DIY, Rain Stopped Play (a lot), Donald’s New Bum, Blood Tests Galore

August 4^th Rain stopped play, for me anyway. Huan still went off to singing school and I stayed home and binge watched some ‘City Homicide’. After lunch though, it was house maintenance again. This time it was the kitchen tap that needed tightening. In all the houses and apartments I have lived in, and there have been many, I have never had this problem before. In this apartment, this is I think the third time. ‘Scoop’ was there to catch the action.

Huan convinced me I was cooking again today so, just for a change, I did a stir-fry In order of ‘putting in the pan’, I used garlic and onions, shrimps basted with oyster sauce, mushrooms, green pepper and tomato, pre-cooked carrot and zucchini. This is how that looked.

Finally, to soak up some of that juice, I added bean sprouts. We ate it with some flat bread that Huan had cooked yesterday. Here’s the dish, minus the bread, that was in the microwave.

August 5th Would you believe it, the weather interrupted us again today! TV for Huan and Youtube for me took most of the day as well as some dashcam uploading ready for our next trip. I did get my Endomondo summary from last month, nothing special but at least the distance is increasing again.

After dinner the weather decided to give us a break which was just as well as an outdoor expedition was needed to buy our lottery tickets. You’ve heard us mention ‘our restaurant’ before, well the premises that we rent out, we passed by tonight and took a photo for you. As you can see, if our plans in 2015 hadn’t gone wrong, it would have been just the right size for a small café cum bar.

The lottery ticket seller guaranteed us a win, as she always does, probably hoping for a cut! We live in dreams. On our way home we passed one of the newer bakeries in town, not much to speak of, we never buy anything there. However, today they had baguettes, that’s only the second time we’ve ever seen them in Wuzhishan. Needless to say we had to buy one; it’ll do for our lunch tomorrow and will go very well with stew a la Bob in the evening.

August 6^th Rain stopped play again, for me anyway, Huan still went singing. It also didn’t stop work for the men doing the river park. Today they started the support cables for the second bridge. Could that mean progress is accelerating? Maybe, or maybe not, the support cables on the first bridge were in position for months before they took them down and put new ones up.

Just like yesterday, the rain eased off after dinner allowing us to go out for a walk. We asked our garage if they could tell us where our car was being fixed so we could go and have a look. As is often the case the instructions were not too hot, “It’s 20 metres from the turn off” they said, they must have very long legs. Anyway, we found it and very professional it looked too!

No, they didn’t shrink our car! In fact we weren’t able to see our car at all, it was still in the spray booth, presumably drying off or baking.

We had a leisurely stroll back home along the riverside, not such a good idea, neither of us had suitable footwear on but we managed. Huan took lots of photos of my rear view, she was actually trying to take photos of birds, first in a tree and then on the wall. She failed with the birds and you don’t need to see my backside! I didn’t try to take pictures of the birds in the tree; I knew there was no chance of success, even if I’d had the Fuji with me. Marvin was on camera duty today. I did try the wall though and, like Huan I took lots of photos, only one is worth sharing. There weren’t “Three craws sat upon a wa'”, there were six little birds instead.

And, coming up fast behind me, a more exotic bird!

August 7^th Yahoo! No rain today and Huan isn’t singing, maybe we can have a nice long walk. No, she has decided to visit the doctor at the clinic where we had our recent medicals. I’m not complaining though, Huan going to see a doctor is a major achievement. Some of her readings were higher than normal, the doctor told her it’s not really a problem but sent her to the big hospital to be sure. There she saw another doctor who confirmed that many people from that clinic had the same raised levels! She went back to the first doctor again who said, “See, I told you, nothing to worry about”. He did give her some medicine though for her recurring ‘morning sickness’ problem which occurs much less frequently now. I think it’s all to do with hormones and menopause but if the medicine helps, it’s all for the better.

So were there any photos this morning? Well a tree tried to knock me out with a seed pod. It was quite a large pod, maybe 20cm, but the tree failed because it missed me by millimetres. The seeds inside are covered in what almost feels like thin plastic and I suspect that the pod should open on the tree so that they can be blown to all corners of the earth. No comments about the shape of the seed itself please!

