Are We Really Retired? House Maintenance, Doctor(s) In The House

January 26^th Here we are at the start of a new week and no shopping today! There’s enough in the fridge to keep us going plus Huan has found a new hobby. She has found out that we can order food through Taobao and get it delivered to the shop across the road the next afternoon. We’ll see how it goes and whether the quality is worth the (cheap) price.

She also decided, in her capacity as foreman, that we would make a start on repairing the balcony. It has been damaged by water from upstairs and we have been waiting for good weather. That was my excuse anyway. I would much rather we got someone in to sort it out but Huan is adamant that DIY will be fine. Filling holes in the wall is not too much of a problem and I always let Huan do that, she is better than me at it. What she always forgets though is the work involved in preparation beforehand.

And here’s me after the worst part is finished. As you can see I was ‘feeling the pain’ and asking myself “Am I really retired?”

I left Huan sweeping all the dust off the ceiling and the wall and doing a rough clean up of the balcony. She had explicit instruction to a) not stand on the shelf, I had previously broken the one the other side two or three years ago, and b) don’t climb with the windows open. Off I went to shower the dust off me. Seeing my face in the mirror I decided a selfie was in order so came back out of the bathroom to get the phone and to show Huan. Where did I find her? Standing on the shelf, reaching up to the ceiling with the windows open! Who, me, worry? Anyway, the selfie, it looks like I’ve had an accident while trying to be a bad boy with the white powder.

All that was left before dinner was for me to spray the cleaned surfaces with some kind of waterproofing. In the shop they told Huan that if we had problems with water coming through the walls, we could use this stuff on the outside. That would be quite a job, since we are on the seventh floor, and who would paint it all afterwards. You can just imagine a whole building, perhaps fifteen years old now, with one sparkly clean apartment standing out from all the rest. Having washed all the white stuff off I now ended up with little black dots everywhere that won’t wash off! So, this is the balcony almost ready for Huan tomorrow morning, another coat to spray on after dinner.

Dinner was fish of the filleted boneless variety that Huan had ordered from Taobao and collected yesterday afternoon. The surprise, for me anyway, is that this fish is a Hainan product, with excellent English information, also both kosher and halal. I wonder where they usually sell it, we’ve never seen it before. Both of us were impressed, it costs ¥5.80 a bag, we needed one each, working out to £1.30 for both of us. It tasted fine, not waterlogged as frozen fish often is. That will definitely be ordered again. Maybe one day I can even have it fried with chips…

My last job of the day was to run downstairs for two Taobao deliveries, the first being 480 Tetley’s Tea Bags, they’ll keep me going for a few months. Second was a ‘Pulse Oximeter’ which I decided to buy because I occasionally feel a tightness across my chest and Google tells me that it could be a Covid or other respiratory problem. I tested it on Huan first, her blood oxygen was 99% and her pulse was less than 80. Mine needs to be checked again in the morning when I am a little more rested!

January 27^th SWWNO, (She Who Will Not Obey), was at it again this morning. Last night I had asked her not to start work before I was up too. As usual, my words fell on deaf ears so I woke up to this scene on the balcony. At least the windows were closed!

The area is still wet but you can probably see that Huan is, as I said yesterday, better at this than I am. One of my problems when I do work like this is wanting it all to be 100% as I go, and of course it doesn’t work like that. Huan will do another ‘coat’ this evening and then tomorrow I will be able to sand a little and paint.

Shortly after this picture was taken Huan put tonight’s dinner on to cook but then very quickly retired back to the bedroom. She had what seemed to be a recurrence of what we call her “old lady sick”. I only had to provide warm water now and then. Lunch was refused so I had my sandwich alone. A few minutes later Huan appeared and decided to have a bap with olive leaf paste on it. Whether it’s classed as a paste or not I’m not sure but it’s actually quite delicious. However, less than half an hour later Huan was back in the bathroom.

After she had retired again to the bedroom I had two more Taobao deliveries, first a tin of coffee granules, to last me the next few months, and second a small hospital. As well as the Pulse Oximeter we had also ordered what you see below, a zap style thermometer, a blood pressure monitor and a blood sugar monitor. Don’t worry, we are not ill, it’s more a case of using them every now and then to prove to Huan that I’m not that much of a doddery old git yet!

Dinner was another solo affair before I set off on a walk to buy tickets and baps. Huan had asked me not to do anything in the balcony so as I was saying goodbye to her I reminded her that she had agreed the same, not to do anything until after breakfast tomorrow.

Yesterday’s photos were all taken with Huan’s phone, the Xiaomi Redmi 10X Pro, today’s were taken with mine, the Xiaomi Mi10 Lite. Before the walk the photos were taken with whatever the default camera is, the photos below, taken during the walk, were taken with the 48MB camera. At the size they are, they look reasonably OK but they can’t be cropped very much.

