December 21st No rain this morning so Huan went off to Yefeng for her hulusi class. Before she went she confined me to barracks, I was on Taobao watch waiting for my new shoes. We’re off to a wedding party in January and I have no shoes left! I took the opportunity of confinement to cook tonight’s dinner early, apart from the noodles. Yes, I know I said last week we would be having salads with the fowl in the bag but with the miserable weather I decided nice hot soup noodles would be better. It could be a while before the weather improves, looking at my PC, next Monday will only have a maximum of 13ºC in the daytime, 11ºC in the night. I may have to search the spare bedroom for the hot water bottle!
My shoes came home with Huan, the
delivery driver turned up as she did. Of course I had to try them on
immediately, and as I expected, both pairs were too small. You may wonder why I
ordered them if I knew they would be too small. Chinese sizes seem to bear no
relation to European and British sizes. In the
After lunch we took the shoes to one of the express delivery shops and sent them back, to two different places. This confirmed to me that the seller we had chosen was a middleman. Now we wait to be sure our money is returned to us. The way that Taobao works we usually have no problems, our money goes into escrow until we confirm that the ‘goods’ have been satisfactorily received. In this case, the seller was telling Huan that if the shoes had any signs of wear they would refuse to send the money back. Photos were taken of the soles and the tops just in case!
Since we were already out I suggested that we walk around the town, past the river and back via our assorted shoe shops on the off chance someone may have a big size in stock. Down by the riverside we met someone else with big feet; she is going to grow to be a big girl!
Our ‘big girl’ then followed us a long way towards home, we had to resort to subterfuge to fool her. I guess I’ve made another friend. Not to be outdone, as we got nearer home, Huan found a new friend, it was furry too, but with more ‘paws’ than mine. Huan thought it was dangerous so I had to remove it with the end of my comb.
Needless to say we found no shoes to fit me so while Huan was out in the evening I did a lot of Taobao searching again, bookmarked many pages for her to look at tomorrow, after school.
December 22nd Much the same as yesterday, Huan out for hulusi class, I was up too late to be the escort today so I stayed in. The weather was miserable again and I took the opportunity of cooking dinner early.
Walkies called after lunch, Huan needed to check her Taobao account before we tried shopping again this evening. I forgot to take the big camera with me, sods law, we actually saw a lot of white birds today, none of which photographed well. These goats did though.
After the bank Huan decided to part company with me and went home for a rest, she needed to, far too much music occupying her every waking minute at the moment. Once she’d wandered off I went looking for yesterday’s canine friends, no sign of any of them. I do hope they haven’t got lost somewhere. Back along the river these flowers reminded me of how much we would prefer to live in a house instead of a flat. We do have plants on the balcony but it’s not the same.
Now that the dry, or should I say drier, season is upon us, people have started making farms in the river again. They hope that we will have no large rainstorms meaning the sluice gates have to be opened. Most years they have no problems but we have seen a couple of farms completely washed away. This is one where they have just started planting.
And here’s another one right under our little square. Note also the abundance of fishermen, I often wonder how so many people expect to catch their dinner when they are all in one place. As I am most definitely not a fisherman I can’t understand at all.
When I arrived home Huan wasn’t rested at all, she had bumped into an old neighbour and stood talking for ages. She made up for it by falling asleep on the sofa while the washing machine was doing its thing. I had to wait for that to finish before I could turn anything on in the kitchen, same wires to the fuse box which I don’t trust, so I let her snooze away.
Of course her rest didn’t last long, after dinner the first thing we had to do was order more shoes from Taobao. Again we made sure that the shoes could be exchanged if they didn’t fit, today we also confirmed with this store which other sizes are available. No sooner had we finished than Huan was out for another practice. Left to my own devices I had a strawberry daiquiri, well not a real one, just a liqueur chocolate. One of my younger brothers has a birthday today so that was my celebration.
