July 19th Neither of us slept well last night, I think I am probably to blame. The night before I felt like I pulled a muscle or something, quite painful, and last night I woke up sometime before three and found it very hard to doze off again. Consequently we had a slow start to the day, well slow for me anyway. Huan decided to make dumplings, I certainly wasn’t going to stop her! Instead I did some more dithering on the internet.
Once the dumplings were made we had to go out and visit Huan’s bank to find out if there was a limit on her card. On the way we passed a lazy dragonfly. Sod’s law meant that we only had our phones with us. Still, on macro mode we did reasonably well.
The bank informed Huan that her card is not a problem so it must either be something with her Taobao account details or her phone.
Because of last night we both needed a nap after lunch, mine almost turned into a ‘real’ sleep! Huan went dancing after dinner and I bet you can guess what I did. You’re right of course, even more dithering on the internet, not helped by Huan thinking compact cameras are like toys. By the time Huan came home, I had narrowed down my options and we sent messages to three suppliers. They replied in dribs and drabs, the last one just before bedtime, all of them to say that the camera I had queried was ‘out of stock’. I had actually asked if they were new or second hand so I guess the answers were diplomatic.
July 20th Someone has it in for Huan and I, someone who controls the weather! We were woken not long before two last night to discover that we were in the centre of a thunderstorm. There was no delay between the lightning and the thunder, which in turn set off all the nearby car alarms. Once the thunder ceased the rain started! Huan eventually dozed off, sometime before I did. For some unknown reason I was wide awake again at five and ended up getting up at five thirty, sneaking out of the bedroom so as not to disturb Sleeping Beauty.
We still went walkies although Huan didn’t want to go too far. Here she is trying to enrich the coffers so that we can stop worrying about financial calamities!
As a shorter walk had been requested I took us along the old ammo dump road again.
The dogs were a bit slow off the mark today, perhaps the storm kept them awake last night too. However, the ducks and the geese were very vociferous, waiting to be fed.
Back on the main road we turned off towards the ‘new’ car testing site and then, instead of going there took a left turn up what we thought was just a short road behind the fuel station.
Eventually, much further than what we had thought, the road ended, and a short way after we found a small farm complete with very nervous dogs.
The road may have stopped but the path continued upwards.
There was another farm at the top where the farmer told us that there was no through road. That meant we would have to retrace our steps but first a few photos were needed.
The photos would help us understand just where we were, below us and between the trees we could see the city, with no way to walk down unfortunately.
Huan passed the time of day with the farmer’s wife, talking about how wonderful the fresh air is in the mountains. It’s true, even we notice the difference and it’s one of the reasons we walk. For people from big cities it must be even more noticeable.
Yours truly took a few more photos on the way down, if you look very closely you can even see the ‘bridge to somewhere’ behind our house!
Often when we walk we get very hot and sweaty and on those occasions we would probably jump in with the fisherman, given half a chance. Today though the weather was threatening to rain again so we didn’t feel so bad.
Our last two photo come just before our water stop at Shifu’s shop. We had watched this place being built but had no idea what it was going to be. It is an electric vehicle (car) charging station and the roof is not so much to shade the cars but to boost the charging power.
Much sleep needed after lunch before wandering the web again looking for a camera! Almost forgot to do my daily Chinese lesson, bad boy! Huan didn’t really want to go dancing but that’s one of the perils of stardom. It appears that in October they will all be on TV!
July 21st Rain stopped play so I spent all
morning on Taobao again. Eventually, based on value for money more than
anything else, I chose to go with a DSLR. The choice, according to reviews, was
for an entry level DSLR, a Nikon D5500 with a Tamron 18-200mm lens. I’m not sure
if Huan will be pleased, the zoom is roughly 11, so nearly four times the
Huan went off to the bank, again, to try and sort out the problem. Contrary to what they had said last time, it was their doing. They have new rules, supposedly to try and protect old people from being cheated, and Huan had to sign a form and have her photo taken again. Once done her spending limit was raised, she completed the transaction on her phone, and the camera was ordered. Delivery should start the day after tomorrow.
The heavens opened again in the afternoon but Huan was lucky, she was in the bank and missed it all. Of course the weather stayed fine for the evening so dance practice was on. As I hadn’t been out at all I escorted the ladies there before going for a stroll alone. Here are the ladies. Note the matching white trousers and red T-shirts. These will only be worn during the practice sessions and everybody was expected to buy them. Li ethnic clothes will be provided by the organisers nearer the time of the show.
Up the hill we went, towards the town square.
And in the square, here are the ladies again, with a few more and a few gentlemen too. They are busy answering the roll call! This show is being planned with military precision.
Most of the people in the above photograph are snowbirds; they have not gone back up north yet this year. I didn’t see many more on my walk.
People may have been scarce, but other creatures weren’t. Here’s a very handsome chicken.
And here’s a shot that would not be so easy with a ‘real’ camera. Because the phone cameras are so small you can take photos through the bars of a birdcage.
Today’s photos finish with another little creature, a little bunny rabbit. I couldn’t get any nearer due to the proximity of the young lady who was feeing it.
