Long Wait, BIG Needle, Randy Duck, Camelot’s Dead, Dentist Respite, New Library

March 9^th Our day started off very well, up at half past four and ever so glad we didn’t leave the car where we usually park it, we’d never have got out.

However, after an uneventful drive to Haikou, and being early enough for the hospital car park and the cashier, our luck unexpectedly changed. This is our receipt for the doctor, normal price, surgery #2 but patient #45! We are usually below 10 when we arrive this early.

We had time to go out for breakfast, go for a walk around the block and even walk around the little park behind the hospital. Here’s the park and both of us, all masked up.

This was the situation when we got back to the waiting room at nearly half past eleven, the doctor finishes at twelve for lunch. The centre column is ours, surgery number at the top in red, (2), patient being seen in yellow (39) and me in violet (45).

The doctor we saw was Dr Zhang, the one who carried out my operation two years ago. He told us that we should have been to see him last year; nobody told us that at the time! On the good news side, (yes there was more), he said that after today’s injection I needn’t go back until August when he would check all the blood test results again and see whether or not I need to continue with the treatment. That certainly raised my spirits! Mind you, I got a little worried when I saw this month’s dosage, previously it was 3.6mg.

I asked Huan if she would take some photos once we got down to the torture chamber, she took a few, but only two were worth saving. Good grief that’s a big needle! It’s a good job I didn’t see that before, I get nervous enough normally. Seeing that I think I would have wet myself! The nurse was very good at her job though and there was almost no pain. The second photo is me holding a cotton bud to stop the blood, and/or the medicine, popping out again.

And that was it, no more compulsory trips to Haikou until August. We did our usual grocery shopping, bought more butter and cheese than usual, some bratwurst, but couldn’t find any decent sandwich meat this time. We will run out before August of course but Sanya is much nearer and we can do the return trip in a day without having to get up in the middle of the night. Somehow, I stayed awake to drive home and then did nothing except this post. Huan was a little more active than me; she joined the ladies for some dancing in the square.

March 10^th Our power went off just after ten last night, no problem, go to bed, we were both tired after a long day anyway. This morning we were both up early and just after breakfast, would you believe it, the power went off again. Huan had a hulusi class this morning but for me, no problem, go back to bed! I must have needed it; I slept until half past nine. The power then stayed on long enough for me to boil the eggs for our lunch before going off yet again. No, I didn’t take myself off to bed this time! I did the old fashioned thing of reading books instead. By the time Huan came home the power was back again, so she didn’t have to walk up the stairs.

Despite us both still feeling a bit weary, we decided to have a nice long after lunch walk. Our destination was a place that I decided, today, to call Camelot because of the lady in the lake. We first saw her back on the 27^th July 2018 and we wanted to see how she would potentially look now they were building a new hotel there. Before we set off I had to wait a short while for Huan and managed to find these two.

Next up, a couple of cars, the first one you will guess the manufacturer, it’s not Italian, the second one I’m not so sure.

Down Sanyue San street we went until we were just about to leave Wuzhishan and then turned right to follow this little stream.

Huan’s first comment was “Where are the ducks?” Usually we spot them almost immediately we start this part of the walk. We did eventually come across them and lots of photos were taken not only be myself and Freddy but by Huan and Marvin as well. Here’s one of mine.

I chose this one to show you because there’s a story to go with it. I missed it but Huan caught it and took a few photos, not so good when they’re cropped though. This duck on the stone was quite happy and then Huan spotted one fairly rocketing through the water. It became obvious that the one on the rock was a female, the one racing through the water was male, intent on having his evil way with her.

While he was having his fun another male turned up to say “Oi! That’s my wife!” Quite the little battle ensued, before Huan stopped taking photos and came to catch me up. If I’d only known I could have videoed the whole thing.

On we went until we came to the small reservoir that feeds this small stream. Disappointment set in when we realised that nearly all the water had disappeared.

Our disappointment heightened even further when we realised that the lady of the lake was no longer there. In fact the lake was no longer there either, so much for me christening it Camelot.

I soon perked up once we got back on our route, back home along the riverside, when my little three legged friend turned up to say hello. I know he has four legs but only three of them work.

Just around the corner we came across this. Was it bought this way? Did someone just decide to build it this way? Note that the two handlebars work independently of each other, could be a problem if you and your partner disagree.

We took a slight detour then through a new apartment complex, ended up walking out through the main reception and sales area. It was a little on the expensive side, well we think so, for Wuzhishan, ¥16,000.00 a square metre. Their entrance pond looked very nice but it was very difficult to take a picture of it. Panorama wouldn’t work and taking photos to stitch wasn’t easy because if I moved away I lost the bottom of the central design. I really needed to be much higher. Anyway you get the idea. The left side is just the company name 清能/Qīng néng, the right side is 丽景湾/lì jǐng wān which means Regency Bay.

