RSI, Four Doctors, Sticky Plaster, Electric Shock Therapy, Microwave Cooking Bob

November 24^th I had an appointment with Huan this morning, her timetable gave her some free time. No walks though because I also had to go and visit the doctor about my wrist. We went through the usual palaver, grilled at the main entrance then told to go to the cash desk to make an appointment. There they told us we had to see a one particular doctor. When it was our turn to go in I noticed the sign outside his door said “Neurology” so I told Huan it was the wrong place. In we went, the doctor did his bit and then told us we were in the wrong place. Back to the cash desk we went to make another appointment, no paying this time though, in fact we even got ¥2.00 returned to us. Outside the next doctor’s office the sign said “Neurosurgery” and “Urology”. However, Huan had already been told that this doctor knew everything. He certainly understood what my problem was and even talked about other musicians, violinists, cellists, bassists etc. having the same problem. He prescribed two sets of medicine, one western and one Chinese then sent us up the road to see another doctor in the old part of the hospital. He was a Chinese Medicine doctor, he also understood the problem and proceeded to shave my forearm, badly, then tie me up with some kind of stretchy plaster. It’s infused with something, smells a bit like menthol, and I have to keep it on for two days then decide whether to return to him or not. As always, Huan took some pics of the occasion. The second one was taken when I realised what I was doing in the first one!

We managed to fit the weekly shopping in before lunch, not so easy carrying the bags, but it’s not far from the car to the lift. That was the end of our busy day apart from a short five kilometre walk after dinner.

November 25^th Last night I felt a loose bone in my neck and by some process similar to osmosis I was able to remove it through my skin. Perhaps it was one of my cervical vertebrae. It was a dream of course, brought on by the two doctors yesterday feeling around in that area and asking whether I felt any pain. I didn’t and didn’t think too much of it at the time but perhaps it worried me more than I thought. I didn’t sleep so well after that. Consequently I had another lazy morning, not an Onslow one though.

Not having walked in the morning I took an afternoon one when there are less people. I was looking for creatures again. The first creature was human, this lady was collecting something, Huan suspects it could have been rubbish or plastic bottles.

Forgetting to put my camera back to colour, the next creature was a dragonfly. Colour wasn’t a big problem though because it looked like it was black.

This next photo is the view from where they should have put the riverside park benches; it’s a darn site better than watching the traffic going in and out of town.

You may remember the two little ‘piers’ jutting out into the river just up from here, when I showed them to you I wondered if they were going to join them with a small glass bridge. Today I found out that they’re not, maybe they are fishing spots?

Another creature was spotted just by the local school with a bunch of young students playing with it, the boy generally trying to terrify the girls. When I asked them what it was, the translated answer was “an insect” which seems a little generic. Google wasn’t much use either giving me “Green Caterpillar”. It may be for a moth and not a butterfly.

And finally for today, a dead creature. I stopped to talk to the mutt you can see, and the gent with him insisted on showing me his catch, quite a whopper! How did he catch it? Well the second photo shows a reel on his wrist and the third a catapult. He uses a small steel arrow on the end of the line and then aims for this fish with the catapult, the line releasing as it flies. This is not the first time I’ve seen people fishing like this but it is the first time I’ve seen such a good catch. He’ll be feeding the whole family tonight!

November 26^th Overcast this morning but no problem for us as it was another hospital day. The sticky plaster on my arm had to come off this morning, the two days were up. I had also noticed no improvement whatsoever. Arriving at the Chinese Medicine part of the hospital the doctor we had seen last time was not there so the lady who was there said I could see her instead. Being the trusting fellow that I am I agreed. After a couple of questions she told us she knew exactly what was wrong and attacked my inner elbow asking me “Does that hurt?” I doubt she needed the answer she could see by my reaction that I was definitely feeling pain. She decided I needed five days of two different kinds of treatment, so Huan went off to pay and the doctor practiced her English on me. She wasn’t bad, all she needs is what they don’t get, and that is more practice!

Once Huan came back I was escorted to my first treatment. This turned out to be some kind of electro convulsive therapy; I had to sit for twenty minutes with various pulsing sensations around my elbow, quite relaxing really.

