September 6th What a way to start the week, a visit to the dentist, again. Huan cooked bean sprouts yesterday and after pulling them out of my holey teeth for hours after, I decided I would have to bite the bullet, as it were. Delaying tactics were me taking pictures of insect eggs.
Another delaying tactic, I knew Roland Garros meant something but I had no idea what until I got home and Googled it. It is in fact the ‘French Open tennis tournament, it and the venue are named after the French aviator Roland Garros.
All too soon though we reached our destination, look how pleased Huan is.
After a health scan and a cursory pavement side inspection I was soon in the chair. As you can see, I also had the occasional view of the outside world, with no glass divide. By that I mean of course that there was no window to block my view.
This dentist is ‘the old man dentist’ that I referred to last week, very unfairly really as he looks a lot younger than me. He used to work in the local hospital but has long since retired. He agreed to replace one of my caps and do some kind of work on the other. Here I am being ‘cured’!
So how was it? Well the damage to my wallet was only ¥250.00, quite a lot less than ¥4,500.00 or more that I was going to have to pay in the other place. I know I will have to return, maybe even sooner rather than later, but maybe we will have sold one of our properties by then and we won’t be so worried about the financial aspect of things.
We were early enough to have a walk after the dentist but as we only had our phones we didn’t go photo crazy. Here’s a little of the local riverside flora for your felicitous delectation.
After lunch we were surprised to receive our replacement chair parts and talking to the supplier we also got a video on how to do the work. Seeing the video I understood why we had two parts, it may not be possible to separate the gas lift and the ‘tray’ under the chair seat. Eventually the job was done, unusually with no pictures. I asked Huan not to take pictures of my ever present bum so she opted to take none at all. Here she is after, testing the chair.
Realising that she had no photos of me working, Huan took it upon herself to make sure she got me cleaning the second fly screen from the kitchen balcony. I had cleaned the first one before lunch having been informed by the Minister of Home Affairs that the clothes on the line were becoming dusty on contacting the fly screens!
I reminded Huan that my work was not yet over and as the lowly kitchen helper I went back into the kitchen to finish off our dinner. It was nothing special today, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, green beans and (Chinese hotpot style) thinly sliced beef, laid on a bed of rice. Here I am slaving over a hot stove; well actually it’s an induction cooker. How I wish our gas was back!
What a busy day, and unfortunately, one without such a happy ending. My teeth don’t feel right at all. The replaced cap feels fine but the other side feels lopsided, something I mentioned in the surgery but that seemed to get lost in communication. I’ll persevere for a few days and then if necessary make a return visit.
September 7th And on the third day the van that speaks let us know that it was that time again, time to go and be tested for the presence or the absence of the dreaded lurgy. Before going I had a job to do, count up all my medicines to decide which ones needed topping up before next week’s visit to Dr. Mă. Arriving there we found very short queues. It seems that as well as the test personnel being back to ‘normal’, four in our corner of the world, that testing is now being done everyday thus easing the rush for one day in three. Good news!
A walk was on the cards after our test and before a visit to the pharmacy. Off we wandered, mostly around town, sans Percy, just our phones. Cows were one of the few pictures from today.
Although we took a long rambling route around the town we found very
little to take pictures of. In fact there was so little I had to resort to cars
again. One of my dream cars has always been a Jaguar, perhaps a Puma would do
instead? The other one is my favourite colour, my Suzuki was canary yellow in
As for the rest of the day, it was a total washout, rain almost non stop from lunchtime to bedtime.
September 8th Rain stopped play all day today and it disturbed us for a lot of last night too. There is supposed to be a typhoon in the vicinity, there isn’t, it is just weather. Huan spent a lot of the morning in the kitchen making dumplings. After lunch, and after she had been out to deliver some, she decided to make some more. With being housebound I thought we should show you what she did the second time. This is the steamer pan with the top two layers already removed, as you can see Huan likes to multipurpose.
And here she is presenting the output from those top two layers.
I was supposed to be the duty chef today but with all those dumplings we decided that no further cooking was needed. The minced pork can marinade for another day!
September 9th This morning’s
walk was cancelled. We woke up to the news that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
had passed away. I spent all morning taking in all the news, many of the
articles, the outpourings of grief etc. I did try to explain to Huan but she
could not understand the intricacies of the way the Royal Family fits into
Rain kept us in again after lunch, although I did have to pop downstairs for another Taobao package. This one was the screen protectors which I am pleased to say went on much easier than the ones on our phones did. All we need now is the bag and the handle.
Since I had failed in my position as duty chef yesterday I had to get back into the kitchen today. For Huan’s pleasure I decided on noodles instead of rice, served in the large bowls.