Seeing as how we’ve already had cars today, how about another one. This is a small electric car, probably fine for around town, but not one I think we would like to buy. In fact I probably would not be able to get my legs behind the steering wheel!

We stopped for dinner on the way home but instead of showing you our plates, as I usually do, today I’ll show you the selection. Forgive the clarity but it was taken through the window.

And finally for today’s photos, we both took a liking to this tree. The flowers are at least four different colours, maybe more. Is it natural or has it been cultured? I’m afraid that is something we can’t answer, maybe Gardener Google can help you.

In the evening Huan went off dancing and playing music and I sat in front of the computer to try and bring the Blog up to date. I gave up in the end because I was doing a very good impression of one of those nodding dogs on car dashboards or parcel shelves.

March 11^th This morning I woke up with a stinking headache so we decided to go shopping instead of walking. After lunch, we decided to have a restful day instead! Huan did some music practice. I did yesterday’s work and brought the Blog up to date. I also had to convert some videos for Huan so that she could watch them in the living room and learn how to play her guitar. All the videos I have downloaded play perfectly well on the PC but strangely some of them, not all of them; have sound but no video on the TV. The ‘properties’ of all look the same so I have no idea what the problem is. Converting them to a Youtube format with Lightworks seemed to do the trick. While they were in progress I also did some catching up with my guitar, still a long way to go though. “She of little patience” came in to have a listen and complained that she was having difficulty in even grasping one chord. I tried to explain that I am still not good enough to call myself a guitar player despite playing since September 2019, with a recent three month abstinence of course. I carried on with video converting and guitar practicing while Huan went out for her daily dancing and music session.

March 12^th I thought we were off to the dentist this morning but Huan told me it was tomorrow afternoon. Maybe I’m wrong, but I followed orders. Instead we took the opportunity to have a lazy morning and went to have the car washed instead. Now if we had a villa, I could do it myself, but that’s another story. While the car wash was taking place we had a little walk, enjoying the air, buying the weekend’s lottery tickets and trying to convince Huan that she really needs an electric bike. After the wobbles she had last time she tried that’s not an easy task but I did get her to sit on a three wheeler. Don’t they look just made for each other?

Tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and I told Huan how sandwiches like this were very rare when we were children. It was normally “Shippam’s” meat paste, with no added extras like cucumber or tomato, and with horrible tasting margarine not butter. If we were lucky we got fish paste which at least was not so dry. Once in a blue moon we got even luckier and had real tinned fish, pink salmon if I remember rightly, still margarine and no extras though. Sometimes, we forget just how lucky we are to be able to afford to have all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and to be able to have them all the year round, not just seasonally.

Huan’s drum lesson for this afternoon was cancelled so I thought we’d walk together. I thought wrong, because a few minutes later she got a message from the hulusi teacher. As the classroom was free, (no drum practice), they could have a hulusi lesson instead. Being the gentleman you know I am, I walked her up there and then had a little stroll around town looking for things to take pictures of. I failed.

March 13th Today’s plan for this morning, unusually, went as it should have done. Our first port of call was to be the new library. It has quite an impressive entrance, although it is usually locked with a bicycle lock out of working hours. There is also a temperature scanner on the way in. Being the weekend there were no staff on duty downstairs but I guess the staff on duty upstairs can see what’s going on.

It’s quite impressive, the second floor is for children and the third floor for us slightly older people. It’s all in Chinese so I was a little lost although I did find William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, Chinese versions. Like all libraries there were people catching up on the news, studying, doing homework or just reading, and it was quiet. As it is new there are still one or two empty shelves but they’re doing well I think. Here are two of the rooms.

My only disappointment was the lack of an English newspaper and no I don’t mean the ones published in the UK. China Daily does have an English edition but it only seems to be available in the bigger cities. If that was available here, I’d be a regular visitor.

They do have a wonderful selection of newspapers and magazines for the locals though, it brought back memories for me of wandering around W. H. Smiths and the like back in Britain. These two titles caught my eye, you probably all know National Geographic, well this is the Chinese edition. The second photo has an English subtitle, I’m not sure why, it’s all Chinese inside. However, more memories were stirred looking at circuit diagrams of various electronic bits and bobs. I wonder if I could still repair anything?

After the library we set off to see how the Saturday market was doing with its new roofed area. It wasn’t. For some reason there was no market today, we’ll have to check back again another time. Home we went via the bap man where we bought some flat bread for tonight’s dinner. Returning down the other side of the river you can see a scarcity of people, probably getting too close to lunch time. The flowers were on the wall outside our building.

