June 15th Neither of us felt
on top of the world this morning but we both had to brave the outside world
anyway. Huan had her singing class to go to and I needed to walk, somewhere.
Huan’s class was at the
Behind me in the above photo was a completed building not yet fully occupied so I sneaked in for a little snoop around. The apartments were not accessible but the ground floor rooms were. There was a very large empty room at the back and then these two rooms either side of the front door. The snowbirds will be busy and happy!
Caterpillars were up next but none that you didn’t see last week, followed by a butterfly. We had differences of opinion as to which photo to present here so you can have all three.
Another little beastie follows although this one was not quite so little. I would estimate it to be about ten centimetres long, big enough to worry a lot of people.
Not one lizard was to be found anywhere today, despite me going all around the riverside to try and find one. I heard the occasional scuttling into the undergrowth from the flower beds but there wasn’t one single poser on a tree.
Nearer to home, the car show had finished and the riverside was back to its more normal use, tea drinkers and card players. I did find a car for you though, manufactured by Great Wall Motors under the brand name Wey, a Tank300. I would consider this but not in black!
Keeping an eye on the weather and having had a call from Huan to say that she was on her way home, I walked just a short way past our apartments, on to the bridge to nowhere before doing a U-turn and heading back home. Why? To make the target of ten kilometres of course!
New shops are beginning to appear in the ‘newest’ building on our road, a fine restaurant which we may be visiting next week, a corner shop, a hairdressers, Hainan Duty Free, (not sure when that will open) and these two below. I thought you’d like to see the ‘Fried Chicken’ and like me, I wondered what you would think about having ‘Many Happy’.
Why not finish off today’s snaps with another car, one that again I wouldn’t mind but again, not in this particular colour. I quite like green but this one is not quite right for me, how about you?
Well I met my target for the day so I could out my feet up and rest. “What, no cooking?” I hear you ask. Nope, no cooking, dining out yesterday upset the timetable. I will be cooking tomorrow mind you, in the morning, because Huan will have a very busy day. She has a practice session in the morning and a dress rehearsal in the afternoon. That means she’ll be too late for dinner, so we’ll have dinner the old English way, in the middle of the day.
June 16th Sometimes I give up, our plans were changed yet again, Huan would not be going out in the afternoon so I was back to cooking dinner for dinner time, not lunch time. She had another rehearsal this morning so I walked her to the cultural centre providing a little bit of moral support. Before we left our place I spotted this little lizard, it actually changed colour while we were watching it, it was much redder in the first photo I took. Huan wondered if it was going to try and eat the snail. I told her that if the snail was in danger it would have gone back indoors!
Today I was just meandering, trying to make sure I got home in time to make Huan’s lunch. Passing at the lower end of the bap and sausage market I thought you might like to see some different water features. Both of these are in the same apartment complex, in fact they are right next door to each other. The lily pond is a little uncared for but still looks pretty enough. However, the swimming pool has never been looked after and has never been used since we arrived in 2015. We know a few like that!
Meandering I may have been, but this little one was going even slower than me. There were quite a few of them out and about today, you can see two in the lizard photo above. With this one I wondered if it had been bitten on the bum or if it had a #2 problem. I guess I’ll never know the answer to the first question, as for the second one, the answer is no. Snails actually poop inside their shells and then it comes out at the front, thank you Google.
What was I saying about plans? Huan came home for lunch, very late, and told me that I had to take everyone to court again this afternoon for another hearing about the gas. Now if I had known that this morning, when Huan knew, I could still have cooked dinner for lunch. Oh no, instead I had to cook it in dribs and drabs before court, while they were in court and then afterwards when I brought them all home again.
Did anything of importance happen at court today? Not really, two of
the ‘other parties’ didn’t even bother turning up so yet another hearing will
have to be arranged. I wonder if there is a penalty for not attending court
here in
At least I did manage to get Huan’s dinner cooked before she had to go out again, today was dress rehearsal day. I gave her an English breakfast before she left, kedgeree.
