room for the small dredger. Have you ever had to roll back your living room carpets? Well, try rolling this one back!

Anyway, how did we get on at the local car cop shop? If you hadn’t guessed from the dashcam photo above, I went straight on instead of turning left. I realised at the time that I had ‘broken the law’ but couldn’t do much about it. I received a fine of ¥100.00 and two points on my licence. Most of my life I have avoided traffic fines, now I’ve had six, (and one warning), since we’ve been in Hainan! The fines don’t worry me as much as the points do though. The only good thing is that all my points are cleared every August and I’ve never yet reached the dreaded twelve point mark. So far this year, I only have the two I was awarded today.

I spent the rest of the day uploading a lot of my videos for the last year or so that were not made with the Nikon Keymission camera. I decided it was time to make sure both playlists were reasonably up to date. You can find all my playlists by following the link at the side of this blog to my YouTube channel.

May 21^st The first port of call this morning was the maintenance company office, time to pay the electric bill. They have a very smart office just near the back gate of our compound.

After that a walk was on the cards, the doctor’s orders were exceeded again today but not by much. We took a walk to the town square and sat under the trees, me with a cold coffee and a fag of course. Where we sat is just about one and a half kilometres from home and coming back through the town added another one and a half. I’m sure, that with the break in the middle, the doctor would forgive me. My foot is slowly going down and much less painful now. Did we take any photos on the way? Just these two flowers, hope that’s good enough for you.

May 22^nd Today I was chauffeur Bob, taking Huan and one other person to court. Remember the never ending saga of our gas? Well, they had another court hearing today. Huan managed to take a picture or two before the hearing started, not so good, but they do show you the court.

I believe that’s the court recorder in the centre and the opposition lawyer on the right. I was impressed by all the IT hardware which Huan tells me is provided by the court. I presume both parties can see what the recorder enters. Not so impressive of course was the outcome, nothing has changed. The details are complex but in my view, we have one major failing on our side. I mentioned the opposition lawyer, well, we don’t have one. That would cost too much money!

Having had a break from the house I cancelled any walk today and just put my foot up again. Mind you, I had once again volunteered to cook for her ladyship. I don’t know about you but I really enjoy cooking, I suppose it is more enjoyable when you don’t have to do it all the time. Today’s offering was chilli con carne, well almost, it was one the “a la Bob” versions. The rice was a mixture of glutinous white rice and brown rice mixed together which made it almost impossible to shape for presentation. Still, you can see enough to get the idea.

May 23^rd We followed orders slightly better this morning and didn’t get to three kilometres. That was how I’d planned it, a walk to the lottery shop, duck into the market and then straight back home. On our way out, and back, we noticed an upsurge of work in the river area. There were men in red overalls all over the place, standing on the old dam, operating excavators, working on the new bridges and even, after months of waiting, moving a large waste water pipe off the river bed and up to the road where hopefully it will be buried and do the job it’s designed for, direct the storm run off into the river.

No sooner had we reached our gate than Yu’s husband came running up in a bit of a panic. It seemed that an old gent, about eighty, had injured his head while cleaning a shared balcony. He had scraped a flap of skin off and, because it was his head, he was bleeding a fair bit. “Could I be the ambulance and take him to the hospital?” was the question. Well, I could hardly say no could I? You can just about make him out in this screenshot from the dashcam.

We dropped them off and haven’t heard anything else so we’re assuming the old man is fine. He had been carrying the flap of skin that had come off in the hope that they would be able to stitch it back on. I told Huan that they would probably just dress the wound and wait for his skin to grow back of its own accord.

Anyway, why did we go to the market on a Saturday? Huan had decided she wanted another of my stews again today, ostensibly to use up this week’s vegetables. I believe her! We bought half a ready cooked duck and this is what we ended up with. It would appear that even half a duck is a bit much, the breast is with the soup in the bowls, the remainder is on the plate, and we will be eating more of the same tomorrow. PS Spot the baps.

May 24^th / May 25^th Boring end to the week I’m afraid. My foot is still not back to normal so no walks for two days and only shopping today. I’ve been filling up the time by binge watching “The Saint”, in black and white! I’d forgotten how I used to be such a big fan of Roger Moore and how his Volvo P1800 was probably the first car I ever fell in love with. I still remember sitting with my parents and siblings watching when I was a young teenager, good times.

I guess I’m not so young anymore, but, we’re still making memories and still, for the most part having a good time. Perhaps we’ll have to drive out somewhere in the next couple of weeks while my foot heals, we’ll see how it goes. Bye for now.