Doctor #5, Tendonitis, Christmas, Cooking, Ton-up Grandma

December 1st "I heard a bird sing, In the dark of December, A magical thing, And sweet to remember. We are nearer to Spring, Than we were in September, I heard a bird sing, In the dark of December." (I Heard a Bird Sing by Oliver Herford)

Doctor #6, Dr. Gao, and a long wait for her. Our first duty was to tell her that last night I almost put myself back to square one by trying to shut the second bedroom door, which sticks sometimes. She then held her office door against the wall and asked to pull on the handle thus causing me great pain. My diagnosis was then changed to tendonitis! The treatment remains the same, a small machine massage from Dr. Gao, followed by electro-convulsion and microwave cooking by the nurses. She also advised me to do five minutes of biceps curls twice a day, morning and evening, without any weights of course. Huan wanted another photo showing the two pads for the shocking treatment, she took many but this is the cleanest. You can barely see the second pad but they are now alongside each other and not opposite sides of my elbow.

By the time we had finished in the hospital and done the shopping it was lunch time. We both decided a lazy afternoon would be the plan today but we did walk five kilometres after dinner. Arriving home the band had begun to form so Huan had to stay and beat the drum. As usual I took a video; as usual they were out of sync with the music and with each other. Anyway, they were enjoying themselves.

December 2^nd Today I saw Dr. Gao, who after a few questions told me to go straight to the punishment room and come back to her afterwards. On doing that I found I wasn’t seeing Dr. Gao but Dr. Li once again. They seem a little unsure of what exactly is the problem, mostly because the pain seems to wander. I’ll persevere because I do feel that my arm is slowly improving.

Once back home I hung up the washing that I’d put in before going out and then decided to surprise Huan. When she arrived home from Hulusi practice she found all the Christmas decorations up, with the exception of the tree. Unfortunately, we have no room to put that up anywhere this year. She was pleasantly surprised, told me that the house looks homely and warm now. It does feel good; we haven’t had Christmas since 2017 for one reason and another.

No afternoon walk today, Huan was blowing the Hulusi, but we did go out after dinner. We took the downriver route coming back up the other side. The first thing we noticed, which I should have noticed before, is that they are also beautifying the area in front of our villas.

In China, it’s not only people who sit in clinics with drips in their arms, trees have them too.

And last one for today, at the director’s request, “It will look very nice on the computer” even though there’s no sunset to see.

December 3^rd Once more into the lair of the dragon, this time with my favourite nurse and companion in tow, Huan that is. Today I had to lie on the bed again while Dr. Gao got busy with the portable massage machine. While there, she told us that after this group of sessions I should probably have a rest before seeing if we need to carry on. I told her that we were off to Haikou next week to get some more female drugs injected into my belly. Huan and Dr. Gao lost me then, my Chinese was nowhere near good enough to keep up. The upshot is that I am to have no more microwave therapy because of the cancer I had previously. As I had already paid, she extended the electro-convulsion therapy to make up the difference. I must say I’m not sure how cooking my elbow can affect the internal workings of my body around the nether regions, or even it would make any difference at this stage. Anyway, here I am enjoying (?) my massage.

We left the hospital via the grounds today and not via out-patients as we usually do. That gave me a chance to show you a little more, not a bad place to be confined to bed as long as you’re on the front side of course.

From the hospital we went to the police station that deals with entries and exits to Hainan, or more specifically, our part of Hainan. My visa is up for renewal on 8^th January, the same date that Huan’s temporary Hainan ID expires. To try and sort things out we were hoping that Huan could get a temporary ID for longer than a year, it seems that is not possible. Huan asked about transferring her main ID from Dalian to Wuzhishan, which is not something I really want her to do as it effects her pension and national health. It didn’t matter anyway because they told her she cannot transfer her ID as she is retired! Eventually they agreed that Huan could apply early thus hopefully receiving next years card in time for me to apply for a visa before the renewal date. If she is successful that means two trips to Haikou this month.

Straight home from the police station, I needed a coffee and a fag! After lunch Huan went through our boxes of Chinese character flashcards, sorting them out in the hope that the dummy, (me) will learn some more. I cooked dinner and then jumped in the bath for an hour while it simmered. Huan decided to follow the old British way and jumped in the same water when I got out. At least she didn’t have to use a kettle and fill a tin bath.

It’s still a bit on the chilly side here but we did get out after dinner and by using a circuitous route through the streets to avoid the wind we managed just over six kilometres.

December 4^th My daily visit to the hospital went well enough although my arm felt worse this morning than yesterday. I put it down to the felling slowly coming back. The two doctors and therapists are always happy to see me and try out their limited English. With my even more limited Chinese we seem to do all right.