As usual I had to make some modifications. Smoked fish is not available here so I had to use fish fillets, pangasius fillets to be exact. We can’t get peas here either, frozen or tinned, so I used snow peas instead. It worked for dinner but I think for breakfast you really need to stick to the smoked fish version.
The ‘orchestra’ had to be down at the town square by six so I offered to be the taxi driver. Half way there we had to turn back, Yú had forgotten her fascinator, not only that she had forgotten something even more important, her hulusi! While we were waiting in the car for her, Huan told me that the rehearsal started at seven but the leader wanted them there early to check everything, costumes, make-up, hair etc. At least there is some planning going on.
They asked if I was going to stay and for the second time today, I declined. Tomorrow I will do my best to be there when they actually perform and I have some idea of how much waiting around I will have to do.
June 17th Surprise, no rehearsal for Huan this morning, she could relax a bit. More surprise, she decided that a walk would be in order! I wasn’t complaining but I did try and keep it a little more sedate and tried to avoid the sun. That was necessary today due to the cloudless sky.
I know it looks the dreaded blue screen of death but that is actually the sky, it’s what we could see as we crossed the bridge to nowhere. We wanted to check up on the irrigation canal progress, this is what we saw, the canal had disappeared! We had wondered if the new road would have ‘legs’ to cross the canal, it seems not, the canal has been buried under the surface.
This is where it goes in.
And this is where it comes out.
From there we took the shaded route past the mansions on the hill to see my bovine friends. They were all in the corner of the byre, the only part that had some sun. I daresay I could have got them to come to the gate but I didn’t want to disturb them. I did get one snap though, through the little arch, along with a chicken.
Some little chicks were enjoying the sun too. Initially I thought that the one lying down had a problem but as we got nearer they all ran off.
Some insects were busy getting pollen, Huan thought they were bees, I wasn’t so sure, but neither of us wanted to get nearer for a closer look.
Another insect caught our eye, an unusually coloured dragonfly.
Today we took a route we hadn’t walked before; we’ve never noticed this particular track. The view was quite splendiferous.
From afar we thought the next photo was strategically placed birds on a tree. Getting nearer we saw that it was in fact nature reclaiming an old electricity pole. I do like to see nature’s reclamation at work.
When we reached civilisation, we parted ways, Huan to go home and relax, me to carry on for the magic ten. The final picture from my walk comes from another inspection of the damaged road. It hasn’t been repaired yet, but this fencing caught my eye. Do you think they are going to perform “My heart will go on’ from this ‘prow’?
Both of us zonked out in the afternoon, it’s hard being a superstar and a general dogsbody! After dinner show time loomed so I asked Huan to pose on the balcony, big mistake, the light was in the wrong place. Never mind, here she is.
And here is the troupe prior to the show starting.
I was in the wrong place to get a decent photo of the whole group performing but I did manage to get the right hand two, which of course includes the boss.
Many more photos were taken with
the
How was the show? Being a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the CPC it was patriotic of course, it even tugged my heartstrings at times. Was it good entertainment? Without a doubt it was, I enjoyed every minute of what was happening on the stage. My only complaints were that I couldn’t really get any decent camerawork done. All the organisation was done by 五指山老年大学, Wǔzhǐshān lǎonián dàxué, (Wuzhishan Senior University), and ‘teams’ came from as far away as líng shuǐ, lè dòng, bǎo tíng etc. A lot of hard work was done by a lot of people, most of them you can see below, but one mustn’t forget the cast, crew and familial supporters too!
June 18th No walking this morning, Huan told me that we had to go to the area clinic for a routine health check up, I couldn’t argue this time! Being brave, as always, I let Huan go first.
I hate needles!
Our hearts were next, Huan was done without me being in the room so it’s just me, wired up to a machine, waiting to go into electric shock spasms!
From there it was into the ultrasound room, I don’t know why, I did tell them I wasn’t pregnant!
I haven’t put on weight, the nurse asked me to ‘distend my belly’. The truth is that I have lost weight, I was only 82kg today, that’s at least eight less than the previous check. The bad news is that I still have a fatty liver, Huan’s has gone away.