For the last few years we haven’t had much of a Christmas here at all so this year I splurged! This box was not exactly cheap, each chocolate costs almost £1.00, but I have to admit they are nice, and strong to boot. I would not be able to get Huan to eat one, all the more for me!
December 23rd This morning I was sent out before the Musical Director! She had a later practice and I had to go and collect thirty baps she had ordered. No worries, this was one of my ‘happy days’ which meant a smile on my face wherever I went and whatever I did. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the local municipality was preparing for Christmas with all the poinsettias (or their Chinese equivalents) they are putting out, but they are also used for Chinese New Year.
On I went to the bap market only to find that the seller was not there. Huan had spoken to her the day before yesterday when she had said she wouldn’t be there yesterday but would be today, hence our order. I’m not at all sure that I understood what her neighbours said but it would appear that we have lost another source of good bread, back to Pinduoduo I suppose.
I carried on around our markets, looking for frozen turkey legs, and live markets looking for live turkeys. At the first market they assured me they had turkeys and then offered me pigeons. At the second one the first lady said they had turkeys and sent me to the second lady who offered me either roosters or capons. I guess we will buying a whole big chicken tomorrow then Huan can wait while they ‘prepare it’!
As you may know I much prefer
tropical climes to more northern ones but at this time of the year I do find
myself missing
Back to my walk and I found yet another of those pesky little electric cars for you. I do like that the Chinese car manufacturers are actually making cars that many people want to buy, little city runabouts. Sometimes I do think the names could be improved upon though.
My last picture of the day is one of those traffic islands, completed and with no people or cars to spoil the image. I must admit they do look rather nice, don’t you agree?
Despite no baps and no turkey my happy day continued, even after dinner, Huan stayed in this evening. Despite the fact that we are in different rooms more often than not, it is nice just knowing that she is there.
December 24th It’s Christmas Eve in the workhouse! Not exactly, Huan went out for another rehearsal I stayed home. Yesterday I found a whole folder full of music and videos that needed some conversion and renaming work. It took me all morning, even found one or two more Christmas songs in amongst all the others.
After lunch we went out looking for our Christmas dinner, via the bap market first. There was still no sign of the bap lady and the chicken market lady was still asleep so headed off along the riverside towards town. My new doggy pal had returned but today she was on a leash. It seems that when she followed me the other day she never returned home!
On we went to the market where yesterday they had tried to sell me pigeons when I asked for turkeys. Today I let Huan do the talking and we ended up with a capon. This is the before photo.
I then disappeared, my excuse being that I had to buy the vegetables for tomorrow, the real reason being I’m a wimp! Here is the after photo.
Once we had delivered everything to the fridge back out we went for our Friday dinner. Here I am standing outside the new 尽善咖啡, Jìn shàn kāfēi (Perfect coffee) café.
We will try the coffee another time, today we tried the pizza. It was small, but enough, you can check the video here - https://youtu.be/pA14dFm-YQo
December 25th Christmas Day arrived bringing with it dreary English weather! Not to worry, I suppose it went well with the full English I was cooking. Normally on Christmas Day I would make us a boiled egg and soldier breakfast. This year, because we had bacon in the freezer that had been there a long time, I decided a fry-up was in order. It’s such a long time since we’ve had one that we both quite enjoyed it although as usual, the sausages let us down. Black pudding was missing too but we made up for that with duck eggs, they’re bigger!
We decided to try and walk a few calories off after breakfast and almost immediately got caught in the rain. Huan asked me take pictures of it, never an easy job, but I did get a wet wife!
Being fully refuelled I tried uprooting a tree!
And then we found another treasure trove of poinsettias.
Of course I had to take a photo of my Christmas treasure next to the Christmas flowers.
One of our reasons for going for a stroll today was that it’s Saturday, market day. Due to the rain the market was a little sparser than usual with some traders having covered their stalls and gone into hiding somewhere and others had already packed up and left.
