March 23rd Did I poison us both? Who knows, but we were both under the weather last night and for me today as well. Whatever it was, it manifested in two completely different ways so that makes it highly unlikely that my cooking was to blame. It started with me feeling cold and having a headache, then feeling bloated and nauseous, and finally feeling as though my food didn’t want to pass through the oesophagus. And Huan? She had the opposite problem and was up twice in the night to go and sit on the throne. Could it have been my cooking? Who knows. In the morning we both ate a fairly normal breakfast, muesli for Huan, All Bran with walnuts and raisins for me. By lunch time Huan was on rice with olive leaves and I was on water. By dinner time Huan was back to normal, I was still on water. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Our ‘problems’ reminded me of an old joke, “Who’s the boss?” One day, all the parts of the body were talking about who was most important. The BRAIN said – “Since I control everything and do all the thinking, I am the most important therefore I should be boss.” The FEET said – “Since I carry him everywhere he wants to go and get him in position to do what the brain wants, I am the most important.” The EYES said – “Since I must look out for all of you and tell you where the danger lurks, I an the most important body part.” The HANDS said – “Since I do all the work and earn all the money to keep the rest of you going, I am the most important.” Of course, everyone got into the arguments and the heart, lungs, and ears all say the same thing. Finally, the asshole spoke up and pointed that he was the most important even though the others didn’t know it. All the other laughed and laughed to think of an asshole being boss. The asshole decided to prove the point and refused to function. Blocked up tight. Soon the brain was feverish, the eyes crossed and ached, the feet were too weak to walk, the hands hung limply at the sides, and the heart and lungs struggled to keep going. All pleaded with the asshole to relent and agreed that the asshole was the most important and so it happened. Moral of the story? You don't have to be a Brain to be Boss…just an Asshole.
March 24th Life returned to normal today, thank God! Huan went off to school, I stayed home and binge watched more Youtube. More songs were edited and practiced on the guitar after lunch, today I didn’t join Huan for the afternoon nap. The dinner menu was changed, I should have been cooking a Chinese dish, we went for burgers with Huan cooking instead. Both of us decided that our bellies needed a little rest before I experimented again! After dinner I went back to being an ‘Onslow’ while Huan out to play ‘Hyacinth’!
March 25th I hear the sound, of distant drums. As of today, that’s what they are, distant, we had an appointment to return Huan’s drum and costume and retrieve her deposit. It’s a long story which I don’t fully understand! The upshot is that all the drum class members were of the same mind and despite the drum supplier not being keen, he had no choice!
On our way out, we stopped by the gatehouse to check on the progress of our new security CCTV system, this installation is certainly more professional than the previous one was. We should end up with sixteen external cameras and one in each lift, the purpose of the lift one being to try and stop people spitting betel nut juice on the floor. I doubt if it will succeed in that, but the rest is not bad, here’s the progress so far.
A few minutes later, after walking up the hill, here’s a smiling Huan waiting for the money!
Still not feeling 100%, I decided that today’s walk would go through the woods behind the main street before showing Huan where I found the shortcut last week.
On our way we tried a detour to see if it led anywhere, but apart from a small farm it didn’t, the farmer told us we would either have to go back or climb over the mountain. He had ducks, chickens, geese, dogs, a pig and these wonderful turkeys. Every time we said ‘hello, hello, hello’ they responded by stretching their necks and giving us a ‘gobble, gobble, gobble’.
The farm itself could have kept us amused for even longer but we didn’t dally.
More birds here, behind the fishing and hotel place, as you can see they are not cooped up in tiny cages. In fact, once the farmer has finished with the morning chores they will be allowed to roam all over the countryside and find their own way back in the evening.
And finally, here’s a panorama looking out from the fishing lake and restaurant area. I know, there’s a sad lack of water, but that’s because they have drained a lot in order to carry out some more beautification work, both on the other side, and very close to the restaurants on this side.
Once through the shortcut and back onto the main road we headed for home, arriving just in time for lunch. After lunch, Huan and her hulusi buddies were off to the island with a little amplifier to do some practice, I was supposed to accompany them, to document it for posterity. Still feeling very run down after the last couple of days, I changed my mind and got Huan to lock me in and went for one of those OAP naps.
Huan was perky enough for her evening’s hulusi practice, I was still only just alive! More movie binging was all I did.
March 26th What is wrong with me? This morning I was back to feeling cold and bloated again whereas Huan was full of beans. She went off to the island for hulusi practice with the ladies and an amplifier to make lots of noise. She said I would be able to see them from the bedroom balcony. I tried, but failed.
Our planned afternoon walk was
skipped, Huan got called to a committee meeting. Today’s subject for discussion
was our gas, or lack of it anyway. It seems that the higher court in Haikou has
bounced the case back to the Wuzhishan court, something wasn’t handled
correctly. There will now be another court hearing on the 13th April
I believe, Huan said I’m invited!
