October 25th Rain stopped play again. Huan went off to a rehearsal this evening and I was ordered to be the chauffeur at home time again. I was there at the appointed time and had to wait nearly another thirty minutes while they all had a pep talk. Manoeuvring into the car park Huan spotted a spider either on, or in, another car so we had to try and take a photo of it. Neither of us could remember how to switch the ‘flashlight mode’ on in our phones, the one from the car had flat batteries too. We did the best we could.
October 26th Second test of the week, #39 today, queue not too bad.
And just for a change we show you some clothes. I was wearing my new boots, for the first time, and Huan was wearing her ‘keep the sun away from me’ jacket.
Huan was wearing her ‘fashionable’ sun protection because she is free for a couple of days so is walking with me. We decided to take the landfill route today as it is in the same direction as our test site. The highway looked back to normal as we passed, hopefully it will stay that way for when we next have to visit Sanya. Just after the highway we met some not very cooperative cows, they kept moving away from me. I swear I never mentioned horseradish sauce once!
This was our planned route; it had to be ‘unplanned’. Huan didn’t have the right shoes on and it got a bit wet and muddy further up the hill.
So we had to backtrack a little and go under the highway, we would have ended up in the same place eventually. On the way Huan found some tadpoles, she was most impressed that we could see the beginnings of little frog legs.
Of course a walk with the boss would not be a walk with the boss if she didn’t find a lizard would it. She did that while I was checking out the landfill.
This is what I was checking out. All the ‘pits’ appear to have been filled here now, they all look like this. The few trucks still coming up the hill appear to be recycling stuff only.
At the last entrance we spotted a sign in front of us, I was praying we didn’t have to go back the way we came. The sign said “前方施工， 道路封闭， 请绕道行驶 - Construction ahead, road closed, please detour”. We decided it was only for cars.
We made the right decision!
Arriving at the village at the top, or near the top
of the hill, we found some more writing for you. This time it was on the back
of a car, all I knew was it something to do with lady drivers. Here is what it
says “女司机新手上路， 请理解包容， 感恩遇见， 祝君安好 - A novice female driver
is on the road, please understand and tolerate, thank you for meeting, and wish
you well.” Somehow I can’t imagine similar notices on cars in the
P.S. The car passed us later on, it was a male driver! He passed us after we had made our customary stop at the crest of the hill.
Hawkeye spotted another critter, some nice colour on this one.
On the way down we took a little detour to see if we
could find a way to
Just like the beginning of our walk today, we had to retrace our steps; the going was too wet and soggy for Huan’s dainty shoes. I wondered what she was trying to do here, the contortions she was going through.
I soon found out. When we got to the road, Huan was pulling the second leech off her leg and there were a few on her shoes too. In my hurry to remove them I didn’t get any photos of them but then we found some on my shoes too. They obviously got up and over Huan’s shoes much easier than they did mine. How many there were in total I couldn’t say but we removed at least half a dozen from each of our shoes, horrible things.
Before long Huan was back to her normal self and spotted what she likes to call “one of my friends”, probably because they usually end up somewhere on me.
And just to prove the point here is one photo of it on me, from the many that Huan took.
Almost down to the village, just past the old army base, we came upon some fungi, some mediocre coloured ones and some more outrageous ones. Huan did her usual wondering about whether you could eat them or not. I do wonder how she got through her childhood in one piece!
Our last photo comes from a little garden in the village, a very small garden against the house wall. They were growing all sorts of chillies there, yellow ones mostly. Those photos failed but I did manage a red one and a green one for you.
As if we hadn’t done enough walking today we had to go out again this evening, a twilight shopping trip to buy some meat for tomorrow’s dinner. I had wanted something like pork chops but it was not to be, we ended up with duck legs instead. Anyway, our trip started with tons of betel nuts outside our gate.
I planned our route to go past the sluice gate bridge to find out what they had been removing the other day. It turns out that the first two gates are still there, as all the others are, but the complete mechanism for raising and lowering them has been removed. According to the local security man they have been removed for repair. Huan is again disappointed that they aren’t moving them down to our end of the river!
It seems that the car show that had been scheduled for August is now going to be held this month, from the 27th to the 30th. Photos of the cars can wait until I visit again probably on Saturday; in the meantime enjoy me presenting the show to you!
Some cars were already in position; others were having the odd problem or two. Dong Feng, who made our car, had managed to lock themselves out. Interestingly, Huan told me that the man attempting to ‘break in’ is the same man authorised by the police to get people back into their flats when they are locked out.
I wasn’t going to show you this last picture but Huan said I should. It looks terrible; it looks as though I am dragging the poor little mutt by its ears. In reality, I’m just giving it a tickle!
