October 18th Oh what a miserable morning, oh what a miserable day, I have a miserable feeling, we will not go out today! It was just one of those days, cold, windy and overcast so we stayed in all morning. Huan played music and I played Facebook. Have you ever tried to clear all the posts you have put on other people’s timelines? It’s a long job. I also removed a few friends that I have no real need to follow. They disappeared from my friend lists but suddenly appeared in my news feed having been absent for weeks! If you play with your activity log you will find all sorts of things that you may never have put there in the first place. I do a clean quite often so it didn’t take me too long. However, if you want to remove all your reactions and comments on other people’s posts it will take you a lifetime. My feeling was right, Huan planned an after dinner excursion but it got rained off. Ta ta Tuesday!
October 19th I woke up to find Huan in her winter pyjamas, cute aren’t they? Don’t you also think like me that the female of the species always gets the nicest clothes to wear?
Rain stopped play again today and not only play. We had planned another test for today to make sure that Huan does not have to go at the weekend when she is very busy. This was the scene at our usual test spot which we had been warned about.
From there we visited our local health centre where testing was going on, but not for us. The small table set up you can see was only for people going into the hospital. And in the second photo, although you can’t see the test place, they were only testing those who had gone beyond their three days and hence had ‘yellow’ health codes.
Why was there no testing today? Because there was a typhoon, Nesat, which according to me was hundreds of kilometres south of us. All we had was miserable weather.
Having shown you Huan I thought it would only be fair to spread me around a little too. Here I am taking a lousy selfie and not looking where I should be to take the photo!
To make sure I got some exercise, I walked back via the back gate, which would mean two whole kilometres instead of just over one. Just look at the car park, no one is going anywhere.
That was an omen! Huan had no rehearsal yesterday; it was cancelled due to the weather. They did call one for this evening though and I volunteered to be the chauffeur. My intentions were good, but they were not to come to fruition. Someone had blocked me in. Most people here, myself included, leave their cell phone numbers visible in their cars, this one didn’t! Eventually, after much yelling and blowing of the horn, we gave up and Huan and Yu went off in a taxi.
October 20th It was an alarm call on the phone morning today, Huan had an unscheduled rehearsal at a quarter past eight and she needed to go for a test first. We were at the testing place just after half past seven, half an hour too early.
And here is something that I
really don’t like, in
Luck was not on our side today, as well as the phantom queues you see there, three queues; there were only two testing stations so everyone on our left inserted themselves into our queue! On top of that the testing personnel were late so it was gone eight thirty when we left. I had brought the car to take Huan to her rehearsal so she was there by ten to nine, only thirty five minutes late. Luckily for her she was not the last one and all she missed were the speeches by the bosses who had come for an inspection visit.
At home I burnt the eggs for lunch, successfully prepared dinner, and wasted time on the internet. That meant that after a short afternoon nap we could get out for some fresh air.
The only critters we spotted were a dragonfly and a dead millipede. We were using our phones because we didn’t trust the weather so the image is not as good as it could have been.
We found a tracked farm machine with no farmers around so Huan had a quick pose. She looks a natural, don’t you think?
Almost home we had a closer look at the work going on at the sluice gate bridge. It looks as though the surface was removed not for utility work, as I had thought, but for work on the hydraulics and electrics of the sluice gates themselves.
The girls were lucky, because they had a rehearsal this morning, they didn’t have to go this evening. That was just as well as it was raining again.
October 21st Despite having a test yesterday we had another one this morning, to tide Huan over until Monday. She will be busy over the weekend. It was a late test; someone didn’t get out of bed until cowboy time! Still, that meant a short queue. Our plan was to go out after lunch; Huan has another rehearsal this evening. The rain said otherwise. I tried a selfie on the balcony to model my pyjamas, it failed.
The panorama worked although it doesn’t show the rain.
Huan then offered to take a photo in a similar way to that I had taken hers on Wednesday. Hers didn’t turn out quite right but here I am anyway, modelling my ASDA ‘George’ pyjamas.
Lonely Bob was at home again in the evening, Huan was out rehearsing again. I missed her more than usual tonight, possible because the nights are getting darker and she wasn’t due home until late. I got a message around quarter to nine asking me if I could pick her, Yu plus one up at nine thirty five or forty. Being an obedient chauffeur I was there early and then had to sit and wait until just after ten. Some of them, not our lot, were even practicing outside.
Meanwhile, inside, a little earlier, Huan and Yu were having their photos taken too.
October 22nd It was one of those mornings when getting up was difficult. Huan had to be up early enough to catch a bus just after eight so, as she had gone to be late last night, I set the alarm on my phone. Maybe you have the same problem, setting the alarm meant I kept waking up wondering why the alarm hadn’t gone off. At least when it did Huan reacted to it.
Being Saturday I had a solo trip to buy the weekend’s cooked chicken, no salad stuff needed this week. I took the main road route, some parts you can walk away from the road.