First a view towards the sunset.

Next was a visit to the new riverside construction to see if any progress had been made. They have started on the roofs, the first photo shows the drainage guttering, where it will lead to we’ll have to wait and see. The second picture answers the questions of an aesthetically pleasing roof or a tin one. Bear in mind the pattern you can see will be on the top where only the birds will see it. Some passers by voiced the same opinion as me, the structures are fine, even good looking in a way but the roofs will be ugly!

My next port of call was the bap stall, time to stock up. I chose these two pictures for you, check the bottom left hand corner. It’s not too clear but I think you can get the idea, bargaining taking place, sale fell through, seller none too happy about it.

Twenty baps in hand, along with a freebie (his wife wasn’t looking) and two flatbreads from the Xinjiang man I made my way home. Today I used Xiaomi’s health monitor which worked, but I had to use the data connection. According to the phone GPS connection wasn’t good enough. There is also no way to export the files so still more research is needed. The results are detailed enough, 7754 steps, (129% of recommended), 53 minutes of moderate to high intensity, (Enough), Calories 377, (Not enough), Distance 5.1 km in 1hr 27min. These apps are full health apps, they will monitor your sleep, how often you stand up, and your vital signs if you buy the accessories. I don’t want, or need all that; I just want a record of my walks.

Anyway, I arrived home to find the lights out which surprised me, I thought Huan would have been up and on the sofa watching the TV. Sneaking into the bedroom I found her exhausted again, she had only got out of bed and done a second filling of the balcony. I’m sure she didn’t understand why I was angry. I’ll apologise when I go to bed and thank her for doing it!

January 28^th I felt absolutely terrible when I woke up this morning, perhaps I really didn’t want to work on the balcony? By the time lunch was over I was back to my normal self so I got on with sanding Huan’s work of yesterday. Unbeknownst to me Huan was clicking away like mad but I don’t think you need another pile, one will do. Huan told me to use this one; she said it would get you all talking!

We then had to do a massive clean up of the balcony to get it ready for painting tomorrow. The lattices for the climbing plants have gone; plants don’t survive well on that balcony. Once it was all done, coffee break for me before Huan dampened everything with water. That was the plan. However, Huan being Huan, she found some more parts that she thought needed filling. That means I will be sanding yet again tomorrow morning! It’s only a small area so hopefully I won’t need the electric sander.

As has become the norm for the last two or three weeks, we had an after dinner ambulation, just the riverside and the market again. Huan was not impressed with the ‘tin roofs’ either but we’ll wait until they’re finished before asking your opinion. I was certainly impressed with this next object, a Shelby Cobra Mustang. Someone’s obviously got money! It was parked directly under some decorative lantern lighting so there are a few too many light reflections. It still looks good though doesn’t it, I wouldn’t refuse if someone offered it to me!

Huan must have been feeling sorry for me today; I was allowed to buy both chicken sausages and pork with garlic sausages. The stall holder offered me a taste of the latter, by golly it was strong. Luckily I’m a big fan of garlic!

Oh, and the Xiaomi Health app had me walking 8670 steps today for only 5.6km, I think there is something wrong somewhere. The good news is I ‘stepped enough’, my ‘high intensity’ was enough, (don’t know how) and the calories were enough (436).

January 29^th Painting today, and for a change Huan hadn’t decided to start before I got up. She had sanded yesterday’s late fill though so I could rest for a while, which having got up feeling rough was a bit of a Godsend. Just like yesterday I started after lunch and just like yesterday the shutterbug was going mad. I’ll only show you one plus a selfie of me having a short break between bouts of painting.

Of course house maintenance is not only painting, it’s also repairing stuff that breaks and we seem to have quite a bit of that this year. Today we had the fridge repairman in; he replaced the automatic defrosting unit. And that was the end of my day. Huan went out to play in the evening while I just browsed the internet.

January 30^th Saturday, again, so I was all alone, Huan was out for her keyboard lessons. We had jointly decided that the whole balcony did not require any further painting, just some touching up here and there. Cleaning was required of course, lots of it, the windows and the frames. Here’s the view of the completed half, taken just before Huan returned for lunch.

Having had my lunch and resting on the balcony I heard strange sounds from the office, (what we call the second bedroom), and found Huan destroying more wall! To say I got a little bit angry would be a gross understatement, I was absolutely furious. This time I threw her out of the office, finished the scraping and did the filling myself.

After that I continued with the windows on the balcony, lots of photos taken by the boss, but I don’t think you need to see a half naked Bob yet again. Most of her photos showed a very visible builder’s bum, I only kept three and cropped them considerably.

