Women’s Day Concert, Donald’s Birthday, Electrician Bob, Bugs & Lizards

March 8^th Plans went awry again this morning. Huan was supposed to be free today but at the last moment, when she came home last night, she told me that there would be another show on小岛 (Xiǎo dǎo). The translation is ‘Little Island’ and that is the short name they have given to our little island. The show was to be in celebration of International Women’s Day. I wasn’t so keen on going but the ‘director’ wanted photos and videos so I obeyed orders.

On my way I found another strange little bug, probably some kind of flying ant. I kept my fingers well away though, just to be sure. The photo quality is not so good; I could already hear music from the park so I had to rush.

Our lot were not the only ones in the park, the exercise equipment was quite busy and there was another group singing and playing music too.

Here’s our saxophone group.

I was quite busy taking videos but I did find the time to create this collage of all the performers. You’ll have to enlarge it a little.

For the last song of the hulusi group my view was blocked most of the time so I managed to get a snap of them instead. Missing are the two men but you can see them on the two edges of the saxophone group photo.

All in all I enjoyed the show; the ladies did play quite a few new tunes so I wasn’t bored by hearing all the same old stuff.

Walking home, eagle eyed Huan spotted yet another bug, this time one of those beautiful hairy caterpillars that she tells me you should not touch. I wish the head on shot was a little clearer, it looks like you can see a pert little nose and eyes there.

My afternoon was taken up with more Audacity work for Huan as well as compiling an Excel list of all the songs we have recorded for the ladies to play along with. Quite a restful day really, no sheet music printing was involved!

March 9^th Morning was school for the boss and Chinese studying for me. I’m on characters for a while, they are definitely not easy! My boots have not dried out since the stepping stone incident so no long walks were planned for today. Instead, after lunch, we had a nice stroll around the river. Markets were our detour of the day; all we found were empty ones.

The previous photos show the markets that are almost always empty, ever since they refurbished the market in the town centre. However, the ‘bap’ market was also closed today.

On our way to the back entrance of the market, Huan had a go at being an electric mini-taxi driver. I did offer to buy her one so that she could make some money, she refused.

Reaching the back entrance of the bap market we found more proof that indeed was closed too. The large sign talks about epidemic prevention measures, if we went inside we would need to scan our phones. Because we are off to Haikou next week we decided against going in, just in case we end up with a ‘yellow’ QR code instead of a ‘green’ one!

One of my friendly little pooches had his toys out to play with so I had to join in with a little play fight. As usual, Huan took too many photos, well over thirty with this pooch alone!

Bigfoot was in attendance as well today along with his little friends. I don’t think enough time has passed since the last Bigfoot photos for us to post more. Suffice to say that she is still a jealous girl and any potential stroking of her friends results in a huge paw beating my arm down!

Here in China people often ‘dry’ their own food, in this case a lot of small fish.

Coincidentally Huan and her sister also dry fish, a little larger than what you see above, sometimes her sister sends us some down from Dalian. That’s fine, we eat that, it’s tasty and I very much enjoy it. Huan however, is forbidden from drying fish since she tried to poison me with it back in Abu Dhabi!

Our car cleaning kit will arrive soon so a receptacle for the water was required. I thought it would be a great opportunity for Huan to take a photo of a ‘has bin’!

I did try and get Huan to let me take a photo of her with the bucket and call her Hyacinth but for some odd reason she wasn’t very willing!

March 10^th Thursday, Huan out morning and afternoon, so I did the same as yesterday, studied Chinese in the morning and had a stroll after lunch. Passing the animal clinic I heard quite a bit of barking so wandered over to have a shufti. There I found four pups and one slightly older mutt, all very pleased to see me.

The three little black labs, at least I think that’s what they were, were creating a lot of noise because their Mum was having a bath. She was sulking too much to show me her face!

One of our little squares has twelve pillars which correspond to the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. Looking up today I was sure there was a figurine of a woman up there but by zooming as much as I could and then cropping a lot I could see it was actually a monkey. My eyes are definitely getting worse!

Next up are some municipal repairs. Someone had previously stolen the ‘bamboo’ poles, they have now been replaced and the whole thing has been given a new lick of paint. “Bamboo Dancing’ can be seen all across Asia, I’m not sure if anyone really knows when it started. It’s classed as aboriginal and is hundreds of years old, maybe more. In Hainan it is practiced by both the Li and Miao people.

These two hungry birds are strange, sometimes they hide at the back of the cage, sometimes they answer your calls, today they both wanted to bite my nails!

Perhaps cows are more intelligent than we think they are; they can read!

That’s it for my photos of the day, I did take some B&W of an old guy swimming, I don’t think you want to see that. I also took some birdie photos, they failed completely. However, Huan tried some birdie shots as she was on her way home this afternoon. We can’t enlarge them enough but they turned out a lot better than mine!

