June 1st Marilyn Monroe was born on this day in 1926, Superman appeared
twelve years later in 1938 but for me, the best thing that happened on this day
was the release of “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by “The Beatles” in
1967. Not very long after that I was on the river in Knaresborough sharing a
boat with two young ladies while listening to “Picture yourself in a boat on a
river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies, Somebody calls you, you answer
quite slowly, A girl with kaleidoscope eyes”. It was being played on my
A new month, a new week and a new day, all at the same time, but not
much new for me I’m afraid. For Huan today was a singing practice so for me it
was a long walk. First, of course, I had to make sure she arrived safely at the
We go now from the beauty of nature to the cruelty of nature. By now I was walking alone along the main street and spotted a little bird. It was slowly killing a butterfly. I did take more photos of the bird with the butterfly in its mouth but none of those were clear enough to share. This photo was captured in the middle of the struggle, a few seconds later the bird flew off, breakfast in beak. Both are creatures we love to see, I guess we always forget the other side.
My plan today was to take the third exit on the main road, go up to the village and a little further to get the daily ten in. On the way I passed these serviced apartments, (meals included) and part of the same complex, a rest and recuperation centre.
I had a reason for taking the two previous photographs; I knew that in a few minutes I would be passing this next place. It used to be serviced apartments, (meals included) too, but we think it has gone out of business because of the one above and other serviced apartment complexes in the town. When the government changed the purchasing rules, the builders still had apartments to sell, so they took the route of serviced apartments.
Someone is making use of the frontal area of this place though, for drying seeds. Google was of no help to me in identifying the seeds so I’m afraid that’s another problem for you to solve.
Up next is the village I was heading for but I knew that if I turned back there I would not meet the target, instead I headed off up the valley.
The view from the top of the valley makes the walk worth while, the second photo shows the route we would normally come down if we had taken the fourth turn off on the main street and headed back through the countryside. I had no plans to go up there and through the forest on the other side, this is where I turned back.
Today I walked up on the valley floor, no shade from the trees, when we are walking the other way we walk along the side. As you can see it’s a much cooler and more pleasant walk.
After a water stop in the village I was soon on my way back down to
the main road. Last week I mentioned that
Did I meet my daily target? Yes, when I reached home I had completed 11.2km, definitely enough for a warm day like today. My timing was just right too, we were invited out for lunch again and by the time I had showered and changed it was time. Lunch was for the committee in celebration of International Children’s Day. When I asked why I was told that we are all young in our heads, I couldn’t argue with that! No photos were taken, I forgot and so did Huan. After an hour I made my excuses and left. Eating so much food after that long walk and being asked to drink more beer every few minutes was just too much for me. Once home I slept for nearly three hours, I guess I must have been worn out!
Tuesday would normally be a ‘show them what I’ve cooked day’, today I didn’t cook anything. Neither of us wanted any dinner, not even any sandwiches. All I had was a handful of crisps and a glass of Coca Cola, one of those rare days when I fancied some sweet fizzy stuff.
We have got food to show you though, another Taobao delivery. This time it’s a year’s worth of HP sauce. Unlike most Brits, I don’t slather it on everything, in fact I usually only have a little to dip my sandwiches in and even then, not all sandwiches.
June 2nd Yesterday was boots in the countryside, today was sandals round the riverside. After dropping Huan off at the OAP Cultural Centre I set off meandering not at all sure if I would be able to meet the daily target. The first photo of today is looking south, downstream, from the first bridge; you can see our apartments there.
I tried my hardest to find some little beasties today but I only managed to find one. Sometimes we can get mantids to walk onto our hands, today I failed; in fact I knocked this one off its perch! Either it was very tired or it was getting a little too old.
Nothing jumped into my lens for the rest of the walk, although I did take another photo from the last bridge in town, again facing south but upstream this time. “How is this possible?” I hear you ask. Well it’s all because the river loops around a great big horseshoe bend, if you check the satellite images on Google maps, you’ll see what I mean.
