Food, More Billboards and Yet Another New Phone!

January 19^th Yet another lazy day, for walking anyway. Shopping had to be done this morning, much to my chagrin, I don’t like it when the supermarket is full of snowbirds. Still needs must, and the Logistics Officer decided we would go in the morning.

Having not gotten anything ready for lunch, a cheat day was on the cards. Here is what we had, half each, shown clothed and naked. That was so that you could read the description and the price. Huan ate hers straight; I slathered mine with oodles of butter!

In the afternoon Huan transformed into the IT Manager and had me working with Audacity to create more mp3 files for her. She had the worst job though, holding her phone in front of her computer to record the sound from videos. Taobao had some attention, just shutter buttons for Freddy Fujifilm, after which I browsed some more phones, not high end but not cheapo either. I’ll still have to wait until we have visited either Sanya or Haikou and drawn money out of my pension bank. I wish there was a branch here.

We treated ourselves to an evening walk, about five and a half kilometres, and went to check out if we were right about where last week’s billboards came from. We were, and we also noticed that a whole lot more have been moved from upriver and now adorn the walls of our river opposite the new park island. Photos will come, too dark today.

January 20^th Well we seem to be getting even lazier! It was half past eight before I woke up this morning; I blame it on my dreams! Getting up for a middle of the night wee, as you do, I saw light through the crack of the bedroom door. Opening the door, wondering if we had burglars, I saw the light was coming from the second bedroom; one of us must have left it on. Once I returned to the land of nod the dreams started, dreams about burglars. At one stage I was creeping down the hallway, with a rucksack on my back and a snooker ball in my hand, to surprise two burglars in the kitchen. One was by the kettle, (maybe making tea?) and the other one was trying to hide behind the fridge. I wish I could use my imagination to write novels!

Huan mopped the floors then wondered why they weren’t drying very quickly. I pointed out that the weather was miserable again today! She then dyed her hair so our planned afternoon walk was binned. I pruned some friends off my Facebook list, and did a little more Facebook editing.

Dinner was on me again today, trying something a little different for a change. I’m pretty fed up with not having to use any oil so today was a stir-fry. The oil was healthy though, olive oil, and I didn’t use too much. Here are the ingredients for my half, Huan’s doing the rice.

Yes, they are tins of sardines at the back, and no, it wasn’t my idea although it could well have been. I was looking at the fish in the supermarket and Huan suggested I use it with the stir fry. I was a little surprised but not in any way displeased. Huan’s half was not just your normal rice, oh no, it was something special, she had 腊八粥 làbā zhōu or Laba Congee (also known as 八宝粥 Bābǎozhōu Eight Treasure Congee) for breakfast. It consists of all the different kinds of rice in the rice cooker along with some yams, and other stuff including peanuts, red beans etc. I’m not a great fan of rice soup but this one looks like it might be OK. I’ll try it next time it comes up on the Chinese calendar menu!

Here’s the end result of the stir-fry on a plate, I couldn’t show you Huan’s with the rice, she was already busy tucking in. I don’t have rice because I already have enough on my plate. Both of us were very pleasantly surprised, the sardine touch turned out very well indeed. Now if only I can learn to make a Stargazy pie for her…

We still had some light when we went for our after dinner walk so I took one of those billboards for you, the ones I mentioned yesterday. These are oval individual ones rather than the ones you saw last week. From a distance they don’t look too bad at all.

Finally, a chicken that isn’t dinner. This chicken belongs to the restaurant next to our gate but is not destined for the pot. It could be a tradition I suppose, we’ve seen it elsewhere too. It may look like it’s hiding from the cooks but in reality it’s hiding from the guests eating on tables at the back of the restaurant.

January 21^st “All alone am I, ever since your good bye, all alone, with just the beat of my heart.” It was almost with just the sound of my snore! We were both woken at twenty to seven by a phone call for Huan reminding her she has to attend a committee meeting at nine. Foolishly, we stayed in bed, where it was warmer. Huan didn’t fall back to sleep but I did, waking up just a few minutes before she left.