Here is Her Ladyship, just about to tuck in, and me about to finish off.
And finally, here’s the glutton making sure the bowl is clean before it goes back to the kitchen!
September 10th Test 19 today, not as zippy as last time but still not too bad.
Huan still found time to go and snap something I couldn’t even see from where we were standing. There’s nowt wrong with her long distance vision!
She then found a new four legged friend for me who almost posed for her.
Being Saturday it was a walk round the riverside to check if the market has returned. Our hopes were raised on the way as the tea-shops seem to have re-opened. Today is also Harvest Festival holiday and Teacher’s Day so rules may have been relaxed a little.
We were disappointed, the riverside market had not returned. We still walked though.
Our walk ended up in the outdoor market near our house, we needed some ingredients for our potato salad to go with our frozen pizza this weekend. We had to scan our way into the market, which being late in the morning, was in a bit of a state.
Both of us wanted a kip after lunch, we managed just a few minutes before Huan’s telephone rang. A trip downstairs to me ensued where I collected the penultimate camera supplies. This package was the bag, which means we will be able to protect the camera from both the elements and my sweaty body when we go out. Hopefully, we will have our first test run tomorrow.
September 11th A good morning, the weather stayed nice, no
tests were needed today either, so we took Percy out to put him through his
preliminary paces, still set to
Zooming in on the goats is still difficult, they are too far away. Also Percy, being an MFT camera, can not be cropped as much as Freddy, who was APSC.
Here’s an unusual one for you, this chap was not trying to camouflage his bike, he had lost the solitary under the tree bike park so he was trying to keep his seat cool until he returned later.
Zooming in on butterflies is not much better either, again that is more that I could not get close enough before they fluttered off.
Soon we turned away from the river to head towards the highway, first taking the scenic route.
That brought us to the small farm where Huan said I had to take a photo of the kitchen. I obliged and included the front garden!
Soon we were at the highway, or in its vicinity, where I took far too many photographs so they have been condensed into collages for you. This is the ‘farm’ back garden.
This is the lead up and the first two passes under the road.
The final underpasses, one day we will try the wet one just to see where it goes. For now we believe it is only for goats and cows and won’t lead us anywhere. Better shoes are needed, at least for me, otherwise it could be a*** over t** in the slime!
I think Percy has a panorama function but I haven’t found it yet. Instead here is a stitched one showing where we cleared all the tunnels.
These two show how much, or how little zoom Percy has. The first is wide angle, minor zoom, at 17mm and the second is full zoom at 60mm. Bear in mind those are MFT numbers.
This one was just me playing; you can see this side still has fish farms.
Back on the main Changhao road I took another few to stitch together. I think I need to find Percy’s panorama function; it may do better than I did today.
He was a lineman for the county, well for one of the telecom companies anyway. It’s interesting to see how things have changed since I did similar work so many years ago. This chap was quite happy for us to take his photo; I made sure Huan asked beforehand.
Yet another collage for you, here you can see them removing the LHS of the road, widening the RHS, (no fish farms there anymore), and building a retaining wall.
We turned off the road before we reached the town and headed towards the new vehicle testing site again. It is still ‘future’ new and not ‘real’ new yet.
Two more bits of nature for you before we finish today’s little stroll, another butterfly that wouldn’t show us the full glory of its wings and a flower that I took many close ups of, only this one was worth keeping. I wonder what I am doing wrong.
The final collage is not Percy’s; it comes from Huan’s phone. She told me that I would not get near the cat, “it would run away”; I managed to prove her wrong.
So what is the verdict on Percy? I think I have a lot to learn but he should be fine. And the carrying bag? It certainly beats not having one but I will have to get used to straps everywhere. I did think of not using the camera strap but SWMBO would definitely not be in favour of that. I end up with three straps, one around my waist and one around my neck, both for the bag, and another around my neck for the camera. Better to be safe and sorry I suppose.
September 12th Monday and we are back to normal shopping again although phone scans are still required to get in anywhere. Other than that we were incredibly lazy. Huan did suggest an after dinner walk, I declined saying I had to stay in and have a shave! Truthfully, I was the lazy one. We’ll be out tomorrow anyway, whatever the weather, we need to be tested again and it’s also time for me to check in with Dr. Mă to see how my heart is doing. Fingers crossed!
No matter where you are in this old world of ours we’ll be thinking of you, as always. Those of you who know us drop us a comment, either here or on Facebook, we’re always pleased to hear from you. Those of you who have never met us, you can drop us a line too, we’ll be happy to see new faces and we will always respond. Take care everyone, see you soon!
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