My meanderings brought me to the rendezvous point outside the Cultural Centre just about at the right time to meet Huan. However, her class overran by nearly twenty minutes so I had to hit pause on the walking app. At that time I was well over nine kilometres though so by the time we got home I had exceeded the target by eight hundred metres. Yet again I had to hit the bedroom for an afternoon nap!
Since we ate out yesterday I had to cook the pork that we’d left in the fridge today. For a change no recipe was required, it was a simple British meal, fried pork, potatoes and broccoli. I tell a lie, I did use a recipe to make raw apple sauce. It’s very easy; all you need are apples, lemon juice, honey and cinnamon. The taste is very different to shop bought apple sauce, in fact Huan doesn’t like that at all but she scoffed a lot of this one.
June 3rd There was a surprise in store for me this morning, I had expected to be
walking Huan to the
We took a very short detour just to look at a farm on the way; I wanted to see if it was one that I had seen from further up in the trees, it wasn’t. It was a very noisy place with at least six or seven dogs shouting at us to go away! Here are three of them and the farm.
Retracing our steps, once we were back on track we only stayed there for a few hundred metres before we took another detour to see if we could look over the farm. Huan suggested we climb even higher up the mountain but I declined, too warm and not in today’s plan.
Almost back to the main road, between the second and third turn-offs, we passed the fish farm and restaurant where the pond is still dry due to ongoing renovations. Huan decided, with a little encouragement form me, to have a go on the swing. It’s probably not meant for people to swing on, it is held up by steel hawsers over steel tubing and is desperately in need of some grease. Still, it brought a smile to her face.
Next we saw something that neither of us had ever seen before, a cow with floppy horns. Yes, you read that correctly, floppy horns. As he was chewing away his little horns were wobbling in synchronisation with his jaw. Google was no help to me so I have no idea why this was so.
Back on the main road we headed towards Sanya turning right just before ‘Camelot’, the place that used to have a lady in the lake. I wanted to show Huan a new route, a short one because by now she fancied turning round and going home. Since I came last time the machines have moved in, we passed an excavator which I didn’t think of photographing and then passed this truck too.
It will be a while before we attempt this route again I think. What are they doing, where is this road going? As always, it looks like even more buildings are going to be built a little further on.
Easing Huan’s mind somewhat we didn’t walk along the riverside to go home, that would have added time, distance and heat to our travels. Instead we walked back up the road into town where, if my calculations were right we would just about meet our (my) daily target. Here we are, sitting on a little wooden bench outside our front door, proudly displaying the distance 10.1km, and greedily finishing off our refreshments.
And that was the end of my day, apart from making lunch and having an after lunch sleep. Her Ladyship had to go out again after dinner to play her hulusi by the riverside. They do have some strange ideas at times. What worries me is that she goes off precariously riding her bicycle! She will improve, I know that, and it’s certainly better that I stay out of the way. Her confidence can only get better the more she cycles alone, and without any critiquing from me.
June 4th No boots again today, I had to walk Huan to the cultural centre before setting off on my wanders. After dropping her off it was back down the main street for me, I wanted to reach the hot part of the walk before it got too hot! Walking through one of the many small parks I suddenly thought that we’ve never showed you the bas-relief sculptures before. I therefore present to you, for your viewing delectation, a selection of those reliefs.
“A dog is here, (a dog is here), a dog is there (a dog is there), My dog he got three legs, But he can run.” Now if you search that you will find ‘can’t’ instead of ‘can’, but I searched and found the writer’s comments, “Three Legs’ for instance was me jamming around with a blues idea, and then with no particular relevance I sang ‘my dog, he got three legs, but he can run’, meaning that everything doesn’t have to be perfect, it can still work.” The writer was Paul McCartney and the track is from the album RAM, still one of my favourite albums after all these years. Anyway, back to my walk, my friend doesn’t have three legs, he has three and a half and he can still run!
I was headed for the riverside to walk back
into town, rather than the other way so that I could hopefully miss the worst
of the heat. I certainly missed the crowds, take a close look. We live in
I was also hoping to make Huan jealous by finding hundreds of lizards, she does like to see all kinds of little creatures. She would have liked this little butterfly and if I had missed it she would have dragged me back to take a picture. I didn’t miss it and I think this works quite well with the white flowers around too.