Coming back from the meeting it seems it’s election time for the committee members so Huan has to do a house to house in our building to see whether they want her to continue or have someone else take over. That will be a pain for her, trying to get answers from fifty odd apartments some lived in and some not, some by the owners, most by renters.

When she eventually came home, having found less than half the occupants, we had a late lunch before an afternoon walk. I convinced Huan to ‘lend me some money’ until our next trip to Hailou and my bank. I need to order a phone before the New Year comes along and delays everything.

We walked along our riverside so we could show you our ‘new billboards’. You can tell they are second hand and could do with a good clean. I still quite like them there though.

After the bank bits were finished we went up the river to make sure we had a long enough walk today. Two hours usually gives us about eight kilometres. Along the way we spotted this fellow fishing, Han was very impressed. I wasn’t, I told her he wasn’t a fisherman, more a murderer! Spot the billboards along the opposite bank!

Coming back along the other side, a progress report on whatever they are building. The initial construction is almost complete now, we just have to wait and see what the roof will look like. Huan was wondering if it would be open for the New Year market. If that’s the plan, they have a fortnight to sort it all out.

Keeping abreast of the food pictures this week, here’s my dinner today, fish and a lot of cabbage! Huan wanted to give me rice or sweet potatoes as well, but she hasn’t got the hang of cooking smaller portions for me yet! It tasted a whole lot better than the photo looks.

After dinner Huan disappeared on her canvassing trail again, I browsed phones and confused my poor little brain even more. I know what I’d like; unfortunately my wallet doesn’t like the same as I do! Maybe I’ll ask Sheng Sheng, Huan’s son, again, he’s a fount of knowledge.

January 22^nd More canvassing for the Prime Minister, more browsing for me. I thought I’d have a look for the Nokia 9 Pureview and see if the price had come down, unfortunately, it hadn’t. More Youtube videos didn’t really help either. Checking on Xiaomi’s own website I narrowed it down to two possible choices and sent the links to Sheng Sheng.

After lunch it was cooking time again for me, this time the first stage of tomorrow’s dinner. We will be having chicken stew this weekend and as always these days, to keep us healthy, we are cooking the chicken in advance to lessen the fat content. Here is one large leg in a pot, sans skin, with Italian herbs, star aniseed, ginger, salt, pepper and a little soya sauce.

The chicken was done before two as planned, so that we could have an afternoon walk. What I hadn’t planned was that Huan would be out again at half past two, more committee work! Never mind, more searching for phones for me. Of the two phones I had chosen, I could afford one easily, the other was a bit of a stretch. However, checking on Taobao, the bit of a stretch grew to be too much for me. In the meantime Sheng Sheng answered and told me either was fine but confirmed that the cheaper one would be OK for my needs. We ordered it when Huan came back, the “Youth Edition” for young Bob!

Today’s dinner had been started while Huan was still out, an unusual one for us that we haven’t had for a long time. Sometimes I wonder how I and my siblings would manage to eat this after a full dinner, yes, it’s a pudding. Rice pudding to be exact and we are having it for dinner. I read the recipe incorrectly so wondered why it wasn’t thickening after an hour. The first two ‘time measurements’ are in numbers and the last one is in words. I will edit that for future use. As you can see from the photo, it’s not quite done. However, that’s not due to my incorrect reading! I had realised my mistake and thus our dinner was going to be a little later. Fate then stepped in and decided we should have a power failure for half an hour or more. Just another fifteen minutes may well have sorted it out but we needed a short walk before Huan met her hulusi gang. It tasted fine, just not quite thick enough.

As planned we had a little walk after dinner, up to the first road bridge, over the river, down the other side and over the island bridges. We took a few photos, mostly rubbish but I do like this one. It almost looks like the backdrop for a stage production.

After dropping Huan off I did another circle, a wider one this time to reconnoitre the riverside construction and see whether there would be a Saturday market tomorrow. My opinion is that it is highly unlikely and of course you won’t know if I’m right or wrong because I won’t go and look in the morning.

