July 14th Cleaning my teeth last night and I heard a dripping sound, water into a
receptacle of some sort. It turned out to be coming from the ceiling and
dropping into one of our bathroom mugs. Huan got out of bed and we both went
exploring, there is still nobody living on the eighth or ninth floors and both
of their water lines are turned off. We even went onto the roof for a look
around, nothing to be seen there. We took a ceiling tile off for a look and the
water is coming through the floor by the looks of it, but where it’s coming
from is another matter. Nobody has the keys for the apartment above and nobody
has their phone number either. The leak is very small so we don’t have to call
the police yet like we did when our kitchen had a problem from upstairs. This
morning I took a photo of it.
Huan and Yu weren’t skiving
today so I got to walk alone, over the landfill mountain and down the other
side. First stop, our old, and future access to the highway, it looks like they
have destroyed it completely. I knew they would have to some work there, the
space between the on ramp and the southbound carriageway was not big enough to
put the northbound carriageway in. It’s all supposed to be completed before the
end of the year.
It was a warm day for
walking today, we definitely need some rain down in these parts. A lot of China
I was just over five
kilometres away from home before I found peace and quiet, where, instead of
sitting down for a while, I took some photos for a panorama.
Another panorama now, one
that I’ve been meaning to do for some time. This is the village almost at the
top of the hill. As you can see, it is not an old village but one probably
built in more recent times for all the local farm workers.
Next up, still not quite at
the top of the hill, just to show you how the weather has affected the farms,
here is a duck pond, where the ducks usually have plenty of room to swim
around. There is still some water, but nowhere near as much as there usually
is, at any time of the year. None of the vegetation you can see in the lower
half of this photo, or the top middle, left of the building, would normally be
there.
Most of today’s photos were
taken with the Fuji
At the bottom of the hill I
stopped at our usual water stop where the old lady grilled me, asking why she hadn’t
seen us for so long, where was Huan etc. Once all questions were answered and
two bottles of water were bought, one for my head and one for me, I was back on
my way again. My next stop was outside the apartment complex where today’s
singing practice was. Being a lazy slob, I lay down and took pictures of my
feet and the moon.
Once the gang were out, and
after they’d almost walked past me without seeing me, they insisted I took a
photo or two of them. In fact I took a dozen or more, but in most of them they
were not looking at the camera. This is not a bad one.
Having slept very badly
last night, so badly that I could have quite easily got back into bed after
breakfast and slept till lunchtime, I needed an OAP kip this afternoon. Huan
joined me and, luckily, I didn’t sleep too long. Why luckily? Well I had
offered to cook today, steak, baked potatoes and broccoli with a black pepper
sauce. Having no gas can be a problem and not trusting the house wiring gives
me another problem. Everything has to be meticulously planned. #1 Put the oven
on and cook the baked potatoes for an hour or more. #2, prepare everything
else. #3 Turn off the oven so that the hotplate can be used to cook the
broccoli. Leave the potatoes in the oven to keep warm. #4 Take off the
broccoli, leave in the pan with the water to keep warm, prepare the sauce. #5
Put the sauce in a jug and fry the steaks. #6 Plate everything up and serve
hoping her ladyship is impressed and that all the food is at a good
temperature. It worked.
July 15th Recent days have seen the CMO nagging me to go to hospital again and
have my face zapped. Now I’m not very keen on that as it hurts but I bowed to
pressure and went anyway. Here I am in the queue, under the fiery lance and
finally back out in the fresh air.
Having been under the knife as it were, I planned a nice little
bottle of iced coffee in the town square but, my plans were thwarted. I took
Huan through the outdoor market on the way where she decided to buy some pork
and have it minced, something we can’t do in the other market. Obviously
walking around in the hot sun with freshly minced pork is not such a good idea
so home we went. The dumplings that Huan made with the minced pork more than
made up for my lack of refreshment in the town square though.
