Snakes Alive! OAP Licence. Caterpillars. Grounded!

May 12^th Back to normal, almost, except shopping on Tuesday instead of Monday. First of all though, a trip to the police station was called for. As well as having to deal with the immigration police we are also obliged to register with our own area police station. Having a new visa means they must be given a copy. Never let anyone tell you that computers save paper!

The afternoon saw us doing our three mile TV walk which is definitely getting a little easier to do and slightly easier to follow. For the first time in a long time, Huan was out this evening, her dama dancing sessions have started again. She invited me to walk her down in the lift and then I could go for a walk alone. I respectfully declined! It seems it’s a good job I refused Huan’s kind offer, she was back within five minutes and the heavens opened just after she got in.

May 13th More chores planned for today. Now that I have my passport back I can go and get my driving licence changed. You may remember back in February when I was seventy I tried to do it then but due to Covid-19 restrictions I couldn’t. Sods law strikes again and I failed again this morning. We waited for what seemed a long time in the queue only to get to the front and be told I need to have photos. No problem, there’s a machine in the traffic police office that takes photos, just like the one in the visa office. However, it’s not ‘exactly’ the same. This machine requires a Hukou card number and will not accept a foreign passport number. Home we went.

Since we were doing chores today I didn’t have the camera with me, only the phone. We spotted a snake slithering alongside us and took a video. With the camera I would have been able to look through the viewfinder and zoom in a little. I couldn’t see the screen very well on my phone, bright sunny day, so I couldn’t really get close enough. (PS Possibly a slowworm a.k.a. a legless lizard and not a snake.)

Lady luck shined on us for a short while, we found some identical photos of the right size for my driving licence so back we went. The policeman dealing with us must have been fairly new as he had no real idea of what changes when the driver reaches seventy. He went off, more than once, to check with the bosses in the back room. Finally he came back and said I would have to go for a medical first. We grabbed a ride with a motorbike taxi who took us to the preferred hospital and asked him to wait for us. Once inside we quickly came to realise that it wasn’t a medical but an eye test. Where were my driving glasses? Why, in the car of course, outside our building. Our taxi bike was still waiting so off home we went to get the glasses and the car, so we could drive back to the police station. Thankfully everything went well this time and I now have my new licence, C1F instead of C1E. This means I am limited to mopeds, or bikes less than 50cc but I can still drive all kinds of cars, even superfast hypercars, if I could afford them!

Our chores still weren’t finished; we set off then to the post office to find out what had happened to my proof of life letter. There was no good news there; it seems that some shipments may not move for weeks at a time. Since May 2^nd the tracking details have not changed and the post office has the same details – “Depart Guangzhou and send to Nuneaton (via transit)”. I don’t have to panic yet but a phone call to the State Pension Offices may be required shortly. What a day, we were both very happy to get home at the end of it!

May 14^th The CMO said I still have to be on light duties and excused boots. On this occasion I had to agree with her. On Monday, while we were in Haikou, I managed to injure my foot, all my own fault of course. We were in an underground car park and I was focused on the elevators to take us up to the shops, so focused that I managed to kick the underneath of one of those wheel blocks. It hurt! I didn’t take a photo then but it looks like this.

Huan did try and get me to go for an X-Ray as my foot is painful and a little swollen. As far as I’m concerned there’s not a great deal they can do so I refused. Sometimes I can be ever so brave when dealing with SWMBO!

So we had a nice walk around the river and today I remembered the camera. Consequently, we have some wildlife photos for you, the first being a beautiful yellow flower. A question for you, do ants eat pollen?

Next up is a caterpillar. Huan was very taken with this one because it was making holes in the leaves. In fact there were more than one of them but this is the best photo.

The next photo took some getting, at least the first one did, I was the wrong side of the hedge and trying not to move the hedge too much or to fall into it. The second one was taken at the other side of the hedge. I tried to get even closer but it scooted away too quickly for me.

Since I’m on ‘light duties’ and Huan has no morning singing classes or evening dancing sessions we’ve decided to go back to our two walks a day routine. At least that makes it easier to get my ten kilometres a day in. We may just stick to one walk on our TV Walk days though!

May 15^th A lazy morning for me, Huan was cooking dumplings while I was watching another episode of Midsomer Murders. I did have to do a little work though; I had to take her photo alongside a calendar for her ‘proof-of-life’ to send to Dalian where her pension is controlled from. Speaking of ‘proof-of-life’, mine has now actually reached the UK. It only took two weeks and now it is with HM Customs.

We did our TV Walk in the afternoon, added it to our fitness tracker of course, and then went for a real walk this evening. We popped across to the middle of the river to see how the new park is coming on. The forecast opening date is the end of the year but I don’t see it happening myself. Maybe, just maybe, it could be ready for Chinese New Year. Anyway, here’s Huan hanging on a lamppost watching all the boys go by, (only me actually).