From there I moved to the next little room where I had to cook myself with a hand held microwave for fifteen minutes, I could certainly feel my arm heating up. Of course I didn’t know that until I got home and researched the machines they were using.

As we were leaving the hospital Huan asked me if my arm was any better now! She is a patient woman at times and at other times has not patience whatsoever. We had paid for five days of treatment so I didn’t expect to see any improvement for at least a day, never mind immediately. At home I didn’t try stretching my arm at all, that can wait until tomorrow, but I did feel a tingling in my forearm for the rest of the day so something must be happening.

November 27^th Huan was off to choir practice this morning so my hospital trip was a solo one. The doctor signed my treatment slip and I had more of the same as yesterday, the only difference being I didn’t have to hold the microwave transmitter today. When I was ‘done’ the nurse told me I had to go back and see the doctor before I left. Being a dutiful patient I did as I was told. The doctor asked me a couple of questions again and then promptly proceeded to pulverising my arm. She started with my elbow again, “Does this hurt?” while she was squeezing both sides with a lot more pressure on the inner elbow. She then beat it a few times before giving me a ‘rolling massage’ from the mid forearm down to my elbow. While this was going on the chap across from me had acupuncture needles in his face and I was praying that I wouldn’t be next. Once the beating was over, the doctor unlocked a cupboard and took out what looked like a battery operated drill with some kind of silicon rubber attachment. “At least it’s not needles” I thought as I waited with some trepidation. It turned out to be a massage machine and it wasn’t bad at all, much more bearable than the previous beating. Once that was done I had some more sticking plaster applied, a different colour this time and less of it.

I arrived back at the apartments to find the ‘band’ having a practice session so I stopped to take a short video. It was horrendous! As I was walking home I did hear a couple of other tunes that sounded much better, almost presentable in fact. Here’s the gang in all their glory.

They did ask me to join them with my guitar but I told them that, as per doctor’s orders, I had to refrain from playing the guitar for possibly the next two months.

After I had made the C-in-C’s lunch it was time for my daily walk, quite a few twists and turns today but I did hit the river at one point. Remember the black and white photo last week? Well today they were all in costume; perhaps they are rehearsing for the New Year as well.

I couldn’t find any creatures to photograph so here’s another panorama to finish the day with, this time composed of eighteen different photos.

November 28^th Third day at the hospital, seeing Dr. Li before the treatment today. She was a little kinder to me than yesterday, all I had to endure was the hairdryer style massage machine. Just like yesterday I was alone, Huan had keyboard lessons today, but Dr. Li and I managed to communicate well enough. The treatment was more electro-convulsive therapy and cooking my elbow by microwave. After the treatment I was ‘allowed’ to leave.

Yesterday I had seen some tents up in the town square so I headed there first to check it out. The tents were still there, but also still unoccupied.

There was something happening on the stage though. I didn’t stay long because the whole time I was there I was being interrogated and photographed by a bunch of precocious girls in make-up, obviously part of the show. There are no photos of them but I did get two of the acts and a little prize-giving.

As usual, I managed to find a little four legged friend.

Being Saturday, my next destination was the riverside market, where I looked for things I haven’t shown you before. I didn’t find much but I thought you might be interested to see that Chinese children definitely know where their food comes from.

Not far from these poor souls was this stew bubbling away like mad. I have no idea what was inside, it looks a bit too oily and spicy for me though.

Our friends from Xinjiang had their stall set up selling their flat breads so that was lunch sorted out. I did pop in on the ladies at their keyboards but, duh, forgot to take any pictures.

After lunch it was cooking time again, stew with a difference. Onions and garlic went in first, followed by carrots and radish, Chinese yam (Dioscorea polystachya) next, then parsley followed by green beans and almost last, celery. Once the vegetables had cooked enough it was time to add this week’s ‘difference’, two tins of fish in tomato sauce. Why tinned fish? I hear you ask. Well, it’s got no bones! Once the fish was in and all heated through I took a spoonful of the juice for the Executive Chef to taste and appraise. “辣的 (Là de)” was the response. That means spicy, hopefully not too spicy. I denied all responsibility as I had presented the tinned fish for approval while we were shopping! As it happened, it was ‘Goldilocks’ spice, just right.