Dinner was a simple affair today, no Soya sauce, no peppers, no star aniseed, no extras, just boiled cauliflower, carrots and sweet potatoes with pre-cooked chicken fillets. The sweet potatoes were white inside and not sweet, very unusual.
With me still feeling well under the weather, and still feeling bloated, we skipped our evening walk too although Huan did do her usual. I’m hoping that a walk tomorrow might sort me out a bit, anything to avoid doctors and medicines!
March 27th Our planned morning walk was postponed, Huan’s group had changed their plans and the hulusi practice on the island was to be in the morning. I walked Huan there, alone, despite the change in plans nobody else was ready. A few minutes after we arrived, Yu turned up, the others were even later, after I had already left. My plan had been to record a video of them all and maybe use some screen shots, instead here’s a photo of Huan and Yu.
Back home I got on with the task of cooking tonight’s dinner, a lovely pork stew, with ginger, onions and garlic, (of course), carrots, celery, parsley, yams and red cabbage. All was done by the time Huan was home which meant after lunch we could have a walk. Between us we decided on a clockwise trip round the mountain park walk, here we are at the bridge before starting on our way down the other side.
Our little friend was so pleased to see that I ended up feeling very guilty that yet again I had brought no snacks with me. I did try and get her to drink water either out of my hand, or by dribbles from the bottle, but she was having none of that. Further down we saw some fruit trees, wild I think and not part of a farm. Huan tells me they are 无花果 (Wúhuāguǒ) or to you and me, ‘figs’. They look nothing like the figs we used to eat at Christmas do they?
Back in town we met up with more of my four legged friends, ‘accidentally’ of course. These friends do like to bark a lot so Huan is not over keen on me stopping for a chat but as it had been a while, I thought today we’d make an exception.
So after a nice long walk, eight
kilometres up and down the mountain, granted it’s not very high, you would have
thought that we would both be ready for dinner. Quite the opposite was the
case, Huan was now feeling the same as me, bloated with no appetite, and in her
case, feeling cold as I had felt earlier in the week. My suggestion to stop off
at the chemists’ fell on deaf ears, as did the one about perhaps seeing a
doctor tomorrow. Neither of us ate dinner, I thought I would try an old remedy
of drinking Coca Cola to try and ‘fizz up my stomach’, Huan went for a lie down.
I guess we wait again to see what tomorrow brings.
March 28th Neither of us felt 100% yet so we had a lazy day indoors but decided we had to have a walk after dinner. Today is Sunday of course and look what we found. The church used to be in town before; it’s now moved to the main road, assuming it’s the same one. It’s located on the second floor, the ‘heads’ you see in the second photo belong to people visiting the next door downstairs restaurant. I was surprised to see the ‘advert’.
We walked back over the park island bridge to see if any of the saxophone playing ladies were in attendance. Once over the bridge I could hear fairly pleasing music, definitely not who we were looking for. It turned out to be coming from small landscape speakers, something that all too many Chinese parks and public spaces do.
March 29th Fingers crossed, we both felt better today, still not perfect, but well enough for a nice walk. Huan wanted to go over the landfill mountain, I wasn’t so keen, but I’m glad we voted for her choice. The highway towards Sanya, (
Pigs are still not very evident on our walks, here’s an empty pigsty. I suppose eventually life will return to normal and hopefully the price of pork will come down!
“Could we live there?” is a question that I often ask Huan knowing full well what the answer is. I could, but Huan probably couldn’t. In this case, the WC is away from the building behind the tree on the left of the photo, Huan is a big fan of the ‘en suite’! While she likes the idea of growing things and even looking after farm animals, she doesn’t like the idea of mosquitos and other bugs at all.
Almost at the top we bumped into a few people who came up the other way. They stopped at the little village for a rest before going back the same way. We never see anybody going up from our side or going down to our side. That may be because from home to the top is nearly five kilometres for us whereas from the other side it’s less than two. Here we are at the top before beginning the easy part of going down.
Huan and I parted ways at the six kilometre mark, she to go home and finish off the dumplings for lunch and me to get a couple of extra kilometres in. Her walk ended up being just under eight and mine just over ten. Mind you, to get ten I had to add a few hundred metres by going across the river and coming back again over the park island bridge. I managed to get fairly close to another bird, at least you can see this one fairly well.
After a week of not feeling so
good for me, and three or four days for Huan, we were both in need of a good
scrub-up. Huan was first, she had a lesson this afternoon, I waited until she
had gone out and then dived in the bath. Both of us felt heaps better, much
cleaner and fighting fit ready to face the world again tomorrow.
Only eight pages this week, and nowhere near the usual number of photographs, not to worry, we’ll make up for it in future posts! Bye for now.
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