Arriving back at our noisy little square I found it strangely quiet. Only Huan and three other hulusi players were there but there was a fair bit of noise coming from the island park. It appears that at least three of the ladies have bought saxophones and they were practicing there. I could also hear an amplifier with someone singing; maybe I’ll check that out again. I couldn’t hear any drums though so I’ve no idea where they went.

January 23^rd Saturday rolls around yet again and Huan is off to her keyboard class. Because it’s not an official school and because there are only three to five of them at any one time, they don’t have to worry about any Covid restrictions. I of course, had a fairly relaxing morning, at least until coffee break after which it was cooking time again. Here are all the ingredients for this weekend’s stew. At the back you can see the chicken, precooked yesterday, and the stock, with all excess fat trimmed off the top. On the left you can see garlic, (yes I’ll use the whole thing), tomato and onion, on the right normal potatoes (for a change) and carrot, in the middle cauliflower, something green (I don’t know) and parsley. Just for a change the tools of the trade are also included this time.

I had planned to walk over the mountain with the rubbish landfill this afternoon, to check on the highway. Someone told Huan that it is now open to Haitang Wan, passing over the Eastern highway, and that buses to Sanya were now using it. Just for a change it is me who has to see to believe and not the commander. Huan didn’t think it was a good idea at all so I stayed in and did a whole lot of nothing instead.

Here’s what our stew looked like at nosh time, mine on the left, Huan’s on the right, before second helpings!

Huan was feeling a little under the weather so didn’t fancy an after dinner walk. She sometimes pushes herself too hard but my pleas for her to try and relax and rest more fall on deaf ears. I had to go anyway, today’s Saturday so lottery tickets had to be bought. To make sure I got five kilometres in I popped by the river again to check on progress. There has been some, they have started installing strengthening across the tops. Maybe in a day or two we will find out if the tops are going to be aesthetically pleasing or horrible tin ones.

January 24^th Confined to barracks this morning but I didn’t mind, I was waiting for Taobao, my new phone was due to arrive. Just as Huan was leaving for keyboard practice it turned up and as I was still in my jammies Huan did me the honour of going downstairs for it. I got stuck in after coffee break. Now on Youtube you can see many unboxing videos but as this is the written word, the video will have to be skipped. Instead here are some unboxing photos.

This phone is called the Xiaomi Mi 10 Youth Edition, otherwise known in the west as the Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite. You can tell from the box and the stickers that’s it’s aimed at the youth market. Just in case you are interested, here’s a composite of the box top and side! RUOK?

The phone I passed on to Huan was blue so another colour was chosen for this one. If I had known that we were going to receive stickers and that Huan was going to put three of them on the back of her phone, I wouldn’t have chosen this colour. Actually, it’s nowhere near as bad as the photo makes it look. Perhaps I should stick the ice cream sundae on the back of it.

Huan was out again in the afternoon so I spent hours trying to get a fitness app, any fitness app, to work with this one. The only one I (half) succeeded with was Sports Tracker. For some reason it doesn’t pick up any GPS on the phone but it does record steps, distance, route etc. I was even able to upload it when I got home but I doubt I will keep it. The maps for Sports Tracker are pretty hopeless, not all streets shown and no satellite views. If you want different maps you have to pay! I guess I can use the data for now and manually upload it to Mapmywalk.

After dinner we both needed a walk, a short one because Huan was off to the square tonight for some dama dancing and hulusi whooping. We took some test photos, first impressions, no better than Huan’s phone (Marvin), possibly even a little worse. We’ll try a few more over the next week and see how it goes. The first test was through the bedroom window at ten times zoom. I guess it’s not too bad, the window was closed.

Next up was a widescreen selfie which turned out reasonably well. I have only one complaint and that is, although you may think I need it, I don’t like the beautification of our faces.