November 29^th Fourth day of treatment starting with Dr. Li and the small massager again. I do believe I’m starting to feel an improvement but whether the five days treatment will be enough remains to be seen. For a change I was cooked today before I was electro-convulsed, the latter of which was the strongest yet. I could still feel phantom twitching in my arm some minutes after I had left the hospital.

Today I decided to visit the sausage man. Last year he operated out of a very small room and only made pork sausages and chicken sausages. This year he has found himself bigger premises and expanded his produce range. I had hoped to join these photos together to make a nice long panorama but I didn’t have much room to move around so you’re stuck with four pictures. The sausages are in the first one, I’ll leave it to you to decide what is in all the others. Suffice it to say, almost everything you can see is either eaten now, or was before, in the UK.

Carrying my four sausages and twenty baps home put a little bit more strain on my left arm than I had planned for but I forced myself to do it, for the sake of our lunches!

After lunch I took another walk, just around the town, and I cut it short due to feeling a bit chilly, I was one of less than half a dozen people who only had shorts on. Still, arriving back at the apartments early gave me a chance to go and take photos of the ‘musicians’ union’. Here’s one of them all trying to stay in synch with each other and one of Huan enjoying herself.

Neither one of us wanted to go out in the evening, Huan practiced and I watched my latest binge series, “The Sandbaggers”.

November 30^th Day five of my treatment, the last day of this portion. I still don’t really know if the treatment is working or not. Sometimes I think t is and then I stretch my arm and recoil with the horror of the pain. Dr. Li will be ‘off shift’ for the next few days so tomorrow I start the next five day session with Dr. Gao. I wonder how much pain she will inflict one me! At least the scenery outside the hospital window is pleasant enough, I can think of far worse places to spend thirty five minutes hooked up to machines.

Before leaving the hospital I paid for the next five days of torture, only £20.00, a bargain really. I then met the ladies from choir school and walked them home, oh what a good boy I am! Huan was out again after lunch at Hulusi school. A couple of the other ladies shot some videos but the screen shots I was able to take were nowhere near good enough to share on here.

Unusually, in the evening, I managed to get Huan to go out for dinner. Our first choice was a new burger place that opened where one of our friends used to have a similar place. That was closed. Our second choice was a spicy soup restaurant, choose your own ingredients and pay by weight. We must have been too early as the vegetable choice was not so good. We gave up then and went to our normal buffet restaurant. Here’s a picture of me on the way there, you might notice that I am wearing shoes, long trousers and a hoodie. Why? Because it’s getting chilly here!

And so we come to the end of another week of pain in my arm and pain in my ears. I can still hear Hulusi scales as I write this. I can’t even attack back with some guitar practice! Maybe I should try just singing instead, what do you think? See you next time!

Trees, Flowers, A Handsome Creature (Not Me!) & A Timetable

November 17^th This morning’s walk had been decided for us, another trip to the Traffic Police. Luckily, it was as I had thought it would be, another warning. I guess they must have got me before I put the cruise control back on after leaving the services. The speed limit is 120kph and they clocked me at 122kph, only 2 over, but still deserving of a warning.

From there, to make sure we had a decent walk, we went to the bap man to put an order in for tomorrow. As always, he was pleased to see us, and he had lots of baps ready to go. He’s started baking a lot more because more snowbirds have returned.

After lunch, Huan a hulusi practice down by the river, I was supposed to walk with them. However, I couldn’t switch Freddy on so they left without me. Eventually I succeeded and then followed them, overtaking them on the way. I passed them without them knowing and walked down by the river.

I managed to get a decent picture of a flower, can you see it looking at me and poking its tongue out? Well, that’s what I see.

Because I walk much faster than the ladies, even though I stopped to take pictures, I beat them to their practice spot. Here they are, arriving much later than everyone else.

They hadn’t missed much though. You can see the teacher talking in the previous photo which he seemed to have been doing a long time and continued for quite some time after they arrived. Here’s the only photo of the three of them ‘blowing’ at the same time. Like quite a few of the others they had never seen this piece of music before so were struggling a little.

I had to leave them to it; it was my turn to cook again. Today it was curry and not bad even if I do say so myself. The curry was chicken, red onions, sweet potato, mushrooms and garlic, served with side dishes of desiccated coconut, mixed dried fruits and a cucumber and yoghurt sauce. In no time at all both of us cleared our plates, if I had made more, we’d have probably eaten that too!