Back home waiting for Huan so I could make lunch I had to search for something new to watch, I finished ‘The Sandbaggers’ yesterday. I went even further back in time and found ‘Danger Man’ with Patrick McGoohan. Back in 1964 I remember being allowed to stay up and watch episodes of series 2, I never knew it was that of course. YouTube starts from series 1 so a good find, it will keep me busy for a short while.

I had a lazy afternoon, Huan had hulusi class so we didn’t go out until after dinner. We were quite surprised by just how many snowbirds there seem to be this year. They were singing, dancing, making music and exercising all over the place. I only had my phone with me so there are no particularly good photos but enough to let you see how Chinese OAPs spend their time.

December 5th Before the hospital visit this morning I had to boil the chicken for a couple of hours. The neck with its head and the feet are also in there somewhere, Huan will eat them. The parson’s nose is also there, for me!

Apart from the usual ingredients of onions, celery, carrots, garlic and parsley, these were the planned vegetables for today. I’ll let you try and work out what they all are. As it happens, despite having taken all the chicken off the bone, there still wasn’t enough room in the pan for the first two.

When I got home from the hospital more cooking was needed, Huan was having sweet potatoes for lunch. She’s strange sometimes, just sweet potatoes with nothing else.

After lunch I tried using Anki to learn my Chinese characters but I’m not sure if it’s the best way for me. Perhaps I’ll get used to it. After dinner we had our now usual walk around the town, staying away from the windy riverside. I lost Huan when we reached our building, she decided to do half an hour of dama dancing. When she got home I asked her to check my Anki ‘deck’ because I thought it wasn’t right. She agreed with me, the pinyin was not correct at all so back to square one.

December 6^th Today my treatment position allowed me to surreptitiously take a couple of photos of the nurse’s station. I wonder what ‘matron’ would make of this! Still, it’s the care that’s important and I certainly can’t fault that.

After lunch Huan had the chance to try riding a small electric moped, one of the ladies from ‘oop north’ who learns keyboard with Huan has one. I went with her to provide the evidence and to have a go myself. Here’s me on a bike that is far too small for me.

Having seen me trying Huan was a little more willing to have a go.

Just before the first picture there, Huan had fallen off trying to turn the corner. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of that! Not long after this I left them to it knowing that my presence was not helping Huan much and hoping she would gain some confidence without me there. I suspect she did better than she told me she did when she got home.

As for me, I went looking for wildlife by the river, having totally forgotten it was Sunday and not only that, a very cool and overcast day. That meant that the riverside was not very quiet what with snowbirds, resting workers and students etc. What photos I took are more than likely scenes you have seen before so are not included here.

What is included though is something that many people in the west seem to be terrified of, too much listening to the tin hat brigade I suppose. We have a lot of these around and all they seem to do is allow people faster and more efficient use of their phones. Yes, they are 5G antennas.

December 7^th Just like most days these days, the only difference this morning was that Dr. Li tried pulling my thumb and fingers until they cracked. For some reason that’s not easy with my digits, I told her if she pulled them off she’d have to buy me some new ones.

My afternoon walk didn’t turn up any more wildlife, despite it being the ‘quiet’ time of day. With the weather being so overcast and cool I guess the snowbirds were out to play. For me, this is the third day I’ve been out in the daytime with shoes and socks on, long trousers and a hoodie. I’ve never needed to dress like this in the daytime in the five years we’ve lived her. I wouldn’t mind a touch of that global warming I hear so much about!

My route today took me along the main road where it seems they are trying to make sure bikes, and to a lesser extent cars, don’t turn across traffic or do u-turns except where allowed.

A little bit further down I stumbled across some tents being taken down, something had obviously been happening. Getting closer I found this RV which had details plastered on its side. It appears that we’ve had a bicycle race through Wuzhishan today. As usual, we didn’t find out about until it was too late.

Now you may wonder why I’m taking photos of old ladies standing on walls. You may also wonder what she’s doing. Well, she is looking for plants growing in the crevices between the stones, either for dietary or medicinal purposes, I didn’t like to stop and ask.

Speaking of dietary purposes, Huan had asked me to buy some ‘yellow bread’ to have with our fish tonight. We had no rice prepared and no potatoes in the house. What is yellow bread? It’s made with millet as far as I can tell, not bad, but very different to western bread. I felt guilty about handing over a one hundred RMB note for such a small quantity, (¥2.00) so I bought a Chinese Scotch egg to up the price a little.

As you can see, it’s not really a Scotch egg. The outside is chicken skin, the meat inside is chicken and the egg is a ‘Century’ egg. You can learn more here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg. How does it taste? It’s a little salty and the chicken meat is certainly over processed for my taste but it’s not too bad. I may even have some fried with an egg tomorrow morning, don’t tell my doctor though will you.

Time flies when you get older, that’s another week gone already! See you next time, bye for now.