I did try and take an enormous panorama to show you what it’s like, but I failed. Still, you can get the general idea from this one, which is a horizontal half of what it should have been.

And finally, we haven’t had a selfie for a while have we so here’s one of them. However, this one is not taken with our phones but with the camera. That means you can zoom in and count my pores, if you really want to that is!

May 16^th My left foot was quite swollen and painful today, a little worrying. Both my feet do swell if I don’t get enough walking in; usually the left more than the right, but today it hurts. As well as the usual swelling I can feel a lump above the bones. However, it doesn’t feel any worse when I walk so we decided it was OK to go out and we stuck to the riverside again today. Would you believe it, another snake crossed our path. We’re fairly sure this is not a slowworm and also fairly sure it is one of the poisonous variety. At least Huan wasn’t trying to touch it today, or suggesting we take it home, although she was telling me to get closer!

Not only were snakes repeated today but caterpillars were too. This one was almost stood on, purposely, by a local shopkeeper, rescued by Huan and put under a tree. It then left there and wandered off into the road so Huan rescued it again and put it into the hedge on the other side of the road. Hopefully it will be OK there. I think you’ve seen a photo of one like this before but not in this position. Whenever we tried to pick it up with a leaf its body spun round, very quickly.

So, I’m doing the evening write up with my feet in a bowl of ice cold water. This evening’s walk did help a little with the normal swelling but the injury swelling and the pain is still there. Hopefully no doctor’s visit will be required in the next day or two. Anyway, we walked down by the river, away from the town this evening, quite pleasant. The water level is quite low so were able to find a way to cross to the other side without too much trouble. We met some goats and had to make a video of course. The best bit of the walk though, for me, was at the beginning. Could this be our new natural infinity pool?

May 17^th The usual stroll around the river was taken in the morning, going round the other way so that we could be early enough to buy some baps. Luck was on our side today, ten baps are now safely ensconced in the freezer! Not much in the way of photos but there was this lovely writing on a refrigerated van.

And, having seen a legless snake, a ‘real’ snake and a couple of caterpillars let’s move over to the human side of things and have a one wheeled wonder. On our riverside walks we often see other people walking, obviously, we see people on bicycles, although not many, and we’ve even seen a couple of older gents on roller blades. However, this is the first time we’ve ever seen a unicyclist! That’s one thing I haven’t tried, how about you?

May 18^th This morning the CMO said I should go to the hospital and see the ‘real’ MO. For once I didn’t argue with her as my left foot was swollen and very tender this morning. Having paid our consultancy fee we then had to join the queue which wasn’t too bad, there were only fourteen people ahead of me. I went and sat across the road with a cold coffee and a fag!

Arriving back in I found that there were still twelve ahead of me and this is what the queues looked like. The first photo shows people waiting for their turn to see the doctor and the second shows the queue for paying for whatever comes next.

Once we got to see the doctor he prodded a little, noticed my ‘ouch’ and sent us off to the X-Ray department. There were what seemed to be hundreds of people waiting there but luckily, most were in the queue for CT Scans and there were only two before me. Chinese hospitals can give the impression of absolute chaos but in general they work very well. Once I was in the room and being ‘prepared’ Huan took a few photos but the quality is terrible, very pixellated, so they won’t be shared here. Before too long my results were ready and back to the doctor we went. He had the results displayed on his computer and told us there was nothing out of the ordinary. (I wasn’t so sure but a Google search when we got home assured me he was right!) The bad news is that he has ‘grounded’ me! I am allowed to walk but not too fast and no more than two kilometres in one day. As for our TV Walks, they are definitely not allowed due to the fact that there is some interval training in there. When I suggested that this enforced idleness would be for a week, he said it would be more like a month! Huan asked if I should soak my feet in iced water and he told us that would have been a good thing in the first two days but not today, a week later. Instead, he suggested soaking them in hot, or warm water. I was almost reminded of my army doctors when I was a young apprentice “Take two aspirins and soak your feet in salty water.”

Back to routine and, because it’s Monday, shopping. Being a bit late though we had to have lunch first, 肉夹馍, (ròujiāmó) was our choice for today. As were waiting, a little bit of what I think is Chinglish caught my eye, what do you think it is supposed to be? I think it’s supposed to say ‘white pepper’ as that is what is inside the jar.

And so another week comes to a close, I’m not really looking forward to the next week or two, or three or four, but I guess I need to try and follow the doctors’ orders (both of them)! Mind you, once I’m out of the door, I’m sure I can wangle a few hundred metres more here and there but I will definitely follow their orders speed wise! See you next time!