January 18th More rest needed! Huan was still feeling a bit run down today; she didn’t get enough rest after last week’s bout of whatever it was. No complaints from me, I wasn’t exactly full of beans either. We did get out of course; the weekly shop had to be done. Baijiahui had its New Year displays up; here we both are admiring them.
This year will be the year of the tiger but why there is also a dragon in the picture we don’t know. Initially we thought that was next year but we were wrong, next year is the year of the rabbit. Anyway, seeing the decorations, and remembering the crowds from last week, I was quite dreading going into the supermarket. However, today was fine, there were two people on the vegetable weighing and pricing, normally only one, and four cashiers, normally only two, and not so many customers. That was the end of our outing for today!
January 19th Today we had our first walk in the countryside for a while, I took Huan the reverse way around the latest route I found. She was interested to see the progress on the road to nowhere so that’s our first shot.
Walking through the village the farmers were out in force, mostly planting rice. Note the young child as well, he is learning early. Huan was wondering if she could help, I told her to wait until she is back to 100% health and then maybe we can try.
Here you can see the paddy fields that they have finished planting.
Today we headed down the ‘steep incline’ that I didn’t go down last week, just to see where it led to. Seeing this view made me think we had walked this way before.
We didn’t walk down to the river, mostly because we didn’t want to walk back up again! Instead we took a fork in the road and then we both remembered that we had walked this way before, up from the river. We ended up in the ‘allotments’.
Before too long we were through the mansions on the hill and scrambling down the new way I had found up last week. Going down is much more difficult but we managed it.
We decided to cross the river today, the flow was less than usual and apart from one nervous jump on my part it wasn’t too difficult. There seems to be a lot of photos of backsides today; here are another two where Huan looks fairly normal and I look like a crazy ballet dancer!
This is looking back to where we had come from.
Apart from a lonely goat, an unknown fungus and some fish and chicken drying outside someone’s window that just about sums up today’s clicks. I did take one more trying to get a crown of flowers to balance on Huan’s head. However, the stem was too stiff so she had to hold it in place which rather destroyed the effect I was after.
January 20th One old man was lazy this morning, too tired to go out and walk. Huan made good use of her morning and made a load of dumplings! I wasn’t too idle; I did bring yesterday’s Blog post up to date. After lunch we managed a round the river walk, I was still wearing my boots though. My blisters have not yet healed so sandals and shoes are out, they rub, but boots are in, they seem to be OK.
Within just a few minutes we found a praying mantis.
No sooner had I put the camera away and started walking when Huan found another one. I did try, unsuccessfully, to get her to pick it up! After taking the first photo he hopped up on to the camera so we had a little chat.
Somehow, I’m not sure how but I’m sure it had something to do with Huan’s fingers; he ended up exploring my face. “Why are you eyes closed?” asked Huan.
Eventually I managed to get him back on to my hand again, handsome chappie isn’t he?
Birds failed us along the way, as usual by being just that little bit too far away. This next subject was not too far, I did have to wait for someone else to get their photo first though so I only managed one before he was put back in the bushes.
We went and had another look at the upstairs of our new, not very much used, shopping centre. It’s quite pretty and I think it could look even better if it was all in use but at a rough guess I would say that the rent is too steep.
Walk over we returned home for fish and chips with peas, not mushy unfortunately but very nice all the same. Today was my Youtube Analytics update day, 2044 people watched my videos last month. That sounds very good until you realise that 1718 of them watched me getting a needle in my belly again. What is it about that video I wonder?
January 21st Morning was a complete wipe-out, I was late up and exhausted. Last night I had a nightmare after which I slept very badly. In my thrashings I woke Huan up but she did return to sleep easier than I did. Rather than rot away with an afternoon catch-up nap we decided on a reverse walk of the last one we did but with a detour along the way. Here’s a view down the river that we don’t think you have seen before.
These next two photos show the rapidly widening bridge (pun intended) between our ages. You can see where my nerves are beginning to show whereas Huan is still a spring chicken.
Our detour took us off the concrete road and into the woods.
Suddenly, through a fence, we could see where walked on the 9th but there was no way for us to get through, even under the highway.
“Let’s go down to the river” said Huan, “maybe we can cross somewhere”. I knew better but I also knew better than to argue too much.
And here’s Huan pointing out the spot where I knew we couldn’t cross.
It looks like this and with my still blistered feet I was not taking my boots off!
“Why don’t we walk further, up the highway bridge, maybe we can cross there”.
Of course there was no way to cross there either so we ended up walking up the hill, under the highway and looking for tracks out of our predicament. Luckily I haven’t lost my sense of bearing yet so I knew we weren’t hopelessly lost. After some rough tracks we finally came upon a farm which meant they must have vehicular access somewhere. At least that would be a wider track even if it wasn’t concreted. We had to find our way through the farm buildings, making sure we left all gates as we found them of course, and inside we found pigs. In fact there were many piglets whose mothers were not too keen on our presence at all.
The other side of the farm we found a nice wide track which before too long became another concrete road, we were on our way home!
There were two choices, we chose the one on our right, and we may well explore the other one, in reverse, on Sunday.
Before too long I realised where were headed, a small village on the Changhao road. In the distance I could see a hotel under construction that has stopped constructing. If you look closely you can also see the mansions on the hill, along with a slight sliver of the highway, on the left side of the photo.
As if we hadn’t done enough ‘off-roading’ today we decided to investigate the closed fish farms that we saw recently. Some parts were easy, some parts were not. Thankfully Huan couldn’t use her phone to snap me during the difficult parts; she was too busy trying to help me up the slopes.
By the time we reached this sign, we had covered nine kilometres, much more than we set out to do. We didn’t feel too bad though, the last village had provided us with water.