On our way home we stopped by one of the shops to see if I could cope with using Alipay to buy something. That’s one of the apps installed on the phone, set up and tied to Huan’s bank card. I was planning on buying all sorts of stuff with her money. As it happens, we couldn’t even buy two tubes of crisps, the password Huan was asking me to use was refused three times! More things we have to sort out over the next few days. If we can’t get it to work then Huan will drip feed my WeChat account with enough to keep me going. I need it because some car parks in Hailou insist on electronic payment to exit. Usually Huan is with me, but I need to be able to go it alone as well.

Once I was home I synchronised the contacts from Huan’s phone (my old one of course), to the new one. That was easy, Bluetooth is a magical tool. Getting the photos from one to the other was not so easy, took me another two hours but I got there in the end.

January 25^th “Shall we go out this morning?” asked the boss, “Too lazy.” said the serf. Instead w stayed in and did not a lot of anything, even Huan managed to relax. I did confirm for her that all her financial and private stuff had been removed from Chilli Pepper phone, a factory reset sorted al that out. Our lock screens and wallpapers were also sorted out this morning so we now both have what we had before, instead of Huan having mine and me having Xiaomi’s choice.

After lunch we weren’t so lazy and set off to ramble through the country side and take a few test photographs with the new Xiaomi. Did I say a few? I suppose I meant a lot, I took over one hundred and Huan took nearly a hundred on her phone. A great deal of work was needed when we got home, sorting out the comparison shots between the two phones, deciding what to keep and what to bin, cropping and tweaking a little here and there. All done now though and my verdict on this phone? I wish I was rich enough to get a flagship phone! This one, the “Youth Edition” is definitely better that the Chilli Pepper, way better, but it’s no better than Huan’s Redmi 10 Pro. In fact I would have been better off buying the same one again; hers has a bigger battery and better specifications. Ah well, maybe next year when I’m richer.

So how did the photos turn out? The first attempt was a butterfly just over the island bridge, this one stayed still long enough for me to catch it, without my glasses on. If I had tried to get them on I would probably have lost it. This is quite a severe crop of the original.

Remember our piggie? He, or she, is still in the same place, probably feeling quite warm these days, the weather is on the up again. The first picture is 5x zoom and the second 10x. 5x is not so bad, 10x is not too good!

Geese and goats next, both at 5x zoom, both not too far from the camera and in sunlight. In this case the results are OK.

Next up was the first ‘test’ of the day, 1x, 5x, 10x and 50x from a distance. As expected, because all budget phone manufacturers tell lies, or exaggerate the truth, the 50x is pretty rough. Here they are in order, 1x first.

Next up is a panorama from the app on the camera. I am not sure if there’s a setting I missed but I had to create it holding the phone in the portrait mode. The end result has then been cropped in the computer to 16:9. It looks good though.

The next two are the same scene but taken with the 48MB camera, the first one 1x and the second one 2x, the most you can zoom with that camera. Again these look quite good, certainly good enough for memories which is what we mostly take pictures for.

Next Huan spotted bird out in the river so I tried 5x and 10x without success. This was followed by some geese in a pond where we did a camera comparison. At 1x, Huan’s came out better, 5x not much between them and at ten by, below, at last I had a better one. Huan’s is first.

And so we continued with comparisons of ducks, chickens and turkeys, with very similar results. There isn’t a lot to choose between the two cameras. I did a comparison at 1x and 2x using the normal camera and the 48MB with Huan as the subject. The first is the normal camera, the second is the 48MB.

Next up are a couple of photos using the classic B&W filter. They’re not bad but I’d get a better result taking colour photos and then using Picasa to convert them to black and white.

And that’s about it really; we did a couple more zoom tests with the same results. Distance wise, if you are shooting landscapes, better to stop at 5x or even less. Close up subjects are not too bad at 10x. Anything above 10x, for any subject is very hit and miss.

Another week comes to a close. Stay tuned to this frequency, we will use only the new phone for next week’s photos and go back to using Freddy Fuji more thereafter. The weather seems to be on the up so we may get ourselves into the countryside more. Just think, only another year and hopefully, I can stop spending half my pension on my health and we can perhaps travel further afield to tourist places again! See you next time!