October 27th Is life returning to normal? Perhaps very slowly, but Huan will still be
busy for a week or two more. She was free today and
We have a little friend who always responds when we call. (PS Substitute we for I wherever applicable, it is me that does the calling.) You can’t see him from the road but as soon as he hears me he stands up to say hello, tail wagging like mad.
Having taken so many photos yesterday I reined in the director today. Here are a couple of photos taken to show the side views on the way up the road to the park bridge.
Snowbirds have definitely returned in their multitudes, most of them seem to think that Wuzhishan is safe and so are not wearing face masks at all. Strangely enough, if my mask was down you could see them trying to avoid me! As we had started our way down a helpful snowbird on the way up in the anticlockwise direction advised us that we had chosen the wrong way today. He said it was easier to go up in the anticlockwise direction and that it was too slippery to go down that way. He even offered me his natural wooden walking stick. I politely refused. Further on though we saw what he meant, great care had to be taken going down.
Luckily for us it dried out as we progressed further down the hill. I decided that we had enough photos for the day and we headed off home. Once there though I kept thinking of Huan’s photo and of something it reminded me of. Someone had recently shared a photo of a ‘blue footed booby’, check them out, they are funny birds. Here’s one, with a head and shoulders only, because that’s all I had of Huan, she can be a funny bird too.
Also had an email off Google, it seems I will be getting a new ‘handle’. I tried a few options but the ‘6144’ always stayed there, no idea why.
October 28th Another test today, courtesy of making sure Huan is test free on Saturday and Sunday, this was #40, with no photos for a change. Turning left and heading for the old ammo depot we met beautiful little cat. Huan has now agreed that when I am old and decrepid and housebound, I can have a little moggy to keep me company. Not long to wait then! (PS decrepid is the obsolete spelling of decrepit, just shows how old I really am.)
I took this next one to show you that the going was not so good but looking at it when we got home, I just found that I really liked the photo.
As usual, next to the ammo dump, we were attacked by hordes of dogs, even the farmer warned us. He didn’t realise that the biggest of the dogs always remembers us and that tends to quieten down all the others.
“Let’s take a detour across the fields.” The top photo is looking north and the bottom one is looking south towards the abandoned officers’ club.
Our plan was to walk on the other side of the field.
Huan insisted on overtaking me so that she could snap some piccies of me walking on the edge of the drain. Perhaps she was hoping for an action shot of me falling in. As usual, she took far too many so I summarised them in a gif.
We met a farmer who warned us about leeches, you know, just to plant that little seed in my brain. I thought we were fairly safe the way we walked. Looking back though, we came up the left fork, in the past we have walked the right fork. As you can see it is no more possible and there is a very strong likelihood of leeches in there.
And here is another fork. It struck me today that we only see snowbirds on or more regular walks. As soon as we get out of town it’s only us. They don’t know what they are missing.
They have no idea about the places that used to exist; this is an old farm restaurant, now on the edge of what will be the new vehicle testing station. It will be a nice place to have a cuppa while waiting for you car to be processed, although you will probably have to bring your own.
And here we are, posing in front of the pond and the trees.
Now you may wonder why I am sharing this photo of a pile of dirt with you. Well, if you look closely, very closely, you may be able to spot a little bird.
I know, you can barely see it, but it bears a relevance to the story. As I was doing my very best to sneak up and get a better picture, I spotted something wiggling on one of my fingers. The next minute I was waving my hand all over the place trying to shake it off while Huan was just trying to get a photo of it. I had been leeched! How and when it got onto my hand I have no idea but all the shaking seemed to work.
We decided that five or six kilometres would enough today and headed back via the river.
Just before the bridge we left the path and followed a slightly moister route.
Soon we came to the (expected) obstacle where I seemed to have a little more difficulty than the last time. Huan seems to have a ‘thing’ about photographing my rear end for some reason!
Here she has me opening and closing the makeshift gate, put there to prevent people like us coming to injury, or worse.
She took even more of me climbing up to get back to the path but I think you have seen enough of me for one day. Instead, here are the lovely views we found at the end of the scramble.
Arriving home I took my boots off outside the front door and my left foot was covered in blood. I guess we now knew where the shaken off leech went. Straight in the shower I went to make sure that any residual traces of little wriggly things were sent down the drain with gallons of piping hot water. It took ages to stop the bleeding. Leeches add an anticoagulant to the blood at the ‘suction’ point and of course I already have aspirin and something else because of my heart. I knew it would eventually stop so I managed to convince Huan that elastic bandages or heel supports (for previous Achilles problems) were not really necessary. I do miss the assorted boxes of sticking plasters that we used to buy in other countries though; it would be so much easier. Not to worry, I am still here, as are my two feet!
October 29th I don’t think either of us slept so well last night; probably because we were both tentatively waiting for the alarm to go off. It was set for six because Huan had to be out by half past to take a bus to the hall where a fleet of buses would take them all to a rehearsal in the mountains. After she had gone I could see rain in the mountains north of us, it seems the south was better.
So, being a Saturday, it meant another solo market walk for me. A lot more people were around this week and I would estimate the market to be about 95% back to normal. The wearing of masks is no longer mandatory as you can probably tell. Scanning for health codes was being carried out, I did mine, but I also spotted many people not bothering.
On my way home after buying a duck for this week’s salad I heard the dulcet sounds of some real snowbirds. They are real birds but they don’t actually fly down here, their owners bring them when they come down from the north. In this case they hang them from one of the trees in front of the hotel I showed you recently. They bring them down in the morning and take them back upstairs in the evening. I remembered this friendly bunch, I wonder if they have memories long enough to remember me from a few months ago.
My
afternoon was spent boiling potatoes, making the salad and then waiting for
Huan. Here she is posing with some of the other dancers in the
The smile was quite forced because Huan had been travel sick on the way there. She has no problem in our car but buses are a completely different kettle of fish. Tomorrow should be better; she has bought some tablets this evening. The only photo she took all day was her lunch which doesn’t look too appetising.
Tomorrow they don’t have to be quite so early so the alarm can be set for seven instead of six. Hopefully the tablets will make sure Huan arrives full of beans, not like today. I am not allowed to take her because the village car park is far too small and cars for the families of the five hundred dancers would create severe problems. I am hoping for a free invite on the actual day of the performance, we will have to wait and see.
October 30th Solo Bob again so what better to do than to visit the local car show. Something is happening on Xiǎo dǎo, not sure what, I’ll take Huan to see sometime next week.
Far too many photos were taken of the car show and to be honest, most of them would bore you to tears. This car show is more like a pop up sale than a ‘real’ car show. I’ll just show you a few. This one is because I liked the colour scheme, the price is behind if you are interested.
I think you can guess why I took this one.
Now if only I was rich enough…
In the same vein as Doraemon we have Game Boy, just check the price!
And now a Rover badge, which I quite like, and their Mini EV, called ‘Clever’.
There was nothing else that would really grab you so I made my way home.
Approaching home I spotted some of the nurses, actually there seemed to be literally hundreds of them today, but two or three were taking photos of their own building. Naturally, being a #1 ladies man I had to do the same thing. This is what they were taking pictures of.
Having nothing to prepare for dinner today it was time for another soak in the bath, the second one this year! I remembered to let you see the front of the book this time.
Today was not only a solo walk it was also a solo dinner. The performers were kept back for extra practice and then given a packed dinner to take home. Consequently Her Maj was very late and I had to act as the chauffeur, leaving half my coffee laced with whiskey until I got back home. She brought a few photos on her phone, some good some bad. Here’s one where they are all posing in front of a large sphere. Is it the moon or the earth, nobody knows yet.
October 31st Back to a normal Monday with Huan as company, for the day and, she thought, the evening as well. As usual I would have bet money on it, and I would have won. She got a message in the afternoon telling her that there was another rehearsal tonight.
We started our day with, as I’m sure you know by now, another test, #41. I had one of the ‘tenth’ positions in the queue and Huan had one of the ‘firsts’.
A normal morning of shopping then followed. After lunch I sent Huan off to have a solo sleep, she still hadn’t quite recovered from her bout of travel sickness the day before yesterday, and in the afternoons she sleeps better, and longer, without me. At least neither of us had to cook today; our duck salad was still there from not being eaten yesterday.
I watched a couple of very old movies today, both in black and white. They came to my notice via this Telegraph link, which I have to use a prefix to get around the pay wall for - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/cruel-hearts-death-bayonet-dark-heart-ealing-studios-went-day/ A Google search then led me to these two URLs and I was able to successfully watch both. Maybe some of you oldies would be interested too. https://archive.org/details/it-always-rains-on-sunday and https://archive.org/details/went-the-day-well
Yet again this post has been uploaded using a friend’s help, many thanks to them.
Think of me every night this week when I may well be acting as the stars’ chauffeur again. Plural stars because there are usually three of them. Huan has gone off on her bike tonight but I may give them a lift both ways for the rest of the week.
So from SWMBO and I who must do as I’m told, it’s time to say au reservoir, see you next time!
