October 11th I didn’t feel like walking in the morning, it felt like I was maybe coming down with a mild bug. My plan was to go after lunch, with or without Huan whatever she decided. As is often the case, my plans were thwarted but on this occasion not by Huan, but by Su Mei Li of Wǔzhǐshān Media. They wanted to take some more photos of us for their video and/or article.
The first place they took us to was Shangri La, which if you cast your minds back a long way, was the scene of my heart problems prior to having my stent fitted. The area has changed quite a lot since March so finding the exact spot was not easy.
I managed to take some snaps of them taking videos of me.
Eventually I think I found the right place, the spot where we crawled out through the bushes, or I crawled while Huan walked. We couldn’t find the drainage pipes but a lot of what had been open ground was now completely overgrown, perhaps the pipes were hidden.
Looking the other way shows just how overgrown the foreground had become. Away in the distance though, you can still see the wonderful views over the other side of the city.
From Shangri La they took us to the riverside, down near the slaughterhouse and the gas works. That sounds terrible doesn’t it, especially if you are an oldie, the smells, the pollution etc. Here though there is none of that at all.
After a last few photos and videos in town it was time for the team to leave us. They didn’t leave us empty handed though, they had a gift for us; here they are displaying it for you.
And just to finish off the day, here is Huan displaying the gift and then me too!
I suppose you may be wondering just what the gift was, so here goes: - Box Top - 五指山礼物, Wǔzhǐshān lǐwù, Wǔzhǐshān Gift - Box Side - 中国, 天然氧吧, Zhōngguó tiānrán yǎngba, China Natural Oxygen Bar - Box Back - 仙萌大圣, 毛绒公仔礼盒, Xiān méng dà shèng máo róng gōngzǐ lǐhé, Xianmeng Dasheng plush doll gift box If you translate the first four characters individually you get ‘fairy-cute-big-saint’. I think Xianmeng is the doll’s name; we will have to find a new English name, preferably starting with ‘W’ (for Wǔzhǐshān) of course.
I had always assumed that the cheeky little doll was masculine. Only
today did I realise that it’s wearing a skirt and carrying a baby behind so I
will now have to assume it is feminine. I have rounded down my choices of names
to three, Wilma (of German origin,
meaning "resolute protector" and of course famous from The Flintstones),
Wanda (of Slavic origin, meaning
"wanderer" and one for the superhero fans, Wanda Maximoff is the
Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Comics, giving this once Slavic and German
old-fashioned girl’s name a cool vibe. In Polish legend, Wanda was the daughter
of King Krak, the founder of
So dear readers, what do you think? Can you choose between Wilma, Wanda and Winnie or do you perhaps have something even better up your sleeves. Let us know, either in the comments below on this post, or in the comments on any of the Facebook posts this appears in.
October 12th Has anyone ever threatened to ‘box your ears’ or perhaps to ‘box you around the ears’? I decided not to wait and boxed my own ears! Do I look like a fairy-cute-big-saint?
I was still not in the walking mood this morning so we stayed at home. After lunch Huan said to me that if we were walking she would come with me, if we weren’t then she would go to the dentist. Cue my decision, let Huan go to the dentist, somewhere she goes not nearly enough.
Today was not a programmed test day; we were both due for our three day test tomorrow. That would have made the next test due on Saturday when Huan will be back into the fray once more and rehearsing all day. We decided to go today, again on Friday and then again on Monday when Huan’s rehearsals should be in the evenings. This then was test 33, taken in the evening.
We took this test at the town square where, guess who we bumped into?
A new restaurant popped into view, it’s called大先生Dà xiānshēng or in English Mr. Big. It was the top sign that got me and with a little prompting Huan saw it too.
Our Xinjiang friends were down by
their riverside restaurant this evening as we passed, with some of that lovely
bread just ready for us to take home. The gentleman was playing what he called
the dutar; you can see more here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutar.
And that’s the end of our Wednesday, well apart from me talking to some cows again. However, they wouldn’t let me near enough so there are no photos of that.
October 13th Another lazy day, I still felt as though I was coming down with something. All I had to do in the morning was take a photo of Huan holding the calendar so that she could send it to the government pension department in Dalian. It’s so much easier than our way!
We did get off our backsides for an after dinner walk again, starting off by the river.