Being a Friday we had planned a food video and here is a screen shot of the first clip. This is me explaining my feelings about KFC and explaining why we were venturing inside.
Here I would normally direct you to a Youtube link so that you could peruse the video so where is it? Well, we failed! KFC has no ‘real’ menus, you have to scan with your phone, choose what you want and then preferably pay with your phone. Now this is something that I can’t do with my phone very easily and Huan was not so adept either. Eventually I gave up on the video but we did get to eat there. Now I’ll have to go back another time! Once home it was all I could do to keep my eyes open until bedtime!
January 22nd A day late and I finally got round to doing yesterday’s post above. Today being a Saturday it was riverside market day so off we jolly well trotted. Remember the ‘farms’ on the banks of our river, there is now a government sign saying farming is not allowed.
Let’s start the market with chickens today.
Chinese medicine is up next but I’m pretty sure that most of you would shy away from this. You can’t really see what’s in the bottle but it is alcohol and a mixture of the dried items you can see on the table. I can only identify three; snakes, a frog (or toad), and some kind of horns.
Something I have tried before is what we used to call 1,000 year old eggs, but their real name is century eggs. In fact they ‘only’ take about three months to make. I can’t say I’m fond of them but if offered, I probably wouldn’t refuse.
Our walk today was quite unusual in the fact that a number of people wanted to speak English with me. Spring Festival has of course begun, at least as far as travelling goes, so many younger working people have returned to visit their parents who have retired here. I stopped to chat with one of my little canine chums and got ambushed by two young girls. They decided that as well as testing my Chinese they would also practice their English and attempt to plait my hair.
That was the end of my day, well apart from cooking a two day duck stew. Huan went out after dinner for a bit of dancing and hulusi, the first time for many days. Her friends were happy to see her again, probably more so as she carried some (terrible) alcohol chocolates with her. She had bought them for me but luckily for me, she also agrees they were terrible!
January 23rd Bombobobombobombobombombobobombobobomfadaengadengdengfadingadongding', Blue Moon! OK, I know it’s not really blue but it’s the best I could do today.
Where we off to today? As promised,
we were off to explore where the road ‘to the left’ went, the one we mentioned
on Friday. As we got to the village off
Pretty soon we were where we like to be, walking along country roads.
And then we found the spot where we would take a detour. You can see the track on the left that we walked up from the pig farm on Friday, today we headed straight on.
The road made for a very pleasant walk although we were gradually climbing and wondering where we would eventually end up.
Abruptly the road ended, all we had was a track between the old rubber trees which we followed for a few metres and then that ended too.
Down in the valley we could see the river from Changhao to Nansheng so Huan suggested we should try going down through the forest. Why do I listen?
Part of the way down we could see the highway and in the left of the photo a track we have taken before, but on the other side of the Changhao river. Maybe there would be a way to cross…
Unfortunately that was not to be, I had a run-in with a rather prickly adversary!
I have to say that before I lifted my shorts to have a closer look I was rather worried. Huan was talking about tying a handkerchief round my leg and I was trying to remember everything I don’t know about tourniquets! It looked a lot worse than it was.
With the ground ahead of us now looking like this, we decided we would have to turn back.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, going back up was a lot easier than going down had been. Here’s Huan scrambling up where I had just done a reasonable impression of a chimpanzee!
And here’s me on the final stretch shouting “Run away! Run away!” just in case SWMBO had any more bright ideas.
Going back through ‘team ten’ village we had a few strange looks, me with blood all down one leg and one hand covered in it too. Offers of help were made but we explained that it was just a small injury and that we would be home before too long. As you can probably guess, not a lot more photos were taken today.
So what did cause so much blood to pour down my leg? I’m not sure if you would call them spider veins or varicose veins but the least photo of the day shows you what happened. The thin branch caught me across the leg while I was trying to avoid the thick branch with my hands. One of the thorns punctured the blue vein and that’s the one that was leaking profusely.
All is well again now although I am waiting to see what my brothers and sisters will have to say. My brother’s remarks will probably need censoring and my sisters will sound suspiciously like our mother! Huan said we wouldn’t try these crazy things anymore, I am 100% sure that we will! Once you realise you’re safe, it’s all good fun.
January 24th No walks today, Monday is of course our usual shopping day. With Chinese New Year fast approaching Baijiahui was very busy, both the car park and the store itself. A lot of the vegetable stalls were already empty, no carrots, no tomatoes, no decent potatoes but we found enough to keep us going until the weekend.
After lunch Huan decided a trip to Ledong was to be taken. We were to visit our tenants and give them some bananas, some of Huan’s vegetable balls and a few northern sausages. I had a quick look out of the balcony to see if the greenery was still there. It was, but our tenant tells us that the people living there have been provided with new accommodation but they don’t want to move. They will eventually, when the price is right, but for now the view is still fine.
We often hear on the grapevine, otherwise known as a WeChat group, complaints about the swimming pool there. Today it looked fine and the maintenance guys were cleaning it.
Huan fancied playing with my phone as we drove home so our last photo of the day is one in which I failed with the pose. Only after she had finished did I realise that I should have tried to pose as Hyacinth’s husband, Richard.
Another week bites the dust, another one in which Bob survived the jungle. Stay tuned for further adventures of the ‘dynamic duo’ or maybe that should read the ‘terrible twosome’, the ‘crazy combo’ the ‘mental mates’ or the ‘barmy brace’. Perhaps you can come up with a more fitting nickname for us. So, don’t do as we do, do as we say and take care! See you next time.
What a wonderful life you 2 have together and I love reading about it and seeing all the pictures. Sunshine on a cloudy day.... XXX
ReplyDeleteThank you 'anonymous'.
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