March 11^th Our car washer arrived yesterday so this morning we thought we would check what we received and try to interpret the instructions. Here’s what we got.

Putting it all together wasn’t too bad but there were a couple of pieces that we couldn’t locate instructions for. We had to contact the supplier who sent us a video for those pieces, why they couldn’t just have added something to the instructions I don’t know. Once all that was done the battery had to be charged, at least a couple of hours would be required. In the meantime, as the bag provided was a load of rubbish I made use of an old briefcase.

Huan had been calling this my new toy but I reminded her that it was her idea, I was perfectly willing to keep paying to wash the car, therefore it was her new toy. Although you can’t see it, she does have a strong jet of water going there.

Here is what Donald looked like when the battery gave up the ghost. He doesn’t look bad at all, on this side; the other side still needed a good hosing down.

I left Huan to finish off while I took the battery back upstairs for a charge at the same time as I recharged myself with a nice cup of coffee. This was what she looked like without her new toy!

Once Huan was back indoors it was time for another conversation with the supplier, how long does it take to charge the battery and how long does it last on one charge. The answer was anywhere from three to five hours to charge the battery and then twenty to thirty minutes spray time once fully charged. I guess Donald was very dirty today, if we wash him more often then we should be OK but I think we may order another battery anyway, just to be on the safe side.

Being a Friday, we should have been out for a video dinner but Huan had an appointment with her hulusi friends, some will be going back up north soon so they are having an evening gossiping and eating nuts and seeds. Videos will have to wait a little longer. And here are said ladies with not an alcoholic drink in sight!

March 12^th Wouldn’t you know it, the hulusi girls were back to the island again this morning for another bout of posing for photographs. There were ten photographs of Huan by herself, I think we’ll just share one with you here. Whoever took it did a fine job of getting Huan to pose, that is something I always struggle with.

They had a few group photos, I particularly like this one. They also had a video of them playing from here but I think that tune had a copyright strike before!

 

And then, for a change, here is a photo of Huan and I not taken by us but by another member of the group. We were on our way to the Saturday riverside market.

You may notice that in the previous picture I am holding the camera. Well, this week, I remembered that Huan is supposed to be in charge of photos on market day so I handed it over. Her first job was to take a photo of me ‘playing’ the hulusi!

Next Huan wanted a photo of me buying the weekend lottery tickets. Huan buys the weekday tickets, she takes five lines, I buy the weekend ones, ten lines! At this stage she had obviously said something about money but I forget what.

Of course putting Huan in charge of the camera meant she took an inordinate amount of photos, seventy nine to be precise. Lots of culling, down to thirty eight, and editing done on my part but I have to say that for the most part she did a fine job. This next one is a puzzle which we are too lazy to use Google for. We know that these are the flowers from below a banana bunch but we have no idea how to cook or prepare them. Even the stall holder didn’t know, all she could tell us was that restaurant owners buy them.

Huan then took a fair few photos of one of the Chinese medicine stalls where the stall holder was trying to convince us that what he was selling would protect us from all and sundry diseases you could think of. Although the photos were not lined up in a way I would have liked, MS ICE did quite a good job of stitching them together for me.

I don’t want to share all of Huan’s photos, only because you have seen a lot of the ‘subjects’ before, but we will add one or two more. We had noticed a bit of a kafuffle and realised that a child was lost but the police, who were on hand for crime prevention, did a wonderful job and reunited the child with her grandparents.

My only bit of ‘directing’ was to ask Huan to take a photo of this fish, it had a big head!

She sells sea shells on the sea shore. Well no, she doesn’t, but she does sell them in our Saturday market. I’m not sure if I have ever tried these, perhaps we will try one weekend.

Here’s one that we saw last week, walking back through town, but we didn’t take a photo of it. Can you spot the error?

A day out wouldn’t be complete without a furry friend or two, so here I am with a little puddy tat.

Because my hands were full of shopping, I asked Huan to take some photos of an electric car that we haven’t seen before. The name is interesting, ‘Arcfox’.

Some more photos of me and furry friends were taken, this time the canine variety, nothing new though. Instead I thought we should share the nurse’s school taking delivery of their lunches. Here are the receptacles, one going up and one coming down.

Now the bag is being filled.

And here’s the delivery guy checking that payment has been received, probably via WeChat.

There were in fact four ‘yellow men’, as I like to call them, in attendance. We saw three lines come down while we were there, the fourth must have been a little slower. On this occasion I was happy to leave Huan taking the photos because I had tried once before and the ‘yellow men’ were not favourably impressed at all!

That was our Saturday, except for dinner, which I cooked today. I wanted to cook Huan fried liver and onions, a nice traditional English dish. It’s one that most of us hated as children, far too dry and chewy and probably not enough onions. I made sure we had plenty of onions and soaked the liver in cooking alcohol and a little Soya sauce for a couple of hours before cooking. With mashed potato, (with carrot and parsley and a touch of nutmeg), some kind of green vegetable (with a little dry mint) it all worked out quite well.