However, we then did a U-turn on ourselves and found our way to the road to nowhere so that we could take it in reverse to get home.
Percy stayed home tonight so the photos were all taken with our paranoid androids, not that we took many. Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, I wonder what Chinese farmers say.
And the last two are at the other end of the road to nowhere, where we usually start from.
October 14th Test 34 was on the cards for this morning, and I nearly missed it. Getting out of bed was not easy; I kept thinking that the darkness meant it was still too early when what it really meant was that the sky was very overcast. It was nearly ten when I dragged myself out of bed. Still, there was only a small queue for testing.
We stuck to a town route today as ‘it kept trying to rain’; both of us had our brollies and shoes just in case. On our way down to the Fodelai hotel we noticed a lot of beautification going on at the side of the road. Here are a lot of ladies planting a lot of flowers.
And then here are what appear to be a husband and wife delivering larger plants.
The larger plants ended up at the side of the road where I stopped to chat to the ladies. I was trying to tell them how strong Chinese women were compared to foreign women but I don’t think they were listening to me at all.
The bridge in front of our house, the big one not the one to Xiǎo dǎo, is having some work done on it. Huan was hoping that they were removing the sluice gates to move them down past our house so that our water level would go up. What they are in fact doing is relaying the pavement and sorting out the cables and pipes that go underneath it.
We came home via Xiǎo dǎo to make sure we got six kilometres in, admiring the scenery and looking for lizards. As you can see the scenery is fine and we did find two lizards. The first one though was not a good photo either from my phone or Huan’s. The second one worked well enough but we can’t enlarge it further without too much deterioration.
The last photo from our walk is something that we have never seen in town before, and we are not sure if we have seen it in the mountains either. It is an old Chinese coin, suspended with red cord and screwed to a tree. It may be associated with Buddhism but Google is not helping me much today, it just keeps showing me ‘money trees’, which this isn’t. Any ideas out there?
Earlier this week we ordered a few items from Taobao, one order which to my surprise came today, only forty eight hours after we ordered. All our light switches, or most of them, are now over fifteen years old and apart from becoming discoloured are also becoming ‘sticky’ to operate. I decided the best option was to replace them and I chose Schneider, a good German company, as the supplier. I had not intended to start today but Huan insisted I did so that she could take a few(?) photographs, she will be too busy tomorrow.
My first job was repairing the multimeter, it had been so long since I used it. Luckily, it was just a blown fuse. Here I am removing the old bathroom socket and light switch.
And here I am installing the new socket and switch, which is very slightly smaller than the original despite both being supposedly the same size.
What with the slight size difference and the fact that the old unit had the broad ‘strips’ top and bottom, the new one has them on the sides, we don’t have a very professional finish. This will need to be sorted out at some time in the future!
Now I am wondering if I need to worry about all the other new fittings. PS Looking for fictional electricians I stumbled across fictional scientists, one in particular, Hubert J. Farnsworth. “The Professor is the very embodiment of the 'mad' scientist. He can often be found switching between supreme intelligence and amoral senility because of his advanced age. Despite his genius, he often falls asleep.” That does somewhat remind me of me…
Now cast your minds back to last week; you may remember that I placed a bet with the boss about this weeks rehearsals. She had been told they were free until tomorrow, I bet her that that would not be the case. Where is she tonight? At an unplanned rehearsal of course, I wish I had this kind of luck gambling on the lottery.
October 15th Market day today, alone for me, Huan has three rehearsals, morning, afternoon and evening. You know it rains a lot here, well the plants still need watering by hand (truck)!
And here are yesterday’s new plants from another angle.
Across the road they are beautifying the wall.
Market day is also the day to buy salad vegetables and whatever meat we are going to have with it. Today should have been rotisseried chicken but the seller only had one left which someone else had already ordered. I had to make do with an inferior substitute from another stall. The outdoor market was back, but nowhere near 100% occupancy yet.
So that was my morning, working for the C-in-C, my afternoon was preparing her dinner and replacing another set of switches. This time it was the turn of the ones near the front door and what a palaver that turned out to be. Whoever did the original installation back in 2007 fitted the two back boxes too close together. I wondered why I was struggling so hard to try and get the face plates on so I checked the old ones; they had filed one side down! I really had no option other than to do the same but I waited for the boss to come home and give me her approval first. She agreed with me, here is the end result which will do until we decide to redecorate.