After almost falling asleep after lunch I had to slave away getting dinner prepared before we went out to the dentist. Today’s dinner was curry so the rice had to be cooked first, we don’t like using more than one appliance in the kitchen at the same time. (Long story.) Once that was done the vegetables were parboiled and the cucumber raita prepared. Unable to delay any longer I then let Huan drag me off to get my teeth seen to. Unfortunately, the dentist had been called away, his father had been taken ill; he’ll be back in a few days, a lucky escape for me this time.

Despite us both feeling very worn out we had a little walk before going home for me to carry on with the curry. We didn’t really have enough curry powder but before going out I had marinated the chopped beef in soya sauce and some red pepper powder as a failsafe. It worked, the curry was not bad at all, and if you’ve never tried cucumber raita with a curry, I can highly recommend it. Ours today was served with Huan’s four coloured rice again, also good with curry. What would have been even better would have been one of us remembering to take the flat bread out of the fridge! Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

March 14^th “Hey, Sunday sun, Let's go walkin'” courtesy of Neil Diamond, and that was our plan for this Sunday, a nice long country walk.” Inclement weather changed our minds for us, it didn’t actually rain but it was a miserable morning. Instead it was some guitar for me and some guitar and keyboard for Huan. I’m slowly getting back to where I was, not pushing my chord hand though. I also started editing my saved songs to add images of the chords, it may help Huan when she gets a little better and it will help jog my memory too.

A lazy afternoon followed with me watching another spoof James Bond movie, this one even included Lois Maxwell, Bernard Lee, Neil Connery and some other well known Bond actors. The name of the movie, on Youtube, was “The New Spy Against Divided Evil” but checking Wikipedia it appears to have been called “O.K. Connery”, released in America as “Operation Kid Brother”. It comes under the genre of ‘Eurospy’ or ‘Spaghetti Spy’ movies and received absolutely terrible reviews. I found it amusing enough and it passed some time on a lazy Sunday afternoon, what more could you need.

Huan found the guitar learner’s book that came free with my guitar, in Chinese, which is why I don’t use it. The first thing I had to do was scan and print this.

Huan thinks it will make her learning much easier, whereas I think the ‘foreign’ one is far simpler to understand. She also has the colour coded dots on her fretboard that match this one.

An after dinner walk was definitely needed today, even Huan noticed that my left foot was swollen again. I decided to show her the route over the mountain towards the Shangri La complex even though we would probably have to come back the same way. On the way we passed a gentleman vacuuming the road, at least that’s what I told Huan he was doing.

Last time I walked up this way I gave you some panoramic views, this time having Huan with me, you can have a selfie view instead. Two minutes before there was a kind of sunset but by the time we reached a vantage point the sun had disappeared behind the clouds.

Arriving at the top of the mountain it wasn’t fenced off as it had been on my last visit but there were two workmen there who wouldn’t let us go any further. One of them was knocking bits of the mountain down where you see the scaffolding. Rather him than me, I’d be very worried about the mountain fighting back!

Retracing our steps I was quite taken with the view that the residents of Shangri La will have when they leave their complex. Mind you, the owners of Shangri La will probably build a lot more buildings on this side thus spoiling their view. I could be wrong as their complex does include a lot of villas.

Huan had us go back a slightly different way, going through a building under construction, I’m sure she is trying to get me arrested! The light was going so we didn’t take any photos but it looks to me, like many other buildings under construction, that they may have run into cash flow problems. Reaching the other end we found a locked gate with no way out. Luckily, there was a watchman on duty who, although surprised to see us and wondering where we had come from, opened the gate and let us out. Huan will have to try another day to get me thrown in jail!

March 15^th Sod’s law struck again! It was a lovely day, sunny with a bit of a breeze, perfect for walking in fact, but we had to go shopping, the fridge was empty of vegetables. Luck was on my side though, I got to have a nice long 8.5km walk. I thought I would check out another one of our “shortcuts”, forgetting that I had been that way a few months ago.

I remembered when I came to the village at the end, but still forgot where to go next, After a few attempts at different ways out of the village I remembered that I had to turn right just after the pole you can see on the right of this photo.

Eventually I got out on the other side where they are doing some construction so I found a vantage point to show you where I had come from. My route had taken me between the tall buildings on the left and the tin roofs next to them, past chickens and dogs that thought they were scary. In reality, they just bark a lot.

We haven’t had any Chinglish for a while so here’s another example for you. They have taken two words, (Transformer Compartment) and managed to make them into five words whilst still missing some letters out.

Before long I was back on the homeward stretch, looking at our buildings from a different view, under the new park island bridge. It’s not often I take that route but today it worked out fairly well, there was a butterfly. Yes, one, single, whole butterfly, that deigned to stay still just long enough for me to take one, single, whole photograph. That photograph has had to be immensely cropped so that you can see the little creature.

So, another Monday comes to an end, which means another week of posts has been completed, hopefully you’ll find something to raise a smile. Finally for this month, I just discovered that I am palpebrous! Don’t worry, it’s not contagious. See you next time!