The lizards, or geckos, whatever you prefer to call them, were not so visible today. I was wondering why when “Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.” (My head didn’t grow heavy, and my sight didn’t grow dim, and I didn’t have to stop for the night.) They were watering the flower beds from above so I guess the little beasties disappeared to avoid the rain!
One or two did come out though; in fact I managed to snap three. Mind you, you’ve seen them all before, and recently, so I won’t post them today. Instead I’ll show you some bird photos again, it’s the same one from last week or the week before I think, it seems to be hanging around here for a while. Today it appeared to be slowly heading downstream while circling, perhaps looking for prey. One day we’ll get closer!
Once again my timing was not bad and I was just a minute or two early to meet Huan from school. Not only that, but arriving home I had managed to achieve my ten kilometres. For a change, I didn’t fall asleep after lunch today, probably because it was my turn to cook. Western food was on the menu again, with no recipe, steak, baked potato and cauliflower with a mushroom, garlic and black pepper sauce. I put the sauce on before taking the picture so that it would hide the steak. There was nothing wrong with the cooking, it was just the wrong cut for a decent steak. You may also think the cauliflower is a bit on the large side, that was the smallest one I could find for the two of us.
Despite the steak being ‘not so good’, we both enjoyed the dinner very much, it’s been a long time since we had baked potatoes. The sauce, created by moi, was also very well received by Her Majesty, I’ll ‘file it in my brain box’ for future reference.
June 5th Huan was out of the house before I was even out of bed this morning; she had gone for a health check up at our local clinic. I was invited too but it’s not long since the last one so I declined. Getting out of bed was difficult today, too many strange dreams resulting in a very disturbed night’s sleep. Eventually I succeeded and looking at the weather stayed in for a while, it was very cloudy. Not long after nine I forced myself out, after all Saturday is market day at the riverside. On my way I also forced myself to partake of an ice cream, it was very difficult; I had to twist my own arm behind my back! Not bad for less than fifty pence, what do you think?
Today I thought I’d show you something different to chickens, pork and vegetables, here’s some Chinese medicine for you. Unfortunately, Huan only knows it’s a plant, not which one.
Next a couple of non food stalls, the first one has lots of sharp blades, the scythe looking ones are used to get things down from the trees, coconuts, betel nuts etc. The second one has a lot of electrical stuff, energy saving bulbs, solar panels, mp3 players, batteries, ‘head’ lights, reading glasses, string, inverters, power tools and even a chain saw.
Next up is someone taking a risk, not leaving all their eggs in one basket, instead leaving them all on the ground where someone clumsy oaf could stand on them. Before you ‘assume’, no I didn’t do that, despite being a clumsy oaf! However, I did get close, my sandals are there for comparison, these are goose eggs.
Most traders in the market use small tables, coverings on the ground or the backs of their small farm pick-up trucks, this one had a different idea.
Just as I was leaving the market, a chap cycling down a hill from the right stopped to chat. In fact he appeared to know that I had a liking for dogs and he had brought his dog to chat with me. The little fellow was only too happy to oblige as was I to reciprocate. His human did tell me he only understood Chinese though, perhaps that’s why after the petting was over he wouldn’t look at the camera, no matter where I stood, what I said or what I tried.
Not so much further on I was accosted yet again, this time by a woman with a child, she was more than likely his grandmother. Telling me that I was very handsome she asked if she could take my photo. Strange, I couldn’t see a white stick anywhere! One photo turned out not to be enough, she had to have a few more from different angles and then, believe it or not, she even had to have a video of me walking towards her! Eee, by gum, there's nowt so queer as folk, except for thee and me! Did you know that Gracie Fields sung “Eee, By, Gum”, you can find it on Youtube, I just did!
The weather changed before I made it home, I had no plan to walk far today, five kilometres was the target. I met it all right, but the last kilometre was in the rain, I got drenched! Still, I was all cleaned up and ready to make Huan’s lunch when she arrived home.