P.S. Sports Tracker failed 260 metres from the house, it stopped for no reason and we didn’t find out until four kilometres later. Another one uninstalled. Tomorrow I shall try the Xiaomi health app, hopefully that will record.

P.P.S. Huan’s canvassing was successful; she is still on the committee!

Fitness App Fail, More Landlord’s Woes & OAP Winter Warmers.

January 12^th Three more fitness apps bit the dust last night, Walkmeter, Fitbit and Strava, none of them would successfully install on the phone. Apps from the Chinese app stores will load but most of them do not have a website to upload to. I like my big desktop computer for most things whereas Chinese users do almost everything on their phones.

Also last night I was thrown out of bed at half past eleven to go and fill the hot water bottle, Huan just wasn’t warming up at all. Mind you, I was glad I did it, it helped us both!

Shopping today, well prepared, Huan had put the health app on her phone and added me as ‘family’. It didn’t work! There was a way round it today though, we had to fill in a contact tracing form. Not only I had problems, many Chinese folk were also struggling. Some didn’t have the health app on their phones, some old people have no idea how to get it on their phones and some old people don’t have phones at all. The result was a traffic jam.

The sun showed its face in the afternoon but Huan wanted to stay in and do some keyboard practice. I stayed in too and tried to decide which songs to sing in the upcoming show, I’m allowed two for my slot.

After dinner we ventured to the second branch of the above supermarket, the one which I could not enter yesterday. They had a contact tracing form available today so I made a beeline for that before asking anyone anything, I was in before Huan! Success all round, they still had some of my coconut milk, tomorrow’s breakfast is saved.

By the time we reached our little square we had both warmed up quite a bit so Huan stopped off for some more dama dancing. The night time photos there never really work out too well, but I did take some more of the island park. It now looks very much that all the work on the island will be completed by Chinese New Year.

Another fitness app failed today, one of the Chinese ones, it seems it can’t measure distance without using a Bluetooth connected step counter. I wonder which apps I haven’t tried yet?

January 13^th An ordinary morning for me these days, cooking again, noodle soup for tonight. Huan was out to one of her classes, hulusi I think. After lunch we decided a walk was needed, in fact the weather was quite good, hardly a cloud in sight.

We tried our hardest to find some wildlife for you today, two pairs of eyes being better than one, but unfortunately we failed. Quite a few butterflies have appeared, the white and yellow variety, but all too fast and too small for us to capture. All we did manage to capture was a fly!

Garlic sausages were next on the list, no problems there apart from Huan limiting me to two. Had I been alone I would have bought four. Our route back, purposely, was along the riverside to check on the construction progress, the first thing we found was destruction!

Construction was just a teeny bit further down and what they are doing bears no relation to anything that I had thought of at all. We’ll reserve judgement until it’s all finished.

Having been a little overdressed today, and strolling gently instead of walking, we got home to a cold house again. The noodle soup warmed us up and as soon as dinner was over I was back in my jammies and dressing gown trying to stay warm until bedtime. Needless to say, the water bottle was in use again, night time temperatures down to 7ºC. We find it strange that we coped with Harbin where night time temperatures were regularly below -30 ºC but we can’t cope here!

Now 2021 was supposed to be a marked improvement on 2020, not that we had a very bad year here, but the problems have already started. Our tenants in Ledong called us, the floor is broken! It looks like four tiles are coming up, two already broken. Could it be the temperature change or is it more likely the shoddy workmanship in 2014. I always thought they had made a better job of the floor there than ours here in Wuzhishan.

Now I know all you dear readers are nearly all on lockdown, something that happened only fleetingly here last year, so this news won’t garner any sympathy for us and neither should it. From Monday, there are to be no gatherings of ten or more people and masks should be worn whenever shopping or mingling is anticipated. Remember our upcoming show? The organiser had changed the date to this coming Saturday but has now decided, quite wisely in my opinion, that discretion is the better part of valour, and cancelled it completely. So much for my singing and Huan’s hulusi performance.