March 13th There go those plans again, disappearing into the mists somewhere. “Why this time?” I hear you ask. Well, when I went to bed last night I could not completely turn off the light switch in the living room. I ended up turning the breaker off for the lights and taking a battery operated lamp into the bathroom should either of us have needed to get up in the night.

After breakfast I took the faulty switch out, this is what I found.

It was fifteen years old, whether that is good or bad I have no idea. I did explain to Huan that all the stuff we buy has a built in obsolescence. As you can see this was a ‘3 gang’ switch, what you can’t see is that it was all ‘2 way’ switches, not needed in this particular case. Check out the colour coding of the wiring.

The switch on the left is a ‘2 gang 2 way’ and had nothing wrong with is apart from of course being also fifteen years old. This meant that whatever new switch we bought would not match so Huan suggested we buy a new one for that side too. Now there’s a thing, that was exactly what I wanted to happen but didn’t want to suggest it. Huan was busy with the camera while I started on taking that one out, note my morning hair!

After studying the internal wiring of this switch I decided to leave it in situ so that it would be easier to identify which wires went where when we came home again. I did take a few photos of the wiring to the shop just to be sure we bought the right one.

Shopping we did go, passing the animal clinic on the way where, to my disappointment, all the puppies had disappeared. However, right next door a cat in a cage. The woman who owned the shop came out to talk to us and told us that the clinic had suggested she keep the cat in the cage, or the house, for a couple of months before allowing him to roam. I guess that makes sense. Both of us thought that we might get asked if we wanted a cat but the lady went on to tell us that she had spent a lot of money on injections and neutering, all that was worrying her now was someone trying to steal it. She did let it out to say hello though.

On we went to a shop that had what I considered to be decent fittings, made by Schneider, a name that I know. The lady in the shop was also knowledgeable enough to understand exactly what we were looking for, 1 x 3 gang 1 way and 1 x 2 gang 2 way. I have no idea what the prices are like in the UK now but these cost me around £4.00 so no complaints there. Once home and Huan got me working, we were faced with an octopus coming out of the wall.

Needless to say a lot more photos were taken of me toiling to earn an honest crust (!), I’ve summarised four of them into one.

The switches look fine now they are all fitted, the wall not so fine. We could do some tarting up around the boxes but as there will be a lot more work in the future they can stay as they are for now. Future plans may even include a complete rewire although how you do that while you live in a place we have yet to sort out.

Huan had to test all the switches to make sure I had not done anything wrong, and I managed to get a couple of snaps of her. She said she wasn’t too happy about how her hair looked, I pointed out that she had snapped me with my morning hair!

No walks today then but it is good to fix something now and then. I would have fun fixing more things if I could set up a small workshop in the house. Do you think Huan would let me do that? It’s even better to finish the day with a dinner of air fried spare ribs, they were lovely!

March 14^th Why spoil the theme of the week, we didn’t go exploring today either. Huan cooked all morning and we had a gentle stroll around the river this afternoon. First we said hello to the corner restaurant’s new chicken. Believe it or not, this one is not for eating, they always have one in or near their restaurant. The last one disappeared; they think it was probably stolen, so this is the replacement. It’s not allowed to roam so much.

Today turned into a ‘bugs and lizards’ day, purely by accident, we weren’t looking for either. First was a strangely coloured mantis, we’ve only ever seen green ones before.

Four legged friends were not missed out; this fellow didn’t want me to leave!

A bug on a tree turned out to be one of the key species in Hainan.

Then there was one that kept trying to bite Huan’s neck, I told her not to worry, that it was just a little baby vampire, she put it in my hand!

This is definitely not a bug although she did get me with her sting a long time ago!

Just after this we passed the pigeon perch but we didn’t think you needed to see them again, not so soon anyway. Instead, here is Bob, showing how tall he is.

Now we come to the first of our five lizards.

The second was a little shy.

The third also had impeccable camouflage, especially around its face.

And here’s the fourth.

Before the fifth, we have another little bug; this was taken just before it did a flying leap from the buttress down to Huan’s shoe.

Eagle eyes Huan spotted the fifth lizard when we were almost home, I almost missed it, trying to surreptitiously snap photos while I was sneaking up on it.

In this one you can almost be sure that he has seen me and is keeping a watchful eye open.

And in the last one he is looking accusingly at whoever just dribbled a little water over the wall!

We were lucky today, we were not hunting for lizards and these were all found along a route where we only very occasionally see one or two.

If you’re wondering why there was no shopping today, with it being Monday and all, well we are off to Haikou early tomorrow morning. In fact we should be on the road before the sun wakes up! Hopefully I won’t have to drive back down again tomorrow and can relax in the hotel for a night. Take care all, we’ll be back again next week, bye for now.