Did this check up cost us anything? Not a cent! My guess is that the Chinese health authorities put a lot of emphasis on preventative medicine and by giving everyone regular check ups they can find problems before they become serious. We have to wait a week or so until we get the results, I don’t foresee anything to worry about.
The rest of my morning was taken up with sorting out all the videos and photos from yesterday, and today, deciding what to keep, what to bin and what to share. After lunch for Huan it was needlework, putting new elastic on our fitted sheets, for me it was cooking.
The author substituted fish for mussels. Having already cooked fish this week, I substituted back for hairy clams, at least that’s what Huan says they are and Google agrees with her.
This one was a difficult one. We don’t have a pan that will work on the induction hob and can then be shoved in the oven. Our second problem was that half the fresh cherry tomatoes we bought this week had gone bad, I had to substitute for ordinary ones. How did I get on? I preheated the oven as suggested, (then turned it off while I used the hob). Why? I don’t trust our wiring! I tried putting an oven proof dish in water in the wok to achieve the first part. Once that was done off went the hob and back on went the oven, in went the dish. The oven was still nearly 180ºC so getting back to 190ºC took very little time at all. Fifty five minutes later, ten more minutes than recommended, I took it out to serve.
The first thing you’ll notice is that it looks very different to the picture in the recipe. I wonder if #5 in the method is wrong and that those ingredients should be added in reverse order. Served up on a plate it all falls to pieces of course and is not very photogenic.
What was the verdict of the clientele? Not so good I’m afraid. In a restaurant it would have been sent straight back to the kitchen! Almost everything was a little undercooked, #7 in the method is very important indeed. Now, if only we had gas, there would have been no problem at all! Anyway, we both finished off our plates and what was left was put into a saucepan to be ‘brought to the boil’ for tomorrow’s dinner.
I really rather enjoyed our lazy day today, it would be very easy to have many more of them. However, walking must be continued to stop my feet from swelling, (old people problem), to try and bring my weight down a little more, maybe get rid of some of that liver fat and who knows, by some miracle, maybe even reduce my cholesterol. Huan didn’t have a lazy evening though, she was summoned by Yú to go down to our little square and play some hulusi. You’d think they’d all like a rest after the last few weeks!
June 19th No rest for the wicked, it was back to school for Huan today, singing school though, not hulusi. Much to my surprise, she agreed to pose for me on the way in.
Off I went then to try and get the mandatory ten in before lunch, first of all down the main street and past the pet shop. I do like to stop and talk to the birds, tickle the rabbits and the smaller furry creatures, any of which I would have in the house if allowed. I feel that relationships can be formed with most pets but I can’t say I’m sure about this one. It could be a salamander, more likely a newt, but I can’t narrow the species down. How would you get this one to sit on your knee while you watch telly, not easy unless you put a paddling pool in your living room!
Being a Saturday I had to take in
the riverside market as well, just in case there was anything new to show you.
There wasn’t but I guess the next photo shows something that you wouldn’t see
so much in a Western market. I may be being unfair but I’m fairly sure if you
left your change like that in the
Not long after I passed the
market stalls I came across these pups for sale. They were thirty five days old
and the owner wanted ¥500.00 each for them. According to him they were pure
bred German (something or other, legs too long to be a dachshund). Tongue in
cheek I told him that in
The last one for today is rather a beautiful creature don’t you think? Google failed me with this image so I don’t know if it’s an insect or a beetle or something else entirely. I do know it can fly, you can see it’s on the move in the photo. I put my finger in front of it to try and reverse its direction but it just took off.
I managed to complete my last duty of the day before heading home, the most important duty, buying the weekend’s lottery tickets. One day…
Huan had to stay behind and clean the classroom today, I wonder if you can remember doing that at all. Because I had walked far enough to get my ten in I was also a little late so we actually met each other at the apartment gate, perfect timing.