January 14^th What a lovely day we had today, a very normal day, Huan home with me, and a joint walk in the afternoon to boot. We started with leftover noodle soup for breakfast with an egg each dropped in for good measure. Later on Huan decided it was time to brave the shower so while she was there I boiled some milk and nice, tasty all milky coffee was enjoyed by both of us when Huan surfaced again. My Mam would have called it milky coffee, I suppose it’s called latte these days. Just like yesterday we walked after lunch, unlike yesterday we weren’t overdressed today. We did have tops with us, I ended wearing mine like some sort of 70s French actor, wrapped around my waist! Our route took us downriver where our first job was to check out the progress of dam destruction for you. As you can see, this side has now been completely demolished. The machines stand idly by, we think because the workers have now disappeared for their annual holidays.

Once again we were on the lookout for wildlife, especially as there are far less people, almost none, on this route and the weather was good. Chatting away with Huan I asked if she remembered when I had come down the storm drain from the top to where we were walking, and we stopped to have a look at said drain. Some enterprising farmer has taken advantage of the state it’s in now and parked his pig there.

Next up we found someone acting the goat, I’m sure I recognised her from somewhere…

Shortly thereafter we found real goats, this is one of them, who seemed very interested in me!

Today we managed to capture a butterfly but not in good enough detail to share it with you. Sorry! Once back up from the riverside we passed the farms that aren’t really farms, (they are like allotments for the people in the nearby apartments), a very pleasant place to walk.

Next I thought another panorama would be in order, this is the land behind the apartments, most of what you can see here is actual farmland and not allotments.

Huan then had me taking photos of chickens, turkeys and ducks; she said they would probably sell us a turkey to eat if we asked nicely. Maybe we’ll consider that for next Christmas.

This walk takes us past my friends the cows but today they wouldn’t come to the gate of their little home at all. I think it’s been so long they might have forgotten me but I’ll try again, when Huan is not egging me on to catch her up.

More goats were passed on the way home, followed by three boys, possibly just into their teens, mixing up clay at the side of the road. Huan asked what they were doing but I’d worked out the answer before she told me, they were dyeing their hair! How long the colour would stay I don’t know, I shouldn’t think too long though. We asked if we could take photos but they didn’t like that idea at all, perhaps they were worried about their parents.

We met them along the road that will eventually connect with the bridge to nowhere next to our apartments. Remember that? Anyway, here’s a picture looking towards the end of the bridge to nowhere. Between where we are standing and the end of the bridge in the distance there used to be some houses, not sure how many, probably less than ten. They’ve gone, all that’s left now is to bridge the irrigation canal in some way and then work can proceed. We still have no idea where the road behind us will lead to though.

All in all a most enjoyable day, it was very nice to walk in the countryside with wifey once again instead of just around the town and river. Soon she’ll be free more often and hopefully the weather will improve so that we can wander further afield again.

January 15^th The boss called while she was out, I had to rush downstairs to collect a delivery from Taobao, no time to change out of my pyjamas and dressing gown. I wonder what the neighbours thought. After lunch she then had me filling all the holes where the A/C hoses go through the wall, with my trusty glue gun. No sooner had I sat down for a cup of tea when orders came in again telling me I had to go downstairs to collect another delivery. I guess by now the neighbours were used to me! So what were these deliveries? Our winter clothes for sitting around at night time of course. Here we are modelling them for you. Mine has a hood but not by choice, this was one of the only ones we found to fit me, it’s a 6XL!

My next job was to walk the ladies to school again before having a walk of my own. Outside the house the weather was fine, it’s only winter inside. More construction work, another road to somewhere although we’re not sure exactly where.