Once Huan had gone back to her evening rehearsal I did one more replacement, the wall switch and socket in our bathroom. I didn’t want to do the other wall switches because I would have had to work in the dark, they can wait. This one turned out better than the other bathroom.
October 16th I sent Huan off to her rehearsal and then, after a coffee, began the replacement of the remaining sockets. That took longer than I had planned! One reason was an error I had made yesterday with a two way light switch, I had only tested it from one switch and I had reversed two of the wires. That took me a long time to sort out, mostly because the switch I was doing today had all red wires with no markings. All’s well that ends well, and those switches now work exactly as they are meant to. We do have another problem though, again one of our (my) own making. We put a new three gang switch in the living room and move the existing, not very old one, into the bedroom. Unfortunately, the old bedroom one was a three gang two way and the new one is a three gang one way. It’s not really a problem for us; we don’t need to switch the ceiling light on from the bed anyway. The other two switches only use one way. When the boss came home I explained all and she was happy enough, no need to spend more money yet!
After lunch a walk was definitely needed, one away from the sights and sounds of the city, even though it was still a sandal day. Just like Huan I took far too many photographs on my two hour walk, over 120 in fact. Consequently you will be seeing a few collages. The first one though is a normal photo of a fisherman, taken from a distance. Percy is not as good as Freddy was but he is far better than our phones are.
Going over the bridge to Xiǎo dǎo I had to make a slight detour so as not to disturb these ladies in their dance practice. They could also be practicing for the ‘big show’, who knows.
Over the other bridge, behind one school, in front of another and soon I was in a village.
My plan was to bypass the village and take the scenic route.
Take a look at this photo; it’s just a bunch of chickens, as you can plainly see. However, I watched them for a while and the one in the top centre kept stirring the water with its foot and then peering into the murky depths. Was it looking for worms?
My route had me worried at times, I thought my feet would have problems with only sandals on, but as it happened the ground was dry enough, and I didn’t see any snakes.
Soon it was time to head back towards civilization, via空任村 Kōng rèn cūn,
Once through Kōng rèn cūn it was back into the countryside again heading for the home of my bovine buddies, stopping for a quick look at the highway en route.
Disappointment awaited me; my favourite cows were not in residence. However, you have seen them a few times but never their whole residence so here it is. The manure gets swept out of the bottom holes and presumable is used for fertiliser.
Homeward bound was back down the road to nowhere but instead of the low road I took the high road, more interesting.
Through the last village and over the irrigation canal and I was almost home.
Once home it was back to work, clearing up all the tools and the mess that I had made this morning before preparing Huan’s dinner. As soon as she was home the pizza went into the microwave and within seconds dinner was served. As it happens there wasn’t so much of a rush today, she didn’t have to go back after dinner. Perhaps she’ll relax a little, but I doubt it.
October 17th Another day, another week and another test, this time #35, no queue though.
Being Monday, and having Huan with me, it was shopping next. All looked promising, we were early and there were no people to be seen.
Inside the store it was a different story, with queues for weighing vegetables, (only one assistant), and then even more queues downstairs at the cash desks, (only one cashier). The snowbirds have returned en masse it would seem. It doesn’t help when people try to save places for their friends who are still on the way down from the food section. Luckily for us the 'saver' had to move to behind us because the ‘savee’ had not yet appeared.
Back home, with the wifi on, we received a video from Su Mei Li. She then sent it to me via email so that I could also share it on FB and YouTube. Here is a screen shot and should you wish to see it, a link - https://youtu.be/yW_pLXTkr3M
As I write this I am not alone as I had expected to be, Huan’s troupe were given the night off, a lot of the others still had to go and practice. At least she can relax a little today. She even suggested that she cook all five days this week, I put my foot down and said I would do my usual two and the weekend salad. I actually quite enjoy being in the kitchen!
And on that note, we will wish you a fond goodbye and look forward to being back next week, at the same Bob time and on the same Bob channel. I do miss being on the radio…
Quite obviously the doll's a Wil'ma
ReplyDeleteRegards from Curt to you both
ReplyDeleteHi Curt, nice to hear from you. So now we have two votes, one for Wilma and one for Winnie.
ReplyDelete