In the afternoon we received a call to day that ‘Donald’ was ready for collection. What, another thing with a name? Well yes, the ‘paranoid android’ is called marvin, the ‘fabulous Fujis’ is called Freddy so the ‘dozy Dongfeng’ was christened Donald, but he’s not getting an orange paint job or a new wig. What he got was his bum sorted out and a new white paint job.

At least I didn’t call him Donatello, if I had done I would have had to give him a nose job then he would have looked like this!

The weather stayed clear so we had a walk around the riverside once we’d checked the car. That turned into quite an experience. We found some small mantises on the wall by the river and were able to make a short video of them. The first part has the largest one, walking ever so slowly, almost as though it needed a zimmer frame. The second part has one jumping off the wall onto Huan’s hand, followed by her arm, her back and her hair before she put it down. The third part had a baby on my hand and a parent (?) leaping onto my hair and then down my back. What was interesting was that putting Huan’s back on the wall, it almost looked as if it was checking her out to launch itself through the air for a second time. We’ve got three stills from the video, marching on the wall, in Huan’s hair and contemplating another launch.

August 8^th Huan had singing class today and the weather was good. However, no long walk was planned, I thought I would have two today, one solo in the morning and one with Huan after dinner. I walked the girls to school first, something I got into trouble for many years ago. I was maybe ten years old, living with my parents in Singapore, and well over an hour late home from school. I’m sure they were ready to give me ‘the belt’ or perhaps ‘the wooden spoon’ until I explained. It was a rainy day, monsoon rain, and Cheryl, a classmate, didn’t have an umbrella so I had walked her home, she lived the other side of the school to where we did. Poor Mam and Dad, couldn’t say a great deal could they, they had brought me up to be a gentleman! I wonder where it all went wrong along the highway of life!

From ‘school’ I went to the bap man, but today, despite being there before quarter to nine, I was too late. Down to the river I went to see if I could find our little friends from last night. Today I had the ‘real’ camera with me so I was hoping for better pictures. They weren’t there. I did spot a caterpillar under a leaf and something strange moving very slowly on the wall, neither photo is up to much though so they’ll stay on the PC.

Today being Saturday, was market day. Last night we had seen how they had split the stalls up with various local village names. There weren’t too many stalls today although they had overflowed the allocated spaces. I guess it will take time for it to build up again after the Covid closure. Snowbirds returning in the winter, if they can, may help. I took a fair few photos, mostly for Huan, she loves to see where I’ve been, the first being a little piggy who went to market. He looks a bit nervous about it, don’t you think?

As for the prospective buyers, more than the last time I saw the market but far less than usual.

Next is something I don’t believe I have showed you before, corn ears. Most people like corn-on-the-cob, it’s popular in China too. I like mine smothered in butter, Huan prefers hers without. We both like this small multi-coloured variety though.

No more market photos for today, nothing jumped out and took my attention. Instead I give you another photo of the work on the riverside park behind our house. The drain from the road goes through the river retaining wall around here so they’ve had to some remedial work to guide it into the storm drains. That meant more work was required so that us mere mortals will have somewhere to walk after. More stairs are being put in.

And that evening walk I had planned with dear wifey? Rain stopped play, again!

August 9^th Luck was with us this morning, a nice day and no singing classes so we could have a longer walk. It’s been a while for Huan so I avoided big hills and just took her around the back of the main street, it’s a very pleasant walk through the forest. We came across a rubber farmer carrying his containers from the trees back to the road. When we asked how much they weighed he told us it was thirty kilograms, rather him than me. Here’s his container next to a rubber tree and a view of the road thereafter.

We headed back across the main road towards the river then, making sure the walk was not too long for today. Along the way we passed some of the local wildlife, both were spotted by Huan. We weren’t as nimble as the first but a lot faster than the second!

Passing by this restaurant I was intrigued by the sign and wondered what the Chinglish was trying to tell me. Huan wasn’t sure until we got home, the first character can have different meanings. It seems in this case it is 德莊, (Dé zhuāng), and it means ‘Morality Village’. Like many other restaurants in China, it’s a hot-pot one, yes, even here, in the heat of summer, people want to eat hot-pot.

Next up was someone who may not have impeccable morals, he did wee on a tree, but he has got manners enough to carry his Dad’s bag!

Huan’s insect radar was in full flow for the last photo of our walk, this one was not so easy. I had to get down as low as possible and still try and see enough to focus the camera. This is probably the best picture I got. Is this the “Red Riding Hood’ of the insect world?