July 22nd After two night’s of lousy sleep for both of us last night we slept fairly well. At least I have no recollection of tossing and turning all night. However, getting out of bed, at least for me, was very difficult; someone had been in with the superglue spray again. I declined Huan’s offer of a morning walk! We did get out in the evening though, I suppose it makes quite a pleasant change, it’s certainly a lot cooler.
Huan had me chasing a chipmunk here, there and everywhere but it was too distant and too fast for us. “It went up there” she said, so we followed.
Of course we missed it and then continued on to the end of town.
Huan insisted that we walk home via the town square, where she has been doing her nightly practices. They have a few days off and she wanted to see how busy the square was. It was very busy, in fact it looked more like a children’s park this evening.
July 23rd Market day again and no rain this week, I do like market day. With the
change in the weather ‘
As usual someone tried to sell me a tiger foot, as usual I refused. Instead I bought a lovely piece of belly pork for our weekend dinner again.
Further down we saw a couple of birds we hadn’t seen before, the Chinese name is 鸵鸟TuóniÇŽo, which turns out to be ‘ostrich’. Now then, how many of you can say that you have held an ostrich, the seller insisted I held one while he shot a video to share far and wide.
Satisfied with our visit to the market we headed upriver towards the last bridge to return home. This shot took my fancy. You may wonder what it is. It’d nothing special or elaborate, just a rope stretched across the river to guide floating foliage to the riverbank for collection.
Huan had me taking more photos of birds, I was unsuccessful. She also had me taking photos of insects, I was unsuccessful there too. Consequently, there is only one more photo for today, I like it, hopefully you will too.
We passed by one of the Taobao couriers on the way home to see if they knew where my chair was. According to the computer it had left Sanya yesterday morning. Huan knows this lady of old and she told her that they only sent the truck from Wuzhishan this morning; it should arrive sometime after lunch.
After another nap, they are getting to be too much of a habit, and a lovely dinner, we had a phone call, our chair was downstairs. It is now sitting in the living room, I told Huan I was not going to try and assemble it this evening!
July 24th I was up at three this morning, unable to sleep again, but not for the usual reasons. My dreams were full of cameras and how I should change my mind yet again. Trying to ignore them and go back to sleep was not so easy, I was wide awake and Huan was snoring. Eventually I got out of bed and started searching the internet again. Taking a break I began to assemble my new chair, well at least I unpacked it, there were no instructions included. Huan slept a little later than usual again, it must be good for her when I get up early! Just before she got up I located the instructions, inside the packing of the chair seat. However, the first job for Huan was to try and cancel the camera order, which should be easy enough as shipping hasn’t yet started. I decided that a DSLR with interchangeable lenses was probably not the way to go. First of all I am not that much of a photographer and secondly it is easier to damage with humidity and water. More searching of the internet is needed while we wait for the money to be returned to Huan’s account.
Once I’d had yet another coffee and Huan had hers I began the task of assembling the chair. As is her wont the ‘director’ went berserk with her phone again and took a measly sixty four photos of me doing just that. Here are just a few.
And here I am pretending to work, not much changes does it?
All that work and a sleepless night meant that an OAP nap was definitely needed for me in the afternoon, it ended up being two hours! Exercise was taken after dinner though, we went around the river, bought some Xinjiang bread from the night market food stalls and even went shopping to buy milk. On the way home we passed, purposely, Huan’s favourite bakery and bought some chocolate cake for our afternoon coffee tomorrow.
July 25th Monday seems to come round every seven days which appears to be so much shorter than it was when I ‘were a lad’. Before shopping we had to visit Huan’s ATM to check that her Taobao refund had been received, it had. When she got back into the car I suggested she go back into the bank to make sure she would be allowed to spend what we needed to. (That probably should read “what I want to”.) By the time she reappeared we decided shopping would have to wait until tomorrow but we did have enough time for the fish market. Here is one of the fish that Huan bought but she forgot to take photos of it being ‘murdered’ for our dinner. It will be a first for me, I’ve never tried this one before. As it was chopped into pieces there will be no point taking ‘cooked’ photos to show you.
Huan had a nap today, I avoided it to try and reset my clock! What did I do instead? Well, surfed the web again for camera information and photography help. I didn’t really fancy an after dinner stroll but my feet told me I should have one, for their benefit. Somewhere along the way we saw these millipedes and Huan, having seen a Grandad teaching his grandson with some this week, decided she wanted to hold them too. The first one quickly climbed her sleeve.
With a little manhandling she ended up with two in the palm of her hand.
More photos were taken on the way home but the cameraman, i.e. me and not SWMBO, forgot to take the phone out of macro mode so they all failed. Never mind, there’s always next time.
So after another week of vacillating about purchasing I have ended up with nothing, again. Maybe the week ahead will result in more decisions being made and not being cancelled. Perhaps I can stop changing my mind every time I think about what I have decided.
Until that time, take care all, look after your nearest and dearest, be kind to strangers, make sure you also give yourself a good dose of love and care too. We’ll be back!
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