On our way home we found our first Father Christmas. This version usually sways while he plays the saxophone but for some reason this one had no power.
Lots of photos had been planned for our dinner today, we ended up with only one, the one before the chicken went into the oven.
I know; the head is still on. Anyway, before I could take any ‘cooked’ photos Huan had already begun eating. She was really enjoying it, even though I had forgotten the sprouts. Also Chinese white radishes do not make a good substitute for parsnips. For someone who doesn’t like to eat too much meat Huan did very well today, she had both feet, both wings, the neck and the gizzard. I had a leg and a bit plus the liver and the heart and had to finish off Huan’s roast potatoes! Like most families around the world, we will be finishing our Christmas dinner tomorrow.
The last photo we forgot to take was much later on before Huan went
out for some music practice. While we were in
December 26th After our last full English of the year we had planned a fairly normal Boxing Day walk, something many British families do and something we have also got used to doing. The weather had other ideas in the form of rain so we stayed in and did not a lot. In fact apart from warming up yesterday’s chicken and adding some new vegetables it was another lazy day. Ah well, it is Christmas! And at the risk of being different to everybody else, I think Adam Sandler movies make great Christmas feel good movies. I watched ‘The Waterboy’ and ‘Big Daddy’ back to back and loved them both.
December 27th Twixmas time, although Twixtmas sounds better, but really both are wrong. These days are between Christmas and New Year, not between Christmas and Christmas. Who am I to argue about the vagaries of the English language? At least we managed to get a walk in today, a nice long one, eight kilometres. Our first photos are of two birds, one with gorgeous colouring and one who is just gorgeous.
While I was looking up to take the
second photo, Huan had been busy looking down.
Huan chose our route today; she wanted to go downriver then back into town to visit her bank to check whether the ‘shoe money’ had been returned. As you can see the weather was pretty good for walking today, almost like Boxing Day weather!
The only part of this walk I don’t like is the steps which we have to take when we leave the river to take the country paths. Today I walked up the side instead of the steps and found it a little easier. Huan took at least twenty photos of my little ascent.
Our bovine buddies were pleased to see us today; they all came to the gate.
Today I tried to get Huan to have her photo taken with the cows but she refused. She thought that they might hurt her, despite them never hurting me.
Out through the village and a nice panorama for you. You may have seen this view before but I wanted to show you again today and take note of the yellow house in the trees on the left as well as the one to its right.
Love was in the air, or at least on the wall, I almost got close enough to touch these two.
For a change we went through the village and up around the top road today, the road that we would live on if we were allowed to. This house, which we both quite fancy, and is not for sale of course, is right next to the yellow one I mentioned earlier.
That brings us to this view, looking back across the valley at where we took the panorama from. Wouldn’t you like to wake up to a view like this every day? Mind you, we can’t really complain, at least we don’t have to look into other people’s apartments from our bedroom; instead we look over the river and our own little island!
On our way through the village we had seen a few dogs, managed to chat to some but Huan had missed the photo ops. She then tried to get me with a little kitten, with a little success but I thought this one was a better picture, if only because I am not in it!
Our last photo of the day, and the week, is another panorama. This is looking backwards across the fields just before we take the path leading us back onto the main road and into town.
I love to see
scenery like this; it shows that
Christmas is over, life is back to normal and Huan is back to school! She has her deportment classes this afternoon and tomorrow morning, hulusi tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning and then the final show of the year on Thursday.
I just stayed in and cooked dinner, I bet you can’t guess what it was. You could quite possibly have got the correct answer, noodle soup with leftover chicken, stuffing and some new veggies.
So I finish this week’s post sitting in my jammies with my dressing gown on, slippers and half gloves too. My only dilemma is should I warm up the hot water bottle for tonight! I know, we live on a sub-tropical island but to us it feels cold, 13ºC outside. Chinese apartments, at least down south, are not designed for cold weather at all.
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, see you next week!
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