The only other news from today is that somehow
I’ve got another traffic violation! We have no idea what it is, I received a
message that I ‘did something wrong’ at 11:41 on the 10th July. We
were on our way back from Haikou
July 16th Alone again, naturally! Huan was singing so I got the chance for a solo
walk again. I had planned a walk up to the reservoir but slept too late. Going
there and back would have probably taken me four hours as it’s so long since I
did it. That walk is seven kilometres up and then seven down so I walked a
different way making sure I could be on time to meet Huan from her class. It’s
been a while since we walked up this road, I think before the Covid-10
problems, it’s amazing how things can change, this truck for example. It wasn’t
there last time we walked this route and now it’s almost overgrown.
The next change was the
fish farm restaurant area, they have begun landscaping along the roadside,
maybe they’ll actually open this year. This is another panorama created with MS
Image Composite Editor, beats messing around trying to create panoramas either
in the camera or on the phone. This one is two rows of six photos.
Having a little time to
wait for the ladies I took a NAAFI break, coffee, water and fag. I know, I
should give up, who knows, maybe I will one of these days.
Walking home we suddenly
stopped at the local health clinic. “What are we doing here?” I asked, the
ladies responded with “Free health check of course.” Our last one had been in
November so I have no idea why we should already need another but, since it was
free, I was dragged in. The free health checks are actually tomorrow but we
could save some time by doing part of it today. First off we had our hearts
checked.
This was followed by
height, weight and blood pressure measurements. At least I was taller than 1.6
metres this time! Huan’s BP was fine, 110/84 with a pulse of 61, mine not quite
so good. I was 134/89 with a pulse of 86. However, in my defence, I had just
walked nine and a half kilometres in the hot sun before meeting the ladies!
Today was our anniversary,
we have been married a grand total of twelve years, and unusually, I managed to
drag Huan out for a meal. We agreed that we wouldn’t go to the only “Western”
restaurant and we’d try the DoReMi replacement. The new name is DuoXiAi, other
than that and new décor, it’s not terribly different to what it was before.
Starters were off the menu because they were too busy! No alcohol was
available, which is the norm for many restaurants like this in China
‘Puddings’ weren’t up to
much so we just had ice cream, or something that vaguely resembled ice cream.
That’s one area in which the western style restaurant ‘Coffeeprinz’ comes out
on top, it is a lot more expensive though. We paid less than ¥80.00, (less than
ten pounds), for both of us, very good value for money. Here we are, replete, relaxed
and happy.
July 17th As mentioned
yesterday, we were back to the clinic this morning, where, despite getting in
early yesterday, we still ended up queuing to have our blood taken, hand in our
‘wee wee’ and then have our organs scanned.
Once finished they gave us
all a bag with bread or cake, water and six raw eggs! I guess Chinese people
aren’t happy with it being free, they want goodies too! We stopped for
breakfast on the way home, soup noodles for Huan and fried noodles for me which,
as it’s been such a long time since we’ve had breakfast out, I really enjoyed.
After we got home it was
check the upstairs bathroom time, yes, Huan had managed to find someone with
the key who turned up with the maintenance company boss. Initially they tried
to say it was our problem and that all we had to do was repair the little
U-bend. We pointed out to them that the only reason there was water under the
U-bend was because it was coming through the floor above it. So now, we are all
agreed that the problem is under the tiles on the eighth floor bathroom floor.
Nothing can be done until they return, if they ever do. We should be OK as long
as nobody turns the water on to that apartment.
And staying on the subject of
water, we had finally emptied our water cooler last night so I took the top off
today and had a good root around inside. I couldn’t find any signs of a leak
anywhere. Before lunch we put a new bottle on, poured a glass out of each
outlet and then left it for a while. After dinner, with still no signs of
leakage, we switched it on again, fingers crossed.
July 18th Up nice and early
today so took a risk on the weather, it did look as if we might have some rain.
I was out by half past seven on the ‘Tàipíng shuǐkù’ walk a.k.a. the reservoir
walk. The local bridge is coming on well, they have begun the cross members and
longitudinal members for the walkway.
This next photo shows
roughly where I was headed and why I was just a little worried about the
weather.
