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!