Being the weekend, I was also responsible for dinner today, chosen by the Catering Officer earlier in the week, duck stew. There were no arguments from me, I love stew and I love duck. On this occasion, what I put in would probably have real chef’s pulling their hair out, here’s the list of ingredients, I don’t think I’ve forgotten any. 2 duck legs, 1 large onion, 1 whole garlic, a few slivers of ginger, 3 medium potatoes, 1 large carrot, 1 red Chinese radish, a few stalks of celery, a few stalks of white mushrooms, (the tops were used to make the sauce yesterday), some spinach leaves, some dried orange peel, a couple of bay leaves, some Italian herbs, 2 star anise, a handful of cherry tomatoes, some dried flower stems, (Huan likes them), a little salt, a sprinkle of nutmeg, a dash of Soya sauce and a dash of tomato sauce. A few minutes before serving time, I took the duck legs out, removed the bones and the skin then put the meat back into the stew. Whatever the afore mentioned real chefs would think, it all came together perfectly for us, in fact Huan did an ‘Oliver’ and asked for more! Willpower stopped me doing the same.
The rain came back again after dinner, no music for Huan, no extra kilometres for me. We’ll not complain too much though, the island needs the rain, the mountains, the farmers and even the trees on our streets need it. Mind you, if it stays too long we’ll have to go back to exercising in front of the TV, I don’t fancy that much!
June 6th Teamwork was on the agenda today, Huan didn’t have any classes to go to so that meant we could walk together, you know, like old people do. Her choice of route surprised me, she suggested Tài píng shuǐ kù, the local reservoir, uphill all the way there! Checking the weather forecast, Huan’s phone said rain everyday this week, Windows 10, (Microsoft) said thunderstorms at twelve noon, so we decided to risk it. There was no biscuit though, shame.
You’ve previously seen a lot of photos from this walk so my task today was to try and show you something different. The hardest part of the walk is from the main street, by the traffic police station, up to this next scene. When we see this, we know that once we go round the next bend, there will still be hills but no very steep ones. The stairs on the left are a possible short cut for this bend, needless to say, we didn’t take them!
The next four photos were taken to give you an idea of the steepness of the road at these more pleasant levels, the camera still doesn’t really show the truth though.
You have seen many views of the town below from this road so today I tried a different one, a view with no buildings at all, just a piece of a buttress of the bridge I was standing on. As you can see the weather looked a little dodgy although, while the picture may make it appear cool, it was in fact very warm and humid. By this stage I was absolutely sopping wet.
Huan had me take the next photo, in fact without my glasses on all I
could see was a lot of ants. She could see what they were ‘working’ on and then
asked me which animals killed ants. I did tell her about anteaters of course bu
they are not native to
Did we make it to the top before the rain, yes we did, and here’s the proof.
Previously when we’ve done this walk, many times, the distance has always been between 6.5 and 7 kilometres, today we had to go a little further to get that far. We followed a little track into the woods and found a few birds. I wondered if the duck was sick, Huan thought it was just old.
There was a lady farming there too, she advised Huan and I to watch out for the leeches! We have had plenty of experience of those in the past and we had no desire to repeat that today so we took her advice. We did investigate another little track, and coming back down it, I spotted another exotic bird.
We were on the lookout for critters, as always, but didn’t find many. These next two I nearly trod on, in fact I thought they were both dead. They weren’t, the insect was just very lethargic, and the lizard did a fast runner when I leaned down to take a look.
Huan managed to find another one just before we reached home. It wasn’t an easy one to snap, mostly because my rear screen on the camera is kaput and I was struggling to get close enough to use the viewfinder, it was hiding under a car. It looks a lot different to the ones we normally see, both the sticky feet type and the clawed feet type.
Did we avoid the rain? Yes, my weather forecast was almost perfect; we had been home less than fifteen minutes when the rain and thunderstorm arrived. It didn’t stay long, but the rain did make a few more sporadic appearances through the day putting the kybosh on Huan’s hulusi practices. Still, she’ll have many more in this coming week; her show is coming up shortly.
June 7th Rain stopped everything but shopping and Huan’s evening music practice. And on that note we have to leave you for another week. Don’t forget to share with your friends; I could do with finding my lost subscribers due to my Facebook change. See you next time!
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