Recently we have noticed a
lot of foundations being laid at the side of the roads. We thought they were
for additional cameras for monitoring the movement of cars and people until we
noticed some were quite close to existing cameras. Our next guess was that they
were replacing the road signs, many of which were hidden behind the trees. We
were right, but the end result is not what we expected. I took the photos from
the ‘driving seat position’ in the middle of the road. Hopefully, pruning will
be next on the agenda!
At the bottom of the steepest part, near the police station, I
bumped into the army, well quite a few of them anyway, enough to fill a coach,
a truck and a riot control vehicle. They were on their way back into their
vehicles, perhaps they had been having an early morning run, or march, up the
mountain, something I remember well! They didn’t look too sweaty though and
some were happy enough to exchange pleasantries. For obvious reasons, there are
no photos!
This next one is at the end of the first, and
worst part. There are still another four kilometres to go from here, all
uphill, but not as steep as this part. It’s not so easy to see where I walked
up but there is a winding road in the middle of the photo.
After an hour and a bit I
had reached just over five and half kilometres, reaching a new bridge, built to
avoid landslides, I paused to take in the view.
I reached the top much
quicker than I thought I would. I have done it in the past, maybe three years
ago, in an hour and seventeen minutes. A lot has happened since then and a lot
more practice would be needed to get anywhere near that again. Still, I had
thought it would take me two hours today so this time was very acceptable. I
wish the calories were more though!
One of my main reasons for
taking this walk was to check on the water level, to see if what people are
saying is right, and if that’s why parts of Wuzhishan are facing water
problems. It would certainly appear to be the case, check these two photos out.
The water level is usually up by the tree line. Where is our rain this year?
And so back down the mountain I went. I did meet a snake, a live
one, but unfortunately I have no photo, ergo no proof. I came round a bend in
the road and it was in front of me, going my way as it happened. I leapt
backwards while it shot forwards and then in my panic to try and switch the
camera from stills to video it slithered into the ditch. I missed my
opportunity. It was a huge snake as well, much bigger and better than any of
“Donald’s snakes”. Well, OK, I guess it was about fifty centimetres or so.
To my surprise I was early enough back down the mountain to be able
to meet the ladies from school. I did have a little lay down on the steps while
I waited for them but no NAAFI break today. I also managed to sneak a couple of
overhead photos while they were walking behind me but, SWMBO insists that they
are not for publication. That’s just as well, because the quality was terrible,
I should have used continuous shooting.
How long was today’s walk? I’m glad you asked, it was a lot longer
than any I’ve done recently, just over sixteen and a half kilometres. I
definitely needed my OAP kip after lunch!
Once home the water cooler was checked, no leaks, switched on again,
and as I write this everything still seems hunky dory. That’s more than could
be said for our electricity this afternoon. Not long after we roused ourselves
from our afternoon nap, Taobao came a’calling, down I went and collected our
new hats to protect us from that good old midday sun. I hadn’t been back on the
computer more than a few minutes before the power went off and a few minutes
later, there was another Taobao delivery. I don’t like going down the stairs at
the best of times, after this morning’s walk I didn’t fancy it at all. Needs must
though, so off I went to collect Huan’s breakfast this time, and her arm bag
for her phone. Maybe I’ll get a photo of that when we’re walking some time.
July 19th No extra-curricular activities for Huan today so she wanted to walk
“through the countryside”. I had to disappoint her as my weary bones were still
feeling stiff from yesterday plus which I had also succeeded in cutting one of
my toes. A walk round the river it was then. Our first photo was just to show
off our new hats and it was taken by Marvin. Huan looks quite fetching in her
reversible hat which will match most of her clothes, at least better than her
previous Japanese hat. Mine is not reversible, I have two hats instead, one
black, which you see here, and one khaki so my colour coordination is also
taken care of.
We passed the bridge as
usual and the construction walls had been taken down so we were able to get
closer and have a chat with the workers. They were happy to be snapped but I
didn’t manage to get one where they all smiled at the camera at the same time!