Remember ‘house maintenance’? Well Huan came back after her afternoon lesson to tell me that our outside gate lock was now broken too. This is a fairly simple lock and if it was fitted to a wooden door, I would probably be able to fix it or replace it myself. However, it is welded to a steel gate and I am not buying a welding set just to cut this one off and put a new one on. Local expertise will be required; I told Huan we’d use my wallet and not her purse!

Dinner was a special occasion today, we ate out, I had convinced Huan that with her weekend lessons and our ongoing work in the house, it would be the best thing to do. Here is our spread, Huan’s on the left and mine on the right. It was tasty enough, (I don’t bother with the free soup, that’s not very tasty) and certainly value for money, ¥28.00 for both of us.

On the way home I dropped Huan off at our square for dama dancing and hulusi and I went home to finish half of the balcony, the toolbox half. It looks a great deal different without the trellises and window boxes, in fact the balcony feels a lot bigger now.

January 31^st By the time I dragged myself out of bed this morning Huan had finished cleaning the balcony, even pushing the washing machine back, bless her. I had been expecting to do the donkey work myself, instead I was met with this glorious site.

There followed a lazy morning for me, getting to be a bit of a habit really, doing not a lot until the C-in-C returned from her lessons. After lunch I got on with the office wall painting and Huan got a man from downstairs to look at the lock. As expected, welding would be required so the door was carried off in the lift. Hopefully nobody will nick our shoes while it’s away!

While the gate was away Huan went off for her afternoon lesson so I did minor work on the balcony. One little corner now has memories of Mam and Pwllheli again.

The gate returned along with Huan, here is the newly bought and installed replacement lock. Can you guess what colour I will be painting next? Hopefully that job will be delayed until after the New Year Holidays. One reason we are doing so much work now is that it is traditional to clean before these holidays and our house hasn’t been done since 2019. We weren’t allowed last year due to the sad loss of Huan’s Mum.

Out for dinner again tonight, the same restaurant as last night, but a lot more expensive. My dinner alone was ¥28.00 while Huan’s was ¥12.00. What’s more, I shouldn’t really have spent all that, my eyes were bigger than my tummy!

I was so glad to get home after dinner I even turned down an invite to drink beer with some visitors from Haikou. Mind you, if we had a decent foreign type of bar I may not have declined their gracious invitation.

February 1st Wishing a Happy Feast of St. Bridget to all our readers. She is the patron saint of blacksmiths, dairymaids, healers and poets. Died on this day in AD523 (orAD525) (Penguin Pocket Reference ISBN0-141-02715-0).

The “doctors in the house” were busy this morning, today was our programmed test day, so we had nothing to drink or eat before we started. First off was the Pulse Oximeter which we both passed, although we were both only at 95 for some reason. Next was the zapping thermometer’s turn, only 0.1ºC between us, both fighting fit. The self inflating blood pressure machine then took over, Huan is in the peak of health, and I’m not! The strange part was that my pulse was almost the same as Huan’s despite my BP being much higher. I won’t worry about it yet though. Finally it was time to stick needles in each other, very very small needles, to get a drop of blood for the glucose meter. There was a small learning curve so Huan got stabbed twice! Both of us were in the OK range with me showing a lower figure than Huan. Maybe I can have chocolates and cakes again! We decide that in view of the results, which will be recorded in Excel, with charts, of course, another round of testing would not be carried out for another three months.

Gazing out of the window after breakfast  noticed that our pristine new pavements were being defiled again, they are putting back the bike parking markings. This time though, they have done the right thing and painted them between the trees at the roadside and not at the back of the pavement. This means people can still walk without having to avoid assorted parked two wheeled obstacles. They will still have to avoid the moving ones though.

As we are now into spring cleaning with no more painting, we did the weekly shop today. It was really crowded, almost impossible to find a car park. Everyone is stocking up before the New Year Holiday. Most shops that supply life’s necessities stay open but once people are home for the family gatherings they prefer not to have to go shopping.

Huan was the busy bee after lunch, cleaning the second bathroom and more windows. I don’t mind her cleaning the bedroom, office and bathroom windows; there are security screens so she can’t fall out. I only worry about the kitchen balcony and the living room. I rotted away in front of the computer, feeling all washed out but I did cater for the tea break. During that time I also finished another wall on the balcony, another one that reminds me of my mother, not the hooks at the bottom mind you. Sorry about the differing shades of white, I was trying to hold the washing out of the way while I took the photo with my left hand.

Still on the balcony, I decided to stick the frog, whose cup sticker died a long time ago, on the window with some double sided tape. Below him is a rather faded loving spoon, from Pwllheli I think, given to me by my baby brother Richard.

Apart from an after dinner meander that’s the end of our day and the end of another week. Next week will be a lot more spring cleaning but hopefully Huan will be too busy to take photos of a half naked Bob again. Until next time, stay safe everyone, bye!