I finished the day with ‘The Persuaders’ and ‘Taskmaster’, where would I be without Youtube. Huan finished it by being Hyacinth but not quite so much as to make me feel like Emmet!
June 20th Father’s Day today, I remember ‘both’ my Dads with much love and then contemplate my own failures. My Facebook feed reminds me often enough how bad I was. The ‘posters’ are not singling me out specifically but sometimes the posts cut deep.
Huan chose today’s route, the farm road on the other side of the river, heading towards Nansheng, but not down the ‘hot’ road. On our way, on the riverside path, we spotted an enormous snake! Well, it certainly wasn’t small. I grabbed Huan’s arm to stop her walking, she only saw its tail disappearing over the river wall. She was more worried that I didn’t manage to take a picture of it, I was more worried about her getting too close. I would estimate it to be between 1.3 and 1.5 metres long.
We used to walk up the hill directly from the river road, you can see from the following two photos that we can’t do that anymore.
Even our regular route had changed and from a distance we worried that we might not be able to walk that way and be forced to take the burning asphalt route. Luckily, the workmen were not too busy and the route was still accessible.
Exploring was on the cards today, we took a turning that we hadn’t taken before, it led to rather a steep hill which we didn’t fancy. Just before the hill though there was a track off to the right through the trees, so we took it.
There was no ‘through road’ and at the end of the track we had to walk back. There was a small farm which I thought would look better in black and white.
Back at the small road we did explore the steep hill but it was very short and led to another farm. I was happy to accept defeat and continue on our way. On our way back into town we spotted this rather strange sight, a man holding a ladder in the air.
It turned out that one of the local ISPs was installing new cables. The other end of the ladder has hooks which were hooked over the steel hawser that holds the cables above the ‘high vehicle’ level. You can see more in this next photo.
Back home we just relaxed, had a little lunch and a little sleep. No cooking today as we were invited out again, this time to celebrate Father’s Day. Any excuse will do I suppose. It was a new place for us, in the ‘newest’ building I mentioned on Tuesday.
Here’s the hungry couple prior to dinner,
and the rest of the rabble.
I did my best to try and get a photo of the ten different dishes but they never stayed still on the table long enough. They are all here but some have been doubled up.
On the way home, the men just a little the worse for wear, unlike me of course. I had managed to have only a small tipple of Báijiǔ and not too much beer. I told Huan that the next time we have an invite I want a bottle of Tequila, some salt and lemon to wreak my revenge!
If we had English TV I would probably have fallen asleep on the sofa, as it is I just gently rotted in front of the computer, too lazy to do anything. (I had done my Chinese before we went out.) To my surprise, the ladies still went out for some hulusi practice, gluttons for punishment!
June 21st Huan had planned that we would walk today; I changed her plans and elected to stay in and cook instead. As we had not had our usual weekend stew and as we had a pile of vegetables going off in the fridge, I decided chicken stew would be the dish of the day. There is no recipe for that of course, although I did choose to use rice instead of potatoes. While that was bubbling merrily away I wrote up yesterday’s post. Here’s what came out of the bubbling pot.
The girls were off swimming after dinner so I said I would be a big brave bodyguard and walk them there. “We don’t need you!” they said as they set off on their bikes. I set off at the same time, they passed me here, Huan with a bit of a wobble, but she’s getting better.
They did manage to reach the swimming pool, about one and a half kilometres from home, before me, they beat me by two minutes! It’s not a bad pool, a little on the small side for any decent swimming but certainly not too crowded. Yú was obviously worried about being out in the sun, despite it being after half past five in the evening, can you tell?
At least the ladies finished the week clean, well apart from any chemicals in the water. I walked through the town and ended up back at home nearly as wet as they would have been getting out of the pool, nothing that the air-conditioner and a nice iced coffee couldn’t sort out though.
That’s it, the end of another wonderful week here in sunny Wuzhishan. It is a nice place to live, we consider ourselves quite lucky. If you want to know anymore why not ask me in the comments down below, or over on Facebook if you prefer. Until next week, bye for now!
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