November 18^th It’s just one of those days! The family brain cell seemed to have gone AWOL this morning, neither Huan nor I had possession of it. Huan had her first hulusi class this morning so off she went, with a little trepidation, she would have to play for the teacher to see if she would be allowed to join the class. Not long after she left home she was back again, she hadn’t even reached the class, she had forgotten to take her hulusi with her! That’s Huan’s lack of brain cells today, what’s mine? For the first time in my life I managed to explode the eggs that were boiling in the kitchen ready for our lunch!

My brain cell came back and took me for a little walk, just around the town due to me being a little late going out. More progress on the river/island park, they have now installed park benches. I wonder if you can see the error, or maybe it’s just me. If I was going to sit on a bench by the river I think I would prefer to look at the river and not at the road.

On my way back home I stumbled across another butterfly which I kept trying to get in full sunlight. There were a couple of photos with no shade but I felt that this one, with shade, was probably far better than the others.

I walked back home via the pavement opposite our house so that I could show you the holes for the trees. For some reason only every other hole has a length of bamboo in it. I assume this will be to help the new saplings stand up long enough to take root. Why every other hole though?

On our side, just a little further up, they seem to have had a lot of foresight. They have dug holes on both sides of the new pavement which means sometime in the future pedestrians will be able to walk in the shade. For the pavement opposite they didn’t need to do this as there are already established trees which, with the new ones, will provide the same shade.

Well that didn’t take long, as we were getting ready for bed, they started planting trees outside.

November 19^th They were going all night last night, doing a good job too, we woke up to this view in the morning.

Going out of the back gate the director insisted I take flower photographs.

We went out of the back gate so that we could have a closer look at the new trees. I’ve no idea what the bamboo poles in the holes were for, they didn’t use them as supports. Instead they used normal wood and this time they seem to have done a better job than last time.

And this shot gives you some idea of how nice it should look in a few years time.

All in all a good night’s work by the local authorities, wouldn’t you agree? I doubt very much whether the same amount of work would have been done in such a short time in the UK.

November 20^th Today I changed my name, I became ‘Onslow’ for the morning. Consequently, when Huan came home from choir practice I was still in my jammy bottoms and vest complete with uncombed hair. She didn’t run away, what a lucky fellow I am!

I did have a plan though, to go out for a quiet afternoon walk for a change. I started off using the new steps down to the riverside near our house.

I stopped here to go back and join the road. There’s no path to go further anyway and if you look carefully, on the right hand side you’ll see a grassy bank. That is the rear of the local bin lorry depot who recently lost one of their dogs. It was bitten by a snake somewhere in this photo, a bit too close to home for my liking!

Walking along the other side of the river I was feeling a bit down for some reason. I was even composing depressing songs in my head. At one stage I said to myself, “Come on nature, give me something to smile about”. Almost immediately nature responded and provided me with this rather handsome creature. As you can see I was able to get quite close.

Keeping in mind Huan’s liking for flowers I continued perusing the hedgerows looking for either flowers of more little creatures. The creatures let me down but the flowers didn’t.

That was all I found on that side of the river but returning to the other side and the way home I thought this was a great view. Hope you like it too. Does it remind you of Thames TV at all?

This side also had more flowers, here’s one before and after blooming, and two others a little further down. Don’t ask me what they are, you’ll have to do a Google image search.

My quiet afternoon disappeared as I neared the bridge you can see in the reflections photo above. There were dozens of old ladies dancing and just after them quite a few men learning something or other too. I avoided embarrassing them with photos.

Nearer home I came across a fisherman who, as luck would have it, caught a fish just as I was passing by. He was quite proud of it; it will probably be his evening meal tonight.

My plan was to walk a little further before taking the steps back up the riverside walkway but I had to retrace my steps. Peering around one of the drainage ports I could see that the river was rising and had already covered the pathway.

Arrived home to find Huan had been called out to a practice, hulusi I think, and my keys were in one of my shoes. Still, it gave me peace and quiet at home for a while.