Another noodle soup in the evening, once again I made too much and we’ll be having it for breakfast tomorrow as well. Luckily for me, noodle soup is a very common Chinese breakfast. After dinner we both got into our winter warmers, by golly they work well. Within a quarter of an hour Huan had her jacket undone, it took me a little longer. Still, we won’t be cold and our jammies, which we are wearing underneath, will not need warming up before we put them on.

January 16^th Well our winter warmers certainly did the job last night, not that we wore them to bed of course, that would have been too much. We were both warm enough throughout the evening, my feet were like toast. I guess the circulation was working well. On top of that, we didn’t need the hot water bottle when we went to bed, we were both warm enough to heat the bed and each other.

Message from our tenants in Ledong Just after lunch, more tiles have now lifted some of which have broken too. We had asked him to get the repairs done locally which we would then have paid for. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Chinese New Year is not until 12^th February, no one is interested in doing the work until after the New Year. You would have thought that someone would welcome a bit of extra cash before but that’s not the case.

Keyboard lessons for Huan today, morning and afternoon, so I was left to my own devices. In the morning I cooked, what else did you expect, another two or maybe three day stew. This one was with chicken livers and hearts, not Huan’s favourites, but I added some strange black stuff for her, Google translate tells me it’s edible tree fungus. I would disagree with the edible part!

Solo walking was my afternoon, still slightly overdressed, but not too much. Over the bridge to nowhere I went, stopping to admire the view on the way.

Once over the bridge I popped around the corner to check on the pig from the other day and try and get a better photo. It had moved further back under the shade but I had Freddy Fuji with me today so you can see a bit more.

Under the bridge I decided to take some photos that could be joined in a vertical panorama, which is called, wait for it, a vertorama! I must admit I had to use Google to find that out. Here’s the finished picture, again done with Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor). It’s good, and it’s free, try it out for yourselves.

No critters were forthcoming this afternoon but I did find some pretty flowers for you.

I was walking on the other side of the river to our apartments this afternoon; I wish we had a lot more places like it. There are no paving stones, only a footpath worn into the ground by passers by. It’s usually quiet too, not today as you’ll see shortly.

So, why not quiet today? The destroyers were back on the dam, obviously we were wrong and they haven’t tootled off on vacation yet.

The last pictures of the day are of one of those elusive flying things again, you know, they call them birds. I just couldn’t quite get near enough, yet again. Some would say that I’ve always had that problem with birds! Of course, they would be wrong. Anyway, here you are, I can’t crop the pictures anymore or there will be less clarity than there is now. Maybe one of you avid birdwatchers out there can tell us what it is.

January 17^th Sunday morning and Huan was off to keyboard lessons today. I relaxed and did some more of my new job, Facebook Editor. For some reason they started asking me to check various details on different pages so I obliged, as best as I could. At times I have to answer ‘unsure’ instead of yes or no, at times I have to try and find websites or other pages but it keeps me occupied for an hour or two.

After lunch more keyboard for Huan and another walk for me, this time to check on the progress of a local hotel. First though I walked Huan to class and we checked the road around the villas, recently repaired by the builders of the site next door, they had destroyed it during their construction. Huan decided she wanted to have a look at one of the villas being worked on, I decided to stay downstairs. With all the money they are spending on renovation and adding extensions etc, you would think they could at least do the wiring correctly!

As for the extensions, here are two, one going up from the lower level villas and one coming out from the upper level ones. In theory, all of the land they are building on belongs to us, the tenants of the complex. We pay maintenance money for our apartment and our ‘share’ of the public areas. I wonder if they asked anyone. That’s doubtful though, there seems to be no such thing as planning permission here. The unwritten rule seems to be “if there’s a space next to your place, use it” and hopefully nobody will notice or kick up a stink. No one usually does.

Onwards and upwards I went once Huan had gone into class, this was the view from part of the way up. Apart from the construction in the foreground it’s very nice.

Just after this I came to the hotel only to find out that nothing has changes since we last came this way. It may be a place to try and get in and make an ‘empty places’ video, I haven’t done one of those for a while. The hotel is barely visible on the left in this shot, which shows something new, a road, seeming to lead over the mountain. Deciding that it would make a change I decided to see where it led.