A macro fly was next but
when I checked when I got home it was out of focus. Ah well, here’s some pretty
flowers growing parasitically on a tree instead.
And here’s another attempt
at a birdie. No, I haven’t taken up golf, I’m neither a retired bank manager
not rich enough! No, this was a normal feathered bird and today, I didn’t
bother with the viewfinder, or the screen, I just pointed the camera in the
general direction and kept snapping as I slowly walked closer. The result is
not too bad. Huan wondered if I would have been able to sneak any nearer if my
phone wasn’t making continuous burbling noises!
Why is my phone making continuous
burbling noises? I don’t know yet, but I have ascertained that it’s not
Endomondo as the noise continues even if I switch off the audio coach and all
notifications. It must be coming from some other app that Endomondo uses,
hopefully I’ll find it one day.
Huan had me taking photos of flowers all over
the place today so let’s have some of them. Although we live on a sub-tropical
island the variety of flowers isn’t as great as you would think so if you’ve
seen these before, I apologise. They are pretty though. When I come to think of
it, we are not likely to see a lot of variety around the city as the flowers
have been planted for landscaping purposes.
Our last picture of the day
is food, yet again. This weekend we had no ‘full English’ as there were still
vegetables in the fridge. Huan was going to do a soup today so I said I would
take over. Our vegetable soup ended up being only one onion, half a garlic, one
tomato and half a tin of sweet corn. Whatever the large green vegetables were
in the fridge, they had gone off. I still managed a reasonable soup though,
adding a bit of Italian seasoning and a little milk and then giving it a whiz
we ended up with this. It did the job filling us both up nicely.
July 20th “Bad boys, bad boys, Whatcha gonna do, whatcha
gonna do When they come for you?” Well, they didn’t come for me; I had to go to
them. It was in response to this text message that we received earlier in the
week. “【海南交警】您的小型汽车琼D08302于2020-07-10 11:41在省直辖县级行政区划海屯高速公路103公里20米乌石互通海口往琼中方向，被交通技术监控设备记录了『驾驶中型以上载客载货汽车、危险物品运输车辆以外的机动车超过规定时速10%以下的』的违法行为。请于收到本告知之日起30日内接受处理”.Google translates it as – “[Hainan Traffic Police] Your small car Qiong
D08302 was recorded in the direction of Qiongzhong on the Haitun Expressway 103
kilometers and 20 meters from the Haitun Expressway on 2020-07-10 11:41. It was
recorded by the traffic technology monitoring equipment "Driving a motor
vehicle other than a medium-sized or larger passenger and cargo vehicle or a
dangerous goods transport vehicle exceeding the specified speed by 10% or
less" is an illegal act. Please accept the processing within 30 days from
the date of receiving this notice.” We ended up being in the police station for
quite some time. Using my licence number, my car number, my passport number and
my visa number took them a long time to find me in the computer. They blamed it
on a recent update, which is possible I suppose. Anyway, the photograph was
produced, it was me, and the speed was 126kph. All we can think of was that it
was as we rejoined the highway after our coffee stop and before I put the
cruise control back on, we always set that to 117 or 118 kph. Lots of paperwork
was done, my photograph was taken, again, and we were presented with the
results. To my surprise, there was no fine and no points, at a guess because I
was only 5% over the limit. In other words, I had my hand slapped, again! Here I
am tentatively awaiting the result of the proceedings.
While Huan was sleeping
after lunch, she’s a little bit out of sorts today; I had to pop downstairs
three times for Taobao deliveries, two dresses and some plants. I took a photo
of one of the plants because Huan says it’s like one that a student gave me in Harbin
Other than that, just a little house maintenance, replacing the back
on the water cooler, only eighteen screws. I had put it back in its normal
position last night and there were still no sign of any leaks. Maybe the bottle
was faulty? The bathroom ceiling tile was also replaced, hopefully it will not
have to be removed again soon.
And so we come to the end of another week, stay
tuned for “black & white” next week!
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