Our planned walk went quite well, it was over eleven kilometres by the time we got home, no need for me to add extra in the evening. If we had planned anything for the rest of the day it would not have worked out anyway. After lunch the heaven’s opened, a real storm, thunder lightning and torrential rain. Almost nothing was visible from the bedroom balcony at all, check the photo, there’s no bridge, in fact there’s not even a river!

Almost as if on cue, ten minutes later the electricity cut off. It’s not unusual in storms and I fully understand it but I do wish there was a number to call for progress reports or any other helpful information. We just have to sit and wait. We had given up waiting, decided to go out for dinner, and were almost down the stairs when it came back on. Straight back up we went, in the lift of course, where I took advantage of the power to cook Huan some bratwurst. As you probably know, bratwurst is German, the meal certainly wasn’t. We had it with a little fried green onion, some eggplant flat bread and some slices of fried eggplant. There’s nothing like a bit of fusion cooking when you come down to it!

August 10^th Up bright and early, it’s that time of the month again, a trip to Haikou for a big needle. This time we also had an appointment booked with Dr Tim, (find out more about him here - https://www.tropicalhainan.com/get-hospital-treatment-haikou-peoples-hospital/ I had sent him a copy of my Wuzhishan Medical report and there were some points that needed to be discussed further. Our drive up was incident free, I don’t think I broke any traffic laws today, and we were in the car park by 07:30. Despite being so early, the queues were already forming.

Ours, on the second floor, wasn’t quite so bad. By half past eight we had finished with the Urology department and went off to the International Clinic where we had quite a wait. Dr Tim is very popular, being a GP he has a way of putting patients at ease and of explaining things in language they can understand. Did I tell you that he is also fluent in Chinese? That helps sometimes in getting Huan to also understand. My right ankle required an X-ray and some blood tests were needed to clarify the Wuzhishan results. We left the clinic with a pile of paper, including my ‘three monthly’ PSA tests, a total of four others were needed. When I say another four, I mean I now had six pieces of paper, the actual blood tests were far more numerous than that! Here I am waiting in line to empty my arm, check out the phials! (PS I dropped them all over the floor just after this photo was taken!)

As always, I am a bigger baby than most real babies! Who remembers Eric Sykes and the “Blood Donor”? If you haven’t seen it you should try and check it out. I told Huan that my arm would be emptied today! We have to wait until tomorrow for all those results. From there it was down to X-Ray, no worries for me there, the results would be available later in the day. Our last port of call was the monthly hormone injection. Needless to say I was as brave as always and covered my eyes and ears.

Now that we had finished the worst part of the day we could have some breakfast, even though it was almost lunchtime. Breakfast had not been allowed before all the tests so we were both more than ready for it!

Finger crossed we made our way to our usual hotel, we had failed to get in there three months ago, partly due to construction work and partly due to ongoing Covid restrictions. Thankfully we were successful today. Our room didn’t look much different but there has definitely been some refurbishment, new bathroom floor, new shower, a paint job in the room. Once again we tried to find out where their mattresses came from, they are very comfortable, once again we failed. I did manage to get housekeeping to turn one over in a room they were cleaning but there’s no sign of any manufacturer’s or seller’s name.

After an OAP nap, which we deserved today having been up so early, we returned to the hospital and picked up the X-Ray results and revisited Dr Tim. I’m pleased to say there’s nothing wrong with my bones. Some of my blood tests were back on Dr Tim’s PC via the hospital network, nothing to worry about so far, the remaining results will not be ready until tomorrow afternoon.

Back to the hotel, this time with the car and our baggage, no more naps though. Huan played with her phone and I did this on the laptop, ready to be transferred when we get home.

Out for dinner, Huan was disappointed, she couldn’t have da pan ji, the Muslim restaurant is closed until the end of the month. Instead we decided on a Chinese burger place, which when we got there had disappeared! Don’t tell my ex-students, but we ended up in KFC. Our excuse was that is was too late to wander around looking for something else.

Back to the hotel for the last time today, Huan to practice singing, me to blog and read a book. The latest one is called “Fingerprints of the Gods” by Graham Hancock, quite interesting; you could perhaps call it an early conspiracy theory!

That’s it for another week, I’ll leave you with a photo of Maria Callas, or it could be Hyacinth Bucket, practicing. Stay tuned for a health update next week.