Almost at the top, after circumnavigating an enormous pile of rubble, I was quite looking forward to going down the other side. I estimated that it would come out somewhere near ‘Shangri La’ another residential complex. Well it may well do, but I couldn’t go any further, the road was blocked with some construction going on behind the blockage. I could see roofs the other side of all the scaffolding, perhaps it will be another entrance into Shangri La. On the other hand, it could be another site completely. Wherever it is, and whatever they are doing, they must be spending a fortune, knocking down stone mountains and putting reinforced walls up against the sandstone further on.

Back the way I came I went, downhill all the way, passing some bovine brothers on the way. Did they know me? I haven’t a clue, but they were certainly curious.

With time still to spare I set off towards the highway so that I could come back on the riverside, on our side, walking upriver back towards home. On the way I passed a little shack that I often stop at to say hello to some canine friends. This was the scene up the steps behind the shack today. The sign says 内有恶犬 － 禁止入内 (Nèi yǒu è quǎn jìnzhǐ rùnèi) and it means “Vicious Dogs – No Entry”. What you see in the photograph is not a vicious dog but a jealous one. His brother, at the bottom of the steps, is getting all my attention!

Not far from home, I spotted another bird so rushed to try and get as close as possible in order to get a shot in. If only I had known… As I created so much disturbance and noise, three more of the same lifted off just below the retaining wall! Never mind, one of these days I’ll manage to get closer. Instead you can have another black and white photo, sometimes scenes look better in black and white, of a lady farmer. She was sowing seeds in her free plot by the river.

Some more black and white photos were taken, but only of the ‘Dambusters’ that you’ve already seen. Today, there was a book on the wall where I was walking and a couple of men just about to walk out on to the existing dam surface. I asked the older one if he could tell me what they were doing and although I didn’t know the word, I got the message, they are building a new dam. When I asked how high it would be above where he was standing, he put his hand above his head, so possibly up to two metres. Once again we will wait and see, because if it is going to be that high, a lot of the landscaping they have done will be under the water.

And that’s my Sunday over. Now I am listening to Huan playing the keyboard, she has already worn out my ears with her hulusi practice. Hopefully in another twenty minutes or so she will pack it in for the night!

January 18^th All Huan’s classes at school have now stopped, partly as a virus prevention and partly for the New Year. They will start again, if all is well, after the New Year. Somehow, despite it being Monday, and Huan not having to go to school, I convinced her to stay at home and relax. She did practice her hulusi of course but at least she could do it in her own time and not worry about anything. After lunch though she dragged me off down to the police station, the immigration police that is. We should have reported there with my new visa when we came back from Haikou but we forgot. I managed to get my oar in first and apologised in Chinese for my omission. Surprisingly, they understood me!

After a quick trip to the lottery shop and the fish market we wended our way home, no long walks today. Remember the new structures by the riverside? Well we noticed some workmen measuring the billboards, (notice boards) last time we passed by and we guessed they were going to take them down and move them. We didn’t know where to of course. Well, today we found out, on the wall opposite our back gate, below the nurses’ college. Huan said I should take a before and after photo for you, so I decided to combine them into one!

The rest of my evening, almost three hours worth, was spent trying to get first of all mp4 files for Huan and her dancing ladies. We managed only two, my software will not work on most Chinese web sites. The lady who wants these, I guess the teacher, then told us she needed mp3 files and not mp4, so that she could stick them on a USB and play them in her small amplifier. It was still a pain in the proverbial and we ended up using the voice recorder on Huan’s phone and then tweaking the bass and treble with audacity. The whole evening’s work resulted in the grand total of three mp3 files. Huan wanted to carry on past ten, I asked her to wait until tomorrow or this post would never get done!

And that’s it; we come to the end of another week, a cold one for us. We hope you are all coping with the various levels of lockdown that you are experiencing. If you get bored, you can always send me ribald comments! Bye bye until next time.