News received from Dr Tim, it seems there is no 10 year tetanus vaccine in China, I guess we’ll have to stick with the anti-toxin as required. He also confirmed that my blood tests were not so bad, the main problem being cholesterol, again. We’ll take his advice regarding our diet although I don’t think there is a great deal we can change. More exercise in needed, as well as walking I think I need to do exercises for my trunk area, maybe sit-ups and some weight training. The sit-ups can start on Tuesday, the weight training will have to wait until my left wrist is better, I think I’ve given myself RSI, probably due to a lazy guitar practice.

November 21^st Another morning in but not quite the same as Onslow today. I wanted to boil the duck legs before putting them in the stew, cut down on the fat a little. Huan was out, this time for keyboard lessons. Someone in the complex is going to teach them so that’s her weekends full up now, Saturday and Sunday, morning and afternoon, keyboard lessons. Her evenings are already taken up with drums, hulusi, dancing and singing. Sometimes I feel like the male protagonist in “A Star is Born”!

“Oh the snakes crawl at night, that’ what they saaay, when the sun goes down, then the snakes will plaay.” (Courtesy of Charlie Pride) This evening I had to get out myself having been in all day so I had a ‘twilight walk’. Luckily for me, the snakes didn’t appear.

I took Marvin along to record it for posterity but he’s not so hot with no light even when using night mode. The first two were decent enough.

The third one, just a few metres further on, was already getting worse. This was to show you where we can’t walk. In the daytime it’s nigh on impossible and I don’t fancy trying it at night time, those snakes you know.

A few more photos were taken but they were even worse, not worthy of your perusal at all. I got back to our apartment complex in time to make a short video of the ladies dancing and the drummers drumming, planning to share that with you. However, Marvin doesn’t have night mode for videos so that was a complete waste of time.

November 22^nd Another lazy morning today but not another Onslow, more like Richard or Emmet enjoying the peace of Hyacinth not being there. I had to be ready to make Huan’s lunch when she got home anyway, just sandwiches as usual. I wasn’t 100% lazy, I did go out after lunch, almost “walking in the rain”. As I left the apartment there was no rain, as I left the building there was. I looked at the rain, at the sky, then made an educated (?) decision and carried on. The route was via the back gate to see how the pavement on our side is coming on. As you can see it’s progressing well, soon we’ll have more trees there too.

The route was down the main road towards Sanya for about three kilometres, I wanted to show you that sometimes the countryside is only metres away from the main road.

Turning left to follow the river home, and seeing the sky in front of me, I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake with my weather forecasting.

Wildlife was very sparse today so I stuck to flowers, that always pleases Huan. Just in case you were wondering the first photo is not a pair of oranges but a pair of seed pods.

Arrived home to an empty house, Huan was out at keyboard practice again, so I did something very British. Being Sunday I hopped into a nice hot bath, as you do, with a book, as you do, this time Frederick Forsyth’s “The Deceiver”. What a nice way to end the day!

November 23^rd Stayed in this morning to repair Huan’s hulusi, it needed some gluing and Huan thought I could fix it with my glue gun. I put the glue gun on to warm up and then after my NAAFI break at ten o’clock, decided to start work. Problem, I couldn’t find the hulusi anywhere. Huan told me where it was when she came home, a place I never thought to look. The repair failed but the repair on her old hulusi worked, yes she has two now. One day she will listen to me and not just buy something based on price!

Her Majesty was out again this afternoon, I stayed in and did not a lot. Shopping was postponed until tomorrow so I had to come up with something quick and easy for dinner. That turned out to be bratwurst, large green onions, garlic, rice and a fried egg each. The brattie, onions and garlic started off with a little oil but then Huan wasn’t home so I had to keep adding a little water to the wok. In the end it didn’t taste so bad.

After dinner, to avoid me making the same mistakes again, I asked her to make a timetable for me, so that I would know when she would be out, where, in case I need to play taxi driver, and times so that I could plan meals better, when it’s my turn to cook. You know those tiger Mums that ferry their children here there and everywhere for extra classes, well, I almost feel like one of them. Of course my actual ferrying bit s not so bad. Just to let you see how busy she is, and of course the other old people here in Wuzhishan, here’s her timetable.

Sometimes those “Free” spots can disappear when we receive a phone call for some practice session that has not been preplanned. How I miss having a local pub or a decent bar! Enough of my gripes, that’s all for this week, see you soon!