This next shot is a hotel, or rather was, it is now serviced apartments. It was built by the same man who built our apartments; you can probably see that the same amount of effort has been put into maintenance here too. I often wonder if this place has any “as built” drawings, for sure Shui An Bie Shu doesn’t.
A little further down I had to walk by the road to avoid one of the testing areas.
Chicken was available this week, although baps weren’t, I wasn’t early enough. Passing the usual friendly dogs and cats I made my way towards the market. A lot more snowbirds were in evidence this week, and a few more market stalls, now over 50%. By the time Huan finishes with her show we should be able to enjoy our Saturday morning walks again.
My last (outside) job was to buy tonight’s lottery tickets, one of these days… From there I went to the outside market where they have a nice little freezer shop and bought some bacon for tomorrow’s breakfast. That is my breakfast and Huan’s lunch. Success, and cheap enough too. The chicken had cost ¥35.00 but for two dinners for two people that is not so bad. The bacon was a surprise, I thought she had given me the wrong price, it was only ¥12.00. That will also do two meals for two people. No complaints from the Minister of Finance!
October 23rd Oh dear, old age is not creeping up on me, it is racing as fast it can go. Huan went off to her rehearsal this morning and I didn’t wake up until after half past nine, obviously much too late to go out! I binge watched Burt Reynolds instead.
Huan enjoyed her lunch, a nice British style fry-up albeit without sausages and black pudding. We can get sausages, not British ones, but we can’t get black pudding. Somewhere I have a recipe for it but I don’t know if you can buy buckets of blood here! In the dim and distant past we used to have a lot of fry-ups for breakfast, now we don’t have nearly enough. I blame the doctors, because Huan listens to them.
After lunch, and after Huan had gone back for her second round I decided a walk was something that really needed to be done. I almost stepped on this little butterfly, so I picked it up and put it on a tree. Whether it was going to live much longer or not I couldn’t tell you but at least it stayed on the tree when a gust of wind blew it.
Remember the tanker watering the flowers? Well, sometimes they water the air too!
Just after that I thought I would try the route in front of the old army barracks where they have been laying a new water pipe. It looked passable today.
Looks can be deceiving and before long I was back in the road.
Huan was sorry she wasn’t with me as I spotted the return of the ‘white birds’. I couldn’t get near enough, as usual, but I also took a video for her. It wasn’t long enough, or good enough, to put on YouTube, you’ll have to make do with this shot for now.
I was also of course walking down the ‘spot the lizards’ road but without Hawkeye alongside me I was not having much success at all. I did spot one but it wasn’t my eyes that helped, it was my ears. I heard something move in the bushes and when I looked back I spotted this fellow. I don’t think he was the source of the noise but at least I got one for her Ladyship.
At this time of the year the afternoons are good for walking, not too hot and also a little quieter than the mornings. There were some fishermen and the occasional snowbird, enough to exchange pleasantries with but not enough to interrupt the rhythm of the walk.
Not many four legged friends were found, here’s a sad looking 毛毛 Máomao, unfortunately he was chained up so couldn’t come to the gate for a chat.
Almost home and I spotted a crane
on the sluice bridge. Unfortunately there was a lady, I think she was concerned
with the public’s safety, and she wouldn’t let me get too near. We’ll try
another time to see just what they are repairing and/or replacing.
What a walk that was today, by the time I got home I had been walking for just over two hours and had completed just over nine kilometres. The computer tells me that I burned 630 calories, (not much is it) and the phone says I did 11,901 steps at an average pace of about 13½ minutes per kilometre. It’s a long time since I walked that fast, certainly not since my heart op anyway.
Another thing that I haven’t done for a long time is to take a bath. No, I am not dirty; we almost always take showers these days. However, arriving home with enough time to waste before Huan would arrive I decided to hop in the bath, complete with bubbles.
As always I took a book with me, the photo of which failed. I managed to snap the back cover and not the front.
The book is called “Command Performance” and it is by a lady called “Nona Coxhead”. Like most of the books on my shelves I have probably read it before but so long ago that I can’t remember it. I certainly had no recollection of the author, such an unusual name too. I just had to Google! The best I could find was her obituary from the Independent when she passed away in 1998. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-nona-coxhead-1173732.html
October 24th Both of us were little sleepy heads this morning but we managed to get up before nine and go off for our first test of this week. This one is #38; I wonder when we will decide that it’s time to stop counting!
And as they say in the ‘toons’ “That’s it folks!” We did go and do our usual Monday shop, skipping the market due to no parking spaces anywhere near. Our plan had been to go out after dinner but my eyes were weepy and my nose was weird so we stayed in. I spent nearly the whole day trying to sort out my QQ account again; I’ve been locked out for weeks. We got as far as them sending me a new password and that wouldn’t work either. It would be so nice if all the help desks in the world suddenly woke up and decided they would use people again!
Sorry about paucity of pictures this week, we’ll try harder